Eloise Skinner is an author, founder and teacher working across the fields of social impact and education. She is a member of the Youth Advisory Board for the UK’s national social mobility charity, Career Ready, and talks about her experience of the Board and its importance.

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Why establish a Youth Advisory Board?

My journey with Career Ready started as a supporter - I’d previously written a book on personal development, and donated a portion of the profits to Career Ready, for their work on social mobility and support for young people. When I learned about the charity’s interest in creating a Youth Advisory Board, I was keen to be considered - it seemed like a great opportunity to give back and offer my experiences in a meaningful way.

Our Youth Advisory Board structure has a number of purposes.

Firstly, to embed youth voices at the heart of the charity’s mission. According to Career Ready, ‘amplifying youth voices’ is central to the work of the charity, and the creation of a Youth Advisory Board embeds this into the charity’s structure in a formal, committed way.

Secondly, to strengthen a link between the charity’s students and young people (who benefit from the charity’s programmes), and the management structure of the charity itself. As part of the Youth Advisory Board, we nominate a chair, who takes up a trustee role. This facilitates ongoing engagement and accountability between the Youth Advisory Board and the charity’s trustees.

Thirdly, to continue to integrate lived experiences of social mobility into the charity’s strategy, goals and ambitions. The Youth Advisory Board incorporates a number of alumni from Career Ready’s own programmes, as well as others who have direct experience of the challenges targeted by the charity. In this way, Career Ready have a group of youth voices on hand for consultation on programme development, strategy and overall direction.

How we shaped our Youth Advisory Board

After appointing a chair, and establishing regular quarterly meetings (as well as involvement in the wider charity’s quarterly team meetings), we developed our own mission statement:

‘We use our external knowledge and experiences to provide actionable insights to improve Career Ready’s engagement with young people.’

Creating our group mission statement (one still in alignment with the overall mission of the charity) enabled us to create a focused group direction, and allowed us an opportunity to discuss our objectives for our time on the Youth Advisory Board.

In terms of specifics, our roles include: feeding into wider charity discussions around strategy and direction, interacting with alumni and programme participants, presenting to employers and other stakeholders, and supporting Career Ready’s work more broadly (social media content, press engagement, etc.).

Why consider a Youth Advisory Board for your organisation?

In the words of our Chair, Victoria Ayodeji: "For me, one of the best things about being part of the Youth Advisory Board is that Career Ready UK is investing in us as alumni, but they are also really receptive to our own experiences and how they can feed into improving the impact that the charity is creating for young people across the UK."

In addition to the clear, strong links that a Youth Advisory Board can create between management and the young people impacted by an organisation’s direction, a Youth Advisory Board can also serve to provide new perspectives, an innovative outlook, and an opportunity to gather honest feedback from a wider audience. My experience with Career Ready’s Youth Advisory Board has demonstrated the meaningful impact this can have on the charity’s strategy and direction - and the personally meaningful impact this can have for the individuals involved.

Find out more about the Career Ready's Youth Advisory Board structure here.

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