Page contents
- Why your voice is important?
- Who can join?
- Want to get involved?
- End of year celebration
- Sign up and join our sessions
Why your voice is important?
Surrey Youth Voice provides open, safe, and fun spaces for care-experienced young people to be heard, make friends, and develop new skills.
We do this by:
- Running engaging workshops with activities, games, and crafts to spark creativity and laughter.
- Creating a space to connect with others who share similar experiences.
We champion care-experienced young people's voices. By joining our workshops, you can help improve care services. Your feedback is shared with senior managers through action cards, where young people highlight what should start, stop, or change. The right teams then work on these actions, and we update you on progress.
Your voice makes a difference.
Who can join?
In person sessions
Our sessions are for care-experienced children and young people aged 7 to 25 years. These sessions happen on different days depending on how old you are.
- If you are aged 7 to 12 sessions will normally happen on the second Saturday every month between 11.30am until 1.30pm
- If you are aged 13 to 25 sessions will normally happen on the third Thursday every month between 5.30pm until 7.30pm
The venue address/online invites for the above sessions will be sent to you (or your parents/carers) once you have confirmed you would like to attend. Dates and times of our sessions may change, but we will let you know as soon as we can if this happens.
Online sessions
This group is for Surrey care experienced young people who live outside of Surrey, and for young people who live in Surrey who would rather access our groups online.
We know coming to a workshop in person might not be for everyone, and for some of you it might be too far to travel therefore, we've introduced an online spaces for you. This is for
- 13 to 25 year olds
- on the last Wednesday of the month
- from 4.30pm until 6pm
In these sessions you'll meet other care-experienced young people, together we will spend some time catching up with each other over a fun game (or two!) before talking about each topic of the session. These sessions will follow a format of two focused sessions and then every third month, have a fun social session: including games and hanging out.
Want to get involved?
January to March 2025
Young people aged 7 to 12
- 22 February in Woking. Join us for a fun social activity where we will be taking to the lanes bowling.
This session is for 7 to 25-year-olds. - 8 March in Addlestone. Mastering life with essential skills for success. Discover the secrets to smashing your goals, staying organised, and handling whatever life throws your way.
- 20 February in Redhill. Mastering life with essential skills for success. Discover the secrets to smashing your goals, staying organised, and handling whatever life throws your way
- 22 February in Woking. Join us for a fun, social activity where we will be taking to the lanes bowling.
This session is for 7 to 25-year-olds. - 26 February online session. Social get to know you session with virtual escape room.
- 20 March in Woking. Mastering life with first aid training. Want to add some more life skills to your tool belt? Come and learn first aid.
- 26 March online session. You and your future - helping you prepare. We will be considering what skills you need to make your adult life the very best it can be.
Young people aged between 13 to 25
- 20 February in Redhill. Mastering life with essential skills for success. Discover the secrets to smashing your goals, staying organised, and handling whatever life throws your way
- 22 February in Woking. Join us for a fun, social activity where we will be taking to the lanes bowling
This session is for 7 to 25-year-olds - 26 February online session. Social get to know you session with virtual escape room
- 20 March in Woking. Mastering life with first aid training. Want to add some more life skills to your tool belt? Come and learn first aid
- 26 March online session. You and your future - helping you prepare. We will be considering what skills you need to make your adult life the very best it can be
April to July 2025
Young people aged 7 to 12
- 12 April Social trip to Chessington World of Adventures. Join us for a jam packed day of fun
- 10 May in Addlestone. Dream job dreaming. What do you want to be when you grow up? Join us for an exciting workshop where you can explore all the amazing possibilities for your future career
- 14 June in Redhill. Eating healthy and staying well. Learn essential life skills in how to look after yourself both physically and mentally through engaging activities
- 12 July in Addlestone. Prep for camp trip. All you need to know and get ready for our time away at summer residential
Young people aged between 13 to 25
- 17 April in Redhill. Mastering life with employability skills. Writing CV's and applying for jobs can be tough. Join us to learn all about writing an effective CV and build your confidence in applying for jobs
- 19 April Social trip to Thorpe Park. Join us for a jam packed day of fun and experience over 30 thrill rides.
- 30 April online session. Your home, making it what you want. What makes a home cosy and welcoming to you? Join us as we discuss what you love best in the place you call home and learn about the Danish tradition of 'hygge'
- 15 May in Woking. Mastering life with kitchen skills. We'll be having a cooking workshop and learning how to meal plan and cook simple delicious meals
- 28 May online session. Social trip. Join us for a fun and interactive session of Gartic Phone. No drawing skills needed—just bring your creativity and enjoy this hilarious game that mixes a drawing game with the classic telephone game
- 19 June in Redhill. In this session, we'll reflect on the past year and celebrate our achievements. We'll also review the changes young people have helped make and recognise their impact
- 25 June online session. Your time to shine. This session is all about your education, training and employment opportunities. What do you want from your time at school? What could make it better? Come along with us as we explore your options for your career journey
- 17 July in Woking. Prep for camp, all you need to know for our time away at summer residential. This session is for 13 to 17 year olds only
- 19 July Social Escape Room. This session is for 18 to 25 year olds only (location to be confirmed)
- 30 July online session. Looking after yourself. Taking a look at your health and wellbeing. Join us as we think about how to keep ourselves well including our physical and mental health
September to December 2025
This time of year, is all about embracing change. We aim to build on what you've shared with us from earlier in the year and come together as a passionate group to decide on the actions we want to take for positive change. We call this social action. Now, it's over to you. Our in-person groups will collaborate with you to plan the changes we all want to see, and make it happen.
Young people aged 7 to 12
- 13 September in Addlestone. 'Your care community: preparing to make change. Social Action Part 1. This is the first of our planning session to prepare a local action project where you as a group will decide what you want to see changed in your care and set about planning a project to address it
- 11 October in Addlestone. Change makers, planning and preparing for change. Social Action Part 2
- 8 November in Addlestone. Making the change. Social Action Part 3
- 6 December Surrey Youth Voice Awards (location to be confirmed)
- 13 December in Addlestone. Festive party time
Young people aged between 13 to 25
- 18 September in Woking. Your care community, preparing to make change. Social Action Part 1. This is the first of our planning session to prepare a local action project where you as a group will decide what you want to see changed in your care and set about planning a project to address it
- 24 September online session: Social. Cooking class...ready, steady, bake. Prop up your camera as we grab our mixing bowls and flour as we bake something yummy together
- 16 October in Woking. Change makers, planning and preparing for change. Social Action Part 2
- 29 October online session. Keeping you safe. What does it mean to live in a safe society? In this session we are asking the big questions about making sure that you are safe in all you do out and about
- 20 November in Woking. Making the change. Social Action Part 3
- 26 November online session. A years round-up, looking back and looking forward. What fun have we been up to and what do we want as a group moving forward? Lets take a look and dream big
- 6 December. Surrey Youth Voice Awards (location to be confirmed)
- 18 December in Woking. Festive party time
End of year celebration
In December, we will be hosting the annual Surrey Youth Voice Awards, an incredible event celebrating the achievements of all children and young people in Surrey. Work has started on planning the event, and we are looking forward to sharing information about the awards later this year, so keep an eye out for this.
Sign up and join our workshops
Do you want to learn more or join our groups and workshops? Sign up by completing our expression of interest form or email us at user.voice@surreycc.org.uk.