Our Annual Report - YouthNet
Our Annual Report - YouthNet
Our Annual Report - YouthNet
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Trustees’ report<br />
ACHIEVEMENTS<br />
AND PERFORMANCE (continued)<br />
1. Supporting young people on the issues affecting their lives<br />
Work and Money concerns<br />
In 2011, <strong>YouthNet</strong> undertook comparative research into young people’s fears and hopes for<br />
the future, to the same research conducted in 2008. This showed that young people were<br />
now<br />
more afraid<br />
of debt, than death. It is therefore, not surprising that we have seen a 165%<br />
increase in the number of user accessing TheSite’s Money sectionn for support between 2008<br />
and 2011. With the continuing support of Barclays Bank plc, we have<br />
been able to<br />
maintain and develop the information we provide onn this sectionn as well as run a campaign<br />
off our site on Facebook, called ‘Heart Broke’. This focused on engaging young people with<br />
money management issues by challenging them to consider how finance can affect their<br />
relationships. <strong>Our</strong> campaignn not only engaged young people in the issue, but provided<br />
information thatt could help, resulting in<br />
a 32% increase to TheSite’s Money section. The<br />
campaign generated extensive media coverage and reached 3.55 million individuals across<br />
social media.<br />
<strong>YouthNet</strong> was also a chosen to take part in a ‘Prince'ss Seeing is Believing’ visit, organised<br />
by<br />
Business in the Community.<br />
The aim is to bring together senior business leaders with a range<br />
of charities, to think t afresh about tackling key social issues, in this case financial inclusion.<br />
We were asked to shape and host a session specifically aroundd supporting<br />
young people<br />
which enabled <strong>YouthNet</strong> too share insights into the issues that young people are facing right<br />
now, as well as our uniquee approach to supportingg them digitally. This led l to a further<br />
session with a wider group to begin to look at practical solutions. <strong>YouthNet</strong> continued<br />
to<br />
support this group’s strategy as well as started to explore opportunities for collaboration with<br />
some of the organisations who attended, who were struck s by thee value of online to support<br />
young people.<br />
With youth unemployment continuing to rise, supporting young people into work continues<br />
to be a priority. <strong>Our</strong> Work and Study section has become the third most popular on<br />
TheSite with ‘Job seekers allowance’ being one of thee top search terms driving young people<br />
to the service from Google. This section<br />
has developed considerably from the<br />
merger of our<br />
Lifetracks conten<br />
which was finalised over the year, adding even more useful information<br />
and support. In<br />
addition, through the support of Thales T we have been able to sustain the<br />
provision of expert one-to-onservice askTheSite.<br />
advice about employment andd study issues through our<br />
bespoke Q & A<br />
Mental health & well being<br />
<strong>YouthNet</strong> has seen the consequences on<br />
young people’s well being, as they struggle s to cope<br />
with<br />
the issues they face, andd how it can lead to coping mechanisms such as alcohol and drug<br />
abuse, as well as self-harming.<br />
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