Reverse Mentoring with our Youth Action Academy.

Since February this year we have been working with a new group of young people who have become part of the Youth Action Academy (YAA).  They have been doing a lot to help us in coproducing the project and problem solving the team’s challenges as they arise.  Not only this, they gave up a Sunday afternoon to sit with members of the staff team and give us their perspective on various topics.  It was a fascinating couple of hours and we all learned a huge amount..

What is reverse mentoring and why do it?

As adults, we can easily believe that our life experiences grant us ‘superior knowledge’, leading us to guide younger, ‘less experienced’ individuals. However, this stops us gaining the perspectives of young people on issues relevant to them. Reverse Mentoring addresses this by inviting young people to share their views on various subjects, helping us understand how they interpret the world. This process enables adults and staff to learn, and in doing so, offer better support to them. The Mental Health Manifesto project is based in coproduction and hearing the voice of the young people, so spending an afternoon listening to them is part of our daily working practice.   

What we did?

As we ran, and thoroughly enjoyed, the reverse mentoring session with the first cohort of YAAs in 2024 and it made sense to ask this year’s YAAs if they would like to do the same.  The Volunteer Manager has been working closely with the group over the past months, developing relationships, trust and a sense of who each member is.  The staff and young people were approached to see who would like to be involved and what topics they would like to talk about.  This was then coordinated and each staff member was matched with a willing young person.  We all met on a Sunday and spread out in pairs and threes across the space, to talk for 40 minutes on our chosen topics.  We were given a five minute round up to then came back together as a group and share what the staff had learned.  We also offered our heartfelt thanks with them for sharing their time and opinions. 

What we learned 

Reverse mentoring allows a good listener to become more aware about the world they live in and the people around them.  It supports intergenerational learning and helps understanding the different perspectives of different people. The staff would all have had their own experiences and opinions in these areas, and so hearing the experiences and opinions of the young people sitting opposite them, would have helped shake this up a little!  The topics chosen were; Accessibility; Mental Health; Bullying; and Politics and here are the main takeaways the staff shared:

Accessibility

There is a need for schools to be more mindful of accessibility issues that the young people face.  They need to understand that not having a diagnosis does not mean a young person does not have needs.  Services need to become more flexible, open, give more options in styles of communication, as well as being more curious when it comes to young people’s unique experiences.  

Mental Health

The main point taken away in this chat was the fact that most young people gain their knowledge about mental health from other young people and not from school.  Teaching staff are seen as too busy and so take the young person at face value, rather than digging beneath the surface to find out the background to what they are experiencing and expressing.  Supporting allyship between young people would be a good way forward.

Bullying

With the right support and provisions young people can find their solutions to situations of bullying.  The experience often comes with huge transitions for a young person such as moving to a different school; making it an even more stressful and pressured time for them.  Bullying does not just affect the young person in the moment, it often stays with them as something to be worked through into adulthood. 

Politics

The shifting political landscape is a topic that young people are conversing about, as well as understanding its impact on them.  There was a sense that many young people who grow up in single parent households mature earlier and so engage in geopolitics and rights-based campaigns (e.g. free speech).  The frustration, and at times anger, about the situation is also combined with hopefulness about the future, especially when starting with the local community, family and the self.  

Thank you to the young people for sharing their experiences and perspectives in such an open and thought provoking way.

Thoughts of the YAA:

“It’s nice to it get out - I have thought it before but not said it out loud”

“I was worried I would not have enough to say… but I thought about things in the moment “

“It is nice to talk about what I am passionate about and what I have been through - it helps me as well”

“Everything felt really relevant and it was nice to talk about it without being on a protest!”

“Our rights and individuality are beautiful.  Thank you for listening.”