We are really excited to be welcoming Lucy Wilcox into the GYC team this month as a Youth Participation officer. We always ensure that young carers work with us to help recruit new staff.  This is especially important when the staff will be doing direct work with young carers as we are able to see how they work with and respond to a group of young people.

Two young adult carers took part in the formal interview process, which led to a second-round shortlist of the candidates.  The final candidates were invited to run a forum session with a group of five young carers from the Our Voice forum.  The task was to plan an online workshop for teachers.    The young carers responded very well to the session and were able to help us to make a final difficult decision – after lots of discussions!

The young carers get valuable experience of how job interviews work and have their voice and opinions heard in a way that enables them to influence decision making.

Involving young carers in recruitment gives us a different perspective on candidates and they offer unique insights, things we may not have thought of or noticed!

Dan from the forum says:

'I was honoured to be asked to do such a responsible job. It influenced my idea of how to present myself in a job interview. They were all really good in different ways so it was hard to make a final decision.'