Have you met our new Youth Projects Co-ordinator, Sari? Sari joined us this year and has hit the ground running to get new Volunteer Panel Members trained up and ready to go and we'd love to extend the opportunity out to our Key Partners too!

We appreciate organising pitch panels can be tricky at times and so we're on a mission to grow our committed community of Volunteer Panel Members. We've recently been working with some Key Partners to train up their volunteers, trustees, governors, leadership team, young people and supporters to become active panel members across the region and it has been a real success in making the process even easier.

Examples of how we've done it?

• Gosforth East Middle School: We delivered a bespoke VPM training session (1 hour) at GEMS to train up their school governors and senior leaders. It's a great way for those who aren't as involved with direct work with pupils to interact, see their learning and development and watch young people progress and grow through the KEY+ Challenge.
• Cheesy Waffles Project: We delivered a bespoke weekend VPM training session (1 hour) with trustees of Cheesy Waffles. By becoming VPMs, trustees get to see first hand the difference the project is making with young people.
• Gateshead Central Library: As well as our standard VPM training, we also offer Young Volunteer Panel Member training. We have trained up young people from Gateshead Central Library who had completed the KEY+ Challenge and wanted to volunteer their time to supporting other young people to complete it too. It's a great way for young people to continue to develop their skills and add to their CV experience.