Speak Up

Speak Up (SUP) is a three-level youth empowerment program for young people with out-of-home care experience, aged 14 to 25 who want to become a CREATE Young Consultant – a youth advocate to help us change the care system! 

Speak Up participants learn about the care system and develop advocacy, leadership and public speaking skills. Young Consultants use their stories and experiences to represent CREATE and advocate with us at local, state or national events and forums. This training can help young people to effectively contribute to discussions with decision-makers, train workers and help to change the system for other children and young people in care!

Speak Up can empower young people to:

• Develop more confidence and self-awareness
• Better understand their care experience and the care system
• Strengthen their communication skills and become a part of the CREATE team

Speak Up is FUN, FREE and includes meals and snacks at the training events!

SUP sessions are broken up into three levels. After the completion of level one, young people will have gained foundational communication and speaking skills that help them to become confident youth advocates.  At this point, they can become a Young Consultant and then continue to work on their advocacy skills through Levels 2 and 3.

To break it down: 

Young people will focus on building skills like self-confidence and team work. We also learn about what advocacy means and how to use strength based communication.

 

Young people will build on the communication and leadership skills developed in level 1. We also talk about personal boundaries as well as rights and responsibilities.

This is the final level of Speak Up training and focuses on advancing skills to be able to participate in national work on behalf of CREATE Foundation. In level 3 we work through how to effectively represent other children and young people at a high level. We also discuss the role the media has and learn skills to be able to engage positively with the media. We also build on leadership skills to then be able to facilitate discussions.

 

Seeing young people use their voice and being listened to and the power this has on them still astounds me – to have a young person in your home who feels voiceless and to witness the change Speak Up can have on these young people.

Find out more by downloading this SUP brochure and watching the video below!
Sound good? If you want to get involved and learn how to effectively communicate and help us change the care system, we’d love to have you on board. To find a SUP workshop near you, take a look below!

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