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We were so pleased to join Rochdale’s Young Health Activists for a celebration event in summer 2025, as their academic year came to an end and they reflected on everything they had accomplished in their roles.
What are Young Health Activists?
Rochdale’s Young Health Activists are young people from across different secondary schools in the borough, who have been trained up to deliver peer support for wellbeing within their schools. They have taken part in Young Health Champions Level 2 qualifications from the Royal Society for Public Health, training days and marketplace activities to find out more about local services they can promote to their peers. Our #BeeWell team were invited to get involved in their training, so we could share #BeeWell insights from the local area to help them shape and inform their priorities for the year.
The project in Rochdale built on and expanded further the Children in Need funded #BeeWell Champions pilot programme, which you can find out more about, here: #BeeWell Champions: Youth-led commissioning in Greater Manchester – #BeeWell.
What have they done?
On the day of their celebration event, we were lucky to hear from three groups of Young Health Activists presenting on what they had done and most enjoyed about their work.
One group told us how they had been filming content within school on wellbeing and delivering assemblies to share their health campaigns with their peers. Young people told us how they had been interviewing teachers and others to create their video campaigns. They told us that they acted as peer supporters, and their goal was to make every student know that they aren’t alone.
Young people also told us about how, across multiple schools, they had been delivering wellbeing dominos art therapy to their peers and signposting young people to different services and wellbeing activities they could access, particularly younger pupils in the school. This included them delivering sessions in form time, too.
It was really interesting to hear young people reflect on their roles, as they acknowledged they weren’t medical professionals but felt that they had something to offer their peers.
Some young people focused on wellbeing as a whole as their health message, and others focused in on specific topics, for example nutrition. One group spoke about how they were helping to pass the programme on to a new group of Year 7s, and others spoke of the importance of developing healthy lifestyles early in life, to begin positive habits.
Reflecting on this work, Rochdale Healthy Schools team said:
Rochdale Healthy Schools has been proud to continue our collaboration with #BeeWell and local partners over the past year. We’ve expanded our reach to six additional high schools, training over 70 students as peer health ambassadors.
It has been a privilege to work with such thoughtful and mature young people as they explored their school and local #BeeWell data and considered how local health and wellbeing services can support themselves and their peers. Their curiosity, collaboration, and ability to engage with complex topics were evident throughout the programme.
The health messages they developed were highly relevant and tailored to the needs of their school communities. In addition to leading school-based campaigns, many of our newly trained Young Health Champions contributed to the local authority’s “Get Your Head Out of the Clouds” anti-vaping campaign and supported the local Sleep Campaign through the creation of posters and presentations.
All participating students have been a credit to their schools, and we are immensely proud of their achievements. We look forward to continuing our work with these inspiring Young Health Champions.
