The Youth Achievement Awards are aimed at young people aged 14yrs upwards.  There are a numbers of levels which emphasise varying degrees of responsibility;

The Bronze Award encourages young people to ‘take part’ in peer group activities.   The award is divided in to four challenges, with each challenge taking a minimum of 15 hours.

The Silver Award encourages young people ‘help to organise’ their own activities. The award is divided in to six challenges, with each challenge taking a minimum of 15 hours.  By taking an increased level of responsibility and helping to organise the activities they are making a vital contribution to ensuring that the activity takes place.

The Gold Award encourages young people to ‘plan, organise and lead’ activities, demonstrating significant levels of responsibility for the activity.  The award is divided in to eight challenges, requiring the young person to complete seven 15 hour challenges and make a presentation for the eighth.

The Platinum Award requires the young person to go through processes that will help them to develop the skills to take on a leadership role - and because of this young people need to be over 16 years of age when they start the award.   Although similar in structure to the other levels, direction is provided on the activities that must take place - produce a personal development plan, undertake training, undertake placements working with young people, produce an evaluation of their progress, and then prepare for and give a presentation.   The Award includes a total of approximately 120 hours participation.

At all levels of the Award young people are responsible for identifying challenges which are meaningful to them, and then setting themselves a number of targets which will enable them to achieve that challenge.  Young people complete the challenge pages of their Award books, as well as ‘tell the story’ of their learning using evidence collected along the way.