Current Projects

Inspire Highland

Inspire Highland is an exciting and dynamic project led, owned and shaped by young people’s needs, ideas and decision-making.  The aim of Inspire Highland is to promote the rights, participation and inclusion of young people aged 13 – 25 who are facing challenges in their lives.

Inspire Highland have two important sub-groups who are working on their own individual projects.

Eye-Inspire – A group working towards better accessibility for young people in the Highlands with visual impairments.

Angus the Autism Bear – A book about autism featuring Angus the Autism Bear, created by the young people working with a professional writer.

Connections

Connections is an arts-based mental health project in Inverness that supports young refugees from the Afghan resettlement scheme and unaccompanied asylum-seeking youth. Through a series of 12 drama-based workshops, the initiative helps participants aged 14-24 build confidence, develop English language skills, and explore themes of identity and belonging. Created in partnership with Eden Court and Inspiring Young Voices, the project serves young people across the Highland region, including Inverness, Invergordon, Alness, Dingwall, Muir of Ord and surrounding areas.

Youth Led Participation Outreach

Our initiative pilots a youth-led participation approach that engages young people with additional support needs and disabilities. Through interactive and creative group activities, participants develop their understanding of identity, inequality, stigma, discrimination, and the barriers they face. This informal yet structured learning process empowers young people to identify challenges and opportunities in their communities, ultimately leading to the development of their own participation projects designed to create transformational change. By placing young people at the center of this process, we foster genuine engagement while building skills that support meaningful social impact.

Influencing Youth Mental Health Provision in Highlands

At Inspiring Young Voices, we consulted with young people ages 18-26 in Highland on mental health support and services. Their views were collected using a survey, online focus groups and a mental health writing residential. 

Through these three methods we found out their thoughts on existing services, how accessible support is, barriers that prevent their access and what mental health support they would want to use. 

Past Projects

Voices for Children

This project aims to develop a digital children’s participation model of engagement, involving children with additional support needs, including those with communication challenges.

Digital Design Project

This project is a partnership project between UHI Digital Health, Day1 Mentoring and Highland Children and Young People’s Forum (now Inspiring Young Voices), funded by Alliance Scotland’s Self-Management fund.

Highland Chat4Change

We want Highland to be the best place for children to grow up and we know that children and young people have the best ideas about how to make that happen. This project was set up to enable children and young people to have their say in the development of the three year Children’s Services Plan and in its ongoing performance review.

Young Ambassadors for Inclusion

This project is in partnership with the Highland Council Education Improvement Group. It is about working with a small number of children or young people with additional support needs in a few schools to build a model of Young Ambassadors for Inclusion in Highland.

Co-design of PSE in Primary Schools

This project is to work in partnership with the Caithness and Sutherland Pathfinder Projects to involve primary aged children in contributing their ideas about what personal and social learning they might need at that time and about how that learning could be delivered to greatest effect.