Introducing Maxable Young Voices
Think about the last time someone made a decision about you without asking you first. Frustrating, right? Now imagine that’s just… normal. That’s what it’s like to be a child a lot of the time. Adults sit in meetings, write reports, and decide what children need — and the children themselves are rarely in the room.
We started Maxable Young Voices because we wanted to change that. Not talk about children. Talk to them. Actually listen to what they say, and let that shape what happens next.
Why this matters
Here’s something worth sitting with: most mental health difficulties don’t start in adulthood — they start young, often years before anyone steps in to help. By the time a problem is obvious enough for adults to notice, a lot of time has usually already gone by.
That’s the gap we’re trying to close. Not by waiting for things to go wrong and then reacting, but by creating space for children to speak earlier — before a difficulty becomes a crisis.
What it actually looks like
There’s no script. No child is handed a speech and told to perform it. It starts small and gentle — art, conversation, just being asked what’s on their mind — long before anyone mentions an audience or a stage. Whatever a child chooses to say, and however they choose to say it, stays theirs. We help them prepare and organise their thoughts. We don’t write their words for them.
What do children actually talk about, given the chance? The same things that fill any child’s day — friendships, school, feeling left out, life online, the small stuff that isn’t small to them.
Where it’s going
This year, that work reaches the House of Commons. Children will stand in front of parliamentarians, professionals, and community leaders and speak — not as case studies, but as themselves. Alongside it, we’re putting together a book, written with the children involved: a guide for adults, in the words of the kids it’s actually about.
And after that?
One event in one room isn’t the goal. It’s a starting point. The real work — the ongoing programme, future conversations, adults genuinely learning how to listen better — carries on long after everyone’s gone home.
Want the full picture? The Maxable Young Voices presentation is below.