Amplifying young voices across the Diocese of Bristol
Young people have an important voice and have deep insight, wisdom and challenges to offer us. Youth Echo (or Echo for short) is inspired by the idea that young voices, when nurtured and amplified, can resonate in all corners of the Diocese. Just like an echo repeats and spreads, the thoughts, ideas, and contributions of young people can ripple through our community, influencing decisions, shaping the future, and leaving a lasting impact.
As Christians, we are called to listen deeply, and it is important to us that young people have a seat at the table. Echo is designed to allow the young people of our Diocese space to express their faith, ideas and hopes for the church and the wider world and in turn, see their influence ripple through their Church communities.
Echo listening groups are facilitated spaces where young people can share their thoughts in response to a series of conversation prompts. The feedback programme follows a five-step process:
A small group of young people will suggest topics and help decide a theme for a facilitated discussion with their youth worker, minister, or another allocated facilitator. The themes will focus on key issues that they would like to be raised with diocesan leadership.
Facilitators will run the sessions with their groups and send the collected insight back to the diocesan youth engagement officer ahead of Diocesan Synod.
A small sense-making group of young people will work directly with the diocesan outh engagement officer to identify common themes and key questions raised from the insights.
A report will be written by the diocesan youth engagement officer to summarise the insight gained through the Echo programme ahead of Diocesan Synod.
Questions will be posed to key leaders, including the Bishop of Bristol, in response to the questions and statements gathered from the youth groups.
Could you facilitate a listening group?
If you work with young people within the Diocese of Bristol, we would be grateful to you for facilitating a session with your young people. Listening groups come in so many different forms, so we encourage facilitators to integrate listening groups into any existing groups and provision you might have set up. This could be school Christian Unions, lunch clubs or after-school clubs. It could be implemented as part of school council meetings or could be used in churches through mid-week meetings or Sunday activities.
The more voices we hear, the more impact the ‘echo’ will have on decision making within our diocese. If you are interested, you can download the facilitator guide here and send your responses to the Youth Engagement at the link below by Friday 1st November.