On Tuesday 16 February 2023, over 100 disabled children and young people and children and young people with special educational needs arrived in Manchester for the annual Youth Voice Matters Conference, part of the Making Participation Work programme. Workshops were led by young people from the FLARE group and other organisations, including KIDS and YoungMinds. The purpose of the event is to unite and pave the way for a brighter future for young people where they are confident, heard, and inspired.
The conference took months of planning by FLARE and the Council for Disabled Children. We had to think about the venue, what fun activities we would do, and accessibility. When we were planning which workshops there would be we had to think about the ethos of the conference, which is to make sure that young people were well-equipped for the future, and support them to advocate for themselves. The conference workshops were all based around advocacy and were designed to support delegates to learn new skills, communicate with others, and to generate their own ideas around advocacy.
In the workshop that I led with two other FLARE members, we discussed how you can advocate for yourself in your education setting. The workshop was very powerful and encouraged other young people to share their views about education in a safe space.
The whole day was a resounding success! Young people were collaborating with each other, making friends with young people from other groups, and everyone left feeling more happy and more confident with their future.