What is a Health Citizen?

Health Citizens aims to empower and inspire young people aged 16 – 25 years old to tackle health or social care related inequalities in their community. The project culminates with participants building a team of their peers to plan and deliver a social action project which tackles an issue of their choosing.  

Participants are provided with training on topics including self-belief, problem solving, teamwork and leadership to support them to become an active Health Citizen. A participant's journey is supported by an assigned Coach, whose focus is on empowering young people to develop and deliver their idea.  

Outcomes for participants include access to expert employability support to assist with applications and interviews to employment, education or further development programmes. 

Anyone between 16-25 years old.   

What does the project involve?

Training and support:  

• Leadership training 
• Skills training
• Self-belief and resilience training   

Social action project: 

Each Health Citizen will undertake a social action project of their choice that is in response to a COVID-related health issue in their local area. This could be around loneliness in the elderly or young people, mental health, support for disability groups, community resilience etc. Along with support from mentors and leaders each Health Citizen will recruit their peers to help them put their project into action. Each project will last 3-6 months.

How much of my time will this take?

Currently, due to the pandemic sessions are all online but this will change once restrictions ease across the country. 

Each module of training has a series of videos and activities that can be done at home. Live sessions are run once a week to get together with other young people on the project and the project leaders. These online sessions will become face-to-face in the near future. 

The social action project can be worked on in your own time. Sessions with mentors and leaders will be arranged. The social action project will run between 3-6 months and the training will be undertaken in this period. 

How do I get involved?

email – Health.Citizens@sja.org.uk