The Flourish Youth Awards for Volunteering and Participation recognises the impact young people’s volunteering and participation have on their community and their own personal development. The awards are an expansion of the Norfolk Youth Award originally set up by Norfolk County Council’s Youth Service. While the name has changed since its inception, the award’s main purpose to celebrate young people’s achievements remains the same.
Linking the award to the Flourish framework
Momentum has decided to join these awards to Norfolk County Council’s Flourish ambition. This objective has been inspired by the things young people have said are most important to them:
- Family and friends
- Access to learning
- The opportunity to lead a good life
- Being understood
- Building resilience
- Respect for their individuality
- Feeling safe
- Being healthy
How does it work?
All clubs, groups, and organisations working with young people in Norfolk can sign up to run the award. They can do this by filling in this simple online form. You will then receive the Flourish Youth Awards for Volunteering and Participation Pack through email from our team. The pack will help you to run the award for your group.
With the help of a youth worker / project leader, each young person sets themselves a goal (a minimum of 5 hours volunteering / participating in relation to their goal). It might be about their impact on their community, or about gaining new skills for themselves; or most likely, a bit of both.
The goal should be linked to one of the Flourish letters bullet pointed above. It should also be specific to each young person, and something that they consider a challenge. It might be something they haven’t done before, something they are nervous about, or something they have struggled with in the past.
Here are just some examples to help inspire:
- Family and Friends – Young person volunteering at a project in their village that brings young people and older people together.
- Learning – Young person doing voluntary work at a charity shop so that they can get retail experience.
- Opportunities – Young person volunteering at a community fair, helping local families to have a fun day out.
- Understood – Young person taking part in a youth voice day where they can share their opinions in decisions that will benefit young people.
- Resilient – Young person volunteering at a community lunch, where young people prepare and serve a meal for people in the community.
- Individual – Young person joining an LGBTQ+ campaigning group at school because they believe it’s important to raise awareness of the challenges that LGBTQ+ people face.
- Safe and Secure – Young person helping to run a Lego club at their local library so that children and young people have somewhere safe and fun to play together.
- Healthy – Young person joining a youth voice group to help improve young people’s health services.
While the young person is completing their goal, they will fill in an activity log and time log. Their youth worker / project leader will then validate the activity and time log. Once the youth worker / project leader is happy that the young person has achieved their goal, they can inform Momentum. The Momentum team will then issue a certificate of achievement.
Who can get involved?
The Flourish Youth Awards for Volunteering and Participation is open to any 11–25-year-olds in Norfolk who are involved in a volunteering or participation project. This includes one-off events such as community litter picks or being part of a “youth voice” event, as well as regular volunteering such as being a junior leader in a youth club.
If you need help with the signing up process or have any questions please get in touch with us at info@momentumnorfolk.org.uk.
