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This time last year, our Youth Advisory Group (YAG) was still finding its feet. The space was new, the format was flexible, everything was digital, and as anyone who works with safe spaces, online communities and young people knows, these things don’t just work overnight.
They need time. They need consistency. And they need to be genuinely worthwhile for young people. Over the past year, that’s exactly what’s started to happen.
YAG members have been incredibly generous with their honesty, ideas, and their lived experiences. What has developed isn’t just engagement, but a community. Young people welcoming each other in, supporting one another, celebrating wins, and starting conversations that don’t stop when the session ends. New members are joining a space that already feels comfortable, inclusive and active, and that really matters.
There’s also been a clear shift in confidence. YAG members are increasingly challenging assumptions, bringing in insights from their wider interests, collaborating, and shaping conversations rather than just responding to our questions. That’s when youth voice starts to move from consultation to impact.
As we look forward to 2026, it feels like a good moment to pause and reflect on how the YourPoliceUK Youth Advisory Group influenced us as a youth engagement programme, and the wider policing world.
Structure and consistency are key to supporting youth voice. Each month we focus on a topic that policing (or us) are actively concerned with or need to understand young people’s experience or perspective on. Over each month, via our YAG Discord channel, we deliver weekly prompts to encourage conversation, and finish with a live discussion at the end of the month. That way, young people can contribute in whichever way, or time, that works for them.
Here’s what we discussed in 2025:
January – Spiking YAG helped us move beyond the usual focus on alcohol, nightclubs, and fresher’s week. Many young people felt existing messaging didn’t feel relevant to them, which limited awareness of other forms of spiking or spiking at different times and places in the year (group gatherings, results day, Summer, Christmas, New Year etc.) YAG reinforced the importance of relevant, accessible information so young people have the agency to recognise risks and know what to do if spiking happens.
February – Roads and Road Safety When we talked about roads safety in response to several police forces asking us for young people’s insights, YAG were clear: simple, direct messaging has the biggest impact, and road safety needs to start young and stay consistent. They highlighted key transition points, especially Year 6 to Year 7. Importantly, they also noted that road risk can feel ‘normalised’, and that many young people perceive knife crime as a greater risk than road incidents, despite statistics which show the majority of young people are more at risk of injury or death on roads.
March – Social Media and Online Safety A highlight of the year for many YAG members, was the opportunity to work with Dr Ashly Fuller as part of her PhD research into illicit drug advertising on social media. They valued the direct impact of the session and Ashly’s insight into research and academic pathways. Ashly has since completed her PhD, with her research heading for publication. You can read more about her research here.
YAG also contributed evidence to the Youth Select Committee’s report on Youth Violence and Social Media, helping strengthen the range of youth voices represented.
April – Misinformation YAG explored when misinformation is harmless versus harmful, how intent matters, and why ‘rage bait’ can make harm harder to spot. They emphasised practical strategies like reading comments to assess trustworthiness and pushed back against assumptions that young people lack the skills to navigate misinformation, noting that this is challenging for all ages.
May – YAG Rebrand YAG developed their own mission statement and identity, grounded in their values. This wasn’t about policing outputs; it was about ownership. This process helped to define YAG as more than just a forum for young people contribute to, but more an environment that they can actively shape. A pivotal moment in recognising the importance of youth voice and YAG’s role across policing, academic, and stakeholder spaces.
June – Scams and Fraud YAG spoke powerfully about the emotional impact of scams – loss of trust, anxiety, and feeling unsafe online. They highlighted the lack of closure victims often feel and advocated for youth-specific education, timely updates on trending scams (emerging threats, in policing terms), visual explainers, creative prevention tools, and better recovery pathways. Crucially, they reminded us that scams are about more than money; they’re about how people feel and how they’re supported even if the justice outcome is unsatisfactory.
July – Child Financial Harms (CFH) Building on discussions around scams, YAG explored CFH more broadly, from misleading design to serious criminal exploitation. They stressed the importance of clarifying this range and validating harm even when experiences aren’t illegal (e.g. unethical design in games and platforms which ‘disguises’ financial costs or encourages gambling). A key takeaway was how unclear reporting and support pathways are for young people.
August – School Workshops Real-world school workshops are a core method of engaging with young people to gain direct insight into how, where and when they engage with social media and the types of content they engage with. With this in mind, we are keen to carry out more workshops in 2026. YAG gave practical feedback on what works in schools: non-shaming language, rewatchable content, and speakers who don’t force engagement. These insights have directly shaped how we approach our youth-focused content and workshops, showing that YAG aren’t just an Instagram-specific voice for @yourpolice.uk, they’re helping shape our wider Digital Youth Engagement work as well.
September – Knife Crime Messaging With policing’s Op Sceptre (knife crime ‘intensification’ weeks) coming up in November, YAG showed us how much language matters. Many had encountered knife crime messaging at a young age in ways that increased fear rather than understanding. They wanted honest, proportionate messaging, grounded in explainable statistics, that treats the issue seriously, but doesn’t make young people feel unnecessarily unsafe (like “99% of young people don’t carry.”) Their input has critically contributed to our upcoming 2026 knife crime engagement policy; without YAG, it simply wouldn’t have the same value.
October – Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) With the ongoing focus on the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee Programme, YAG discussed what ASB means to young people, what barriers to reporting might exist and why ASB is often linked to lack of support or youth-friendly spaces. They called for clearer definitions, anonymous and online reporting options, less stigma, and more community-led solutions. This has brought young people into the conversation in a meaningful way, in an area where policing is often done ‘to’ young people rather than ‘with’ young people.
November – Neighbourhood Policing Following on from ASB, YAG shared how they’d like their neighbourhood officers to engage with young people. YAG discussed physical neighbourhoods but also their digital neighbourhood, where they also spend a lot of time. Trust, clarity of roles, and non-enforcement interactions mattered most. It was highlighted that young people have little experience with neighbourhood policing and that real-world trust and confidence are low. YAG also designed a young people’s contact card to support clearer communication after police interactions. Something we’ll continue to develop and advocate for within policing.
December – AI Companions Closing the year, YAG are contributing evidence to the APPG On Online Safety on Social Media inquiry “AI and Online Safety: Safeguarding Children’s Digital Futures.” It’s a great example of how ready YAG are to engage with emerging issues and step into national conversations at pace.
It’s impossible to fully capture 12 months of insight across 12 key topics in one short article, but hopefully this gives a sense of how important YAG are to us here at Digital Youth Engagement and how we hope their inputs can help to influence wider policing. We’re committed to ensuring youth voices are heard where it matters and are never tokenistic.
There is still work to do across policing to better reflect young people’s voices, and YAG continues to play a vital role in shaping that change.
If you’d like to hear more about YAG’s work, please email YourPoliceUK.Team@met.police.uk
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