Funky dragon annual report 2013

FUNKY DRAGON ANNUAL REPORT 2012 - 2013

Cynulliad Plant a Phobl Ifanc yng Nghymru The Children and Young People’s Assembly for Wales

CONTENTS Chief Executive Foreword 1 Introduction

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4.2 Environment and Sustainable Development 1) Public Transport 2) Local Communities 3) Public attitudes to the environment 4.3 Health 1) Access To Health Care Services 2) Sexual Health Education 3) Mental Health Issues

27 29 30 31 32 34 35 36

5

Youth Team Work Since April 1st

37

6

Funky Dragon Projects

38

1 2

1.1 Mission statement 1.2 Strategic Priorities 1.3 Restructure 1.3.1 Staff structure up to April 2013 1.3.2 Staff structure from the 1st April 2013 1.4 Participation in Wales

2 2 3 3

The Grand Council

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2.1 Old and new structure 2.2 How to get Young People involved?

2.3 Grand Council Residentials October 2012 - Urdd City Sleepover, Cardiff February 2013 - Urdd Centre, Bala March 2013 - Annual Event - Urdd City, Cardiff July 2013 - AGM

7

4 5

9 10 11 12 13 14

3

10 Year Celebration

16

4

Portfolio Work

20

4.1 Education 1) Bullying 2) Post 16 opportunities 3) Personal, Social Education

24 25 25 26

6.1 Sustainable Development and Climate Change (SDCC) project The steering group Local Participatory Action Research Projects National Research Climate Change Commission for Wales 6.2 Little Voices, Big Choices Local Participatory Action research Projects National Event Local Events 6.3 ESF - Funky Dragon’s Reach the Heights Project 1. Workshops relating to the Active Citizenship theme of the PSE Framework 2008

38 39 39 41 41 43 44 44 45 46

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CONTENTS 2. Work with hard to reach groups and other youth groups 3. Work with NEET young people (young people who are not in education, employment or training) 4. Participation Training for Local Authority Youth Forums 5. Work Based Learning 6. Funky’s United Nations Challenge/ UNCRC Report 7. Developing working relationships with different policy areas within the Welsh Assembly Government/ Influencing Policy 8. Accredited Work (see sections 1, 3 and 4 also) 9. Ongoing self directed learning/ Website

Work Outside of Wales

111

British Youth Council UKYP Select Committee work

111 111 114

International work

115

Jacksonville, Florida, Usa United Kingdom Young Ambassadors International Visitors

115 115 116

12

Communications

117

13

Staff training

121

14

Financial Statement

122

15

Trustees and Staff

123

Funky Dragon Management Committee Under 16 Advisory Board Staff

123 123

10

50

52 11

54 55 56

56 57 57

Work with Commissioners

60

Children’s Commissioner for Wales Sustainable Futures Commissioner Welsh Language Commissioner

60 60 60

Contacts

125

8

Forums and networks

61

Forum Pages

126

9

FUNC - Funky’s United Nations Challenge

Appendices

139

62

7

124

CHIEF EXECUTIVE FOREWORD This has been a year of big change for Funky Dragon. The successful completion of our European Social Fund project on the 31st March. This project was facilitated by Welsh Government for 5 years, we would like to thank our partner projects Community Music Wales, The Urdd, SNAP Cymru, Techniquest and Save the Children.

The project was a great success for Funky Dragon and I would like to thank all of the project staff for all their hard work and particularly for reaching all of their Beneficiary targets.

The end of the project has seen the organisation say farewell to Alison, Christina, Doc, Ian, Melanie, Rachel, Tam and Victoria. You have all made a huge contribution to many young people’s lives and we wish you all the very best. The place literally isn’t the same without you.

With such a big project that extended all the way through the organisation coming to an end, Funky Dragon has been through a complete review of its work programme and a restructure of both the staff and the Grand Council. The number of young people on the Grand Council will be reduced from 88 to 66, with each Local Authority now electing 3 young people to represent their youth forum.

As a young people led organisation, young people have been shaping the entire process of the restructure. This has meant they have been involved in some difficult decisions; redundancy around some posts and recruitment to new posts within the structure. Can I thank all members of the management committee and all Funky Dragon young people for your support and work through this process.

With this change has come a lot of excitement, going forward Funky Dragon shall have its youth team concentrating on young people’s issues in the areas of Education; Health and the Welsh Language. Our Sustainable Development and Climate change project has big plans for the next year and our Children as Researchers project funded by the big lottery will have its final event, bringing 100 children aged 7 to 10 to Cardiff bay to share their research findings.

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INTRODUCTION 1.1 Mission statement Funky Dragon is the children and young people's assembly for Wales. Its mission is to enable children and young people in Wales to get their voices heard by Government and others who make decisions about policies and services that affect their lives.

1.2 Strategic Priorities 1. Through involvement with the Grand Council, young people across Wales have their voices heard at a national level, through their elected representatives.

2. Develop the skills and capacity of young people involved with Funky Dragon; empowering them to speak out.

3. Promote children and young people’s collective participation.

4. To engage young people with organisations and key decision-makers to create dialogue.

5. Facilitate the involvement of children and young people in the monitoring and reporting process of the UNCRC; holding duty bearers to account.

6. Promote the involvement of children (i.e. under 11’s) in decision making at a local and national level.

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1.3 Restructure On the 31st March 2013, Funky Dragon’s Reach the Heights Project came to an end.

This 5 year project has been a major success and we are happy to say that all Beneficiaries targets had been exceeded. Details of the project are in chapter 6.

Whilst a number of staff were 100% funded by ESF, others had percentages of their salary ranging for 40% to 80% covered. The complexity of this led to a restructure of the organisation around our core funding from Welsh Government.

1.3.1 Staff structure up to April 2013 Funky Dragon Organisational Chart 2012-2013 Management committee

Part/all ESF RtH funded

Grand council

100% Lottery funded

CEO

100% SDCC WG funded

Deputy Chief Executive North Wales Development Manager Development workers x 2

Communications Manager

Website Development worker

Core Development Manager

SDCC Development Workers x 2

ESF

Part Time Administrator

Core Administrator

South Wales Development Manager

Children’s Development Workers x 2

Development Workers x 3

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1.3.2 Staff structure from the 1st April 2013

Chief Executive Corporate Services and Communications Manager

Development Manager

Office coordinator Development worker Development worker Development worker

SD/CC Development Worker SD/CC Development Worker

Children’s Team Worker Children’s Team Worker

Core WG funded Lottery funded SDCC WG funded

Funky Dragon organisational chart from April 2013. The management committee and Grand Council are still in place above the chief executive.

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1.4 Participation in Wales The Children and Young People’s Participation guidance, issued under the Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010, states that the opportunities for children and young people as individuals to participate, should be integrated into day to day services as well as specific participation structures such as forums for children, forums for young people, or groups/forums which represent children and young people who are marginalised, vulnerable or have a special interest in a particular issue.

It also states that there must be a County Youth Forum. A representative body of young people to act as a channel for young people’s views across their local authority and to represent those views to local and national decision-making bodies.

However, Funky Dragon is still disappointed that the “Local Participation Strategy Guidance Consultation” issued by Welsh Government never made it to a final document. We felt that even though the document has not really changed since it original guidance in 2007/8 there were still some well laid out principles and guidance for local authorities to follow.

We know that the National Forum workers meetings facilitated by Welsh Government called for Welsh Government to revisit this and we would support this.

The Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, which imposes a duty to ensure due regard to the rights and obligations in the UNCRC, has been welcomed

by Funky Dragon. Funky Dragon would like to acknowledge Welsh Government and in particular Nick Keating and his team in the opportunities for consultation throughout the Bill’s journey. Nick became a regular feature at Funky Dragon residentials.

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Sadly this year, Save the Children re-prioritised its work programme to funding international work. This and the end of the European Social Fund project meant that the Participation Consortium, the Unit and its work finished on the 31st March. Funky Dragon would like to pay tribute to all the the people that were part of the consortium during its nearly ten year legacy. From Anna and Marc in the beginning, through to Emyr, Bex and Mez at the close, along with all the other staff and young people involved.

The Participation Consortium worked with Funky Dragon in its inception to develop the participation standards. The work of the Unit raised the profile of these standards throughout Wales and onto the international stage.

The Young Inspectors programme was a great success. Funky Dragon were one of the first organisations to be inspected and I think we would acknowledge that the inspection and its findings were tough but fair. Sadly, Youth Forum workers tell us that continuing the process of Young Inspectors is difficult without a central awarding body. Funky Dragon supports them in their call to Welsh Government to address this issue.

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THE GRAND COUNCIL 2.1 Old and new structure As previously mentioned, our ESF funding came to an end on 31st March 2013 and as a result of this the organisation is going through a restructure. This restructure is an opportunity for the organisation to re-focus on its core work to enable children and young people in Wales to get their voices heard by Government and others who make decisions about policies and services that affect their lives.

Due to the change in financial circumstances the Management Committee with the support of the Grand Council have decided that, going forward, the new grand council structure will consist of three rather than four representatives from each local authority area.

We understand that youth forums and councils work slightly differently in each local authority area, and as part of the young people's debate around how their roles work on a local and at a national level, they decided that the local authority representatives on Funky Dragon should no longer have the specific titles of voluntary, statutory, school council and equality group representatives. Instead each of the three newly elected representatives will have the title " Grand Council Member".

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There has been much debate around the former "equality" position on the Grand Council.

The young people wanted to keep the philosophy of ensuring wider representation without creating any possible stigma they may come with specifically identifying a young person with an "equality" title.

The Grand Council have decided that as part of the election process in each Local Authority, there needs to be clear consideration of how the three reps can be responsible for representing different groups and young people within their local authority area. As such, they decided that one of the representatives should have specific responsibility for equality and for representing minority or 'specific interest' groups (LGBTQ, young carers, disabled young people, young people involved with the youth justice system, black and ethnic minority young people and young people living in care) for their area.

The philosophy behind this decision by the Grand Council is to try to ensure and to demonstrate our support for minority representation from a local to a national level and so that we can continue to ensure that the young people who are elected as representatives on Funky Dragon represent as wide a range of their peers as possible.

In order to support this process of change the Grand Council have requested that a member of Funky Dragon staff be present at all Local Authority elections. Funky Dragon staff should give a presentation on the roles be able to any answer questions and support the election process. They also decided that the election of Funky Dragon representatives without the presence of a Funky Dragon member of staff may not be recognised, unless non-attendance has been discussed and agreed beforehand. The Grand Council's decision is that if the local authority forum is not able to demonstrate how it will represent equality groups through this new structure we may call for a re-election on these grounds, however with your support we hope this won't be necessary.

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We ask you to support us in this aim for as wide a representation as possible on the Grand Council via the three representatives and with the work on supporting the equality role of one of the representatives.

All of the young people who are current representatives on the grand council can continue until the end of their term.

2.2 How to get Young People involved?

Young people in Wales’ access to the Grand Council is still through their Local Authority Fora. With the statutory requirement for Local Authorities to have a Youth Forum under the Children and Families Measure (2010) Funky Dragon looks forward to all Counties having representation. We currently have 19/22 Local Authorities represented.

Each Local Authority Forum holds elections for its own representatives on the Grand Council.

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2.3 Grand Council Residentials The full Grand Council residentials are the main way we gather the views of young people in Wales. We hold four each year. Our AGM takes place in July and is where we meet our newly elected members for the first time. At our AGM we elect our trustees and portfolio co-chairs.

The AGM is also where we: Introduce new members to how we work and the range of opportunities available to them.

Evaluate the work we are doing with existing members.

Evaluate and update the way we work with the forums.

Initiate new strands of work for the coming year.

In October we look at the portfolio areas in more detail. Between the July and October residentials, Grand Council members and staff canvass the views of a much wider range of young people via, schools, youth clubs, other groups and an online survey. This survey identifies what issues young people in Wales think we should examine within the portfolio areas. These are debated and the Grand Council decides how to move the issues forward.

In our February residential we look at the portfolio areas again and develop a range of recommendations to take to Government.

Our annual event takes place in March and is where the young people of Wales put their recommendations, questions and comments to the Welsh Government.

This is a broad outline of the residentials throughout the year and describes the overall direction of our work. We also work on specific projects with Government and other national and international organisations. For a list of the specific work we have done this year within and outside the portfolio areas please see immediately below. For specific information about this year’s portfolio work please see chapter 4.

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October 2012 - Urdd City Sleepover, Cardiff

Ground-rules for 2012/13.

Qualities to be a representative or co-chair.

Funky Dragon policies.

UNCRC and Article 12.

Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure consultation.

UKYP House of Commons event briefing.

Introduction to Funky Dragon projects and sign ups.

UKYA update.

Introduction to British Youth Council, UK Youth Parliament, and UK Young Ambassador (UKYA).

Update from the Management Committee.

National Partnership Forum update.

Funky’s UN Challenge (FUNC) workshop.

Welsh Language Scheme workshop.

Portfolio workshops.

UKYP House of Commons event preparation.

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February 2013 - Urdd Centre, Bala

Funky Dragon Restructure.

UKYA consultation.

Funky Dragon - the future (responsibilities for 18 - 25 years olds).

Equality workshop.

FUNC workshop.

Portfolio workshops.

Annual event planning.

Who is your AM? Funky Dragon website.

Forum Feedback.

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March 2013 - Annual Event - Urdd City Cardiff

Portfolio meetings with experts.

UKYP workshop.

Welsh Language steering group session.

FUNC workshop.

Senedd tour.

Portfolio meetings with Welsh government officials.

Cross party debate.

13 3 1

July 2013 - AGM Young people’s program SDCC, Soft outcomes, Silk Commission, distance travelled questionnaires.

Health and Safety.

Introduction to Funky Dragon.

Team Building Games.

Workshop on how to represent your peers and Your Role as a Funky Dragon Representative.

Introduction to the: ○ Management Committee ○ Welsh Language Group ○ SDCC group, Co-chair role ○ National Partnership Forum ○ Sign up for groups.

Introduction to Children’s Team – what is Research?

UK Young Ambassador Consultation.

Welsh Language and SDCC group meetings.

Team Building Games.

Portfolio Workshops.

Education Consultation.

Forum Feedback.

Forum Feedback Consultation.

ESF evaluation.

Training and Accreditation consultation.

AGM. Awards Dinner.

Portfolio session 2.

Training on Internet Safety and Social Media.

Evaluations.

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Forum worker’s Programme Welcome – H&S, programme.

Information and best practice sharing.

Introduction to Children’s Work.

Forum Feedback Consultation.

Calendar Building.

Summary of Past Year’s Work.

Actions.

Evaluation.

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3

10 YEAR CELEBRATION 2012 was the tenth year of Funky Dragon and a celebratory event was held in the Senedd on 20th November; Universal Children’s Rights Day. The event was attended

by Grand Council and staff members past and present, Assembly Members and organisations we have worked with over the past ten years.

The aim of night was to celebrate Funky Dragon’s successes during it first decade.

The hosts for the evening were Darren Bird, Chief Executive and chair of the Management Committee, Guto Davies. The event began with a short video showing Funky Dragon through the ages. 10 years’ worth of grand council members squeezed into 4 and half minutes.

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We were privileged to have the First Minister the Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM deliver the opening speech. He applauded the work we had done over the last ten years and looked forward to another ten. Deputy Minister for Children Gwenda Thomas AM also spoke, recalling her many encounters with both children and young people from Funky Dragon.

Past members of the Management Committee also gave speeches, taking everyone through the Funky Dragon journey so far:

Kelly Harris - Grand Council member 2001 – 2004, Management Committee 2002 -2004 Ashley Evans - Grand Council member 2003 – 2006, Management Committee 2004 -2006 Ben Sawyers - Grand cCuncil member 2005 – 2008, Management Committee 2006 -2008 Rhian Greaves - Grand Council member 2009 – 2011, Management Committee 2009 -2010 Bella Hughes - Grand Council member 2009 – 2011, Management Committee 2010 -2011 Guto Davies - Grand Council member from 2009 and management committee member from 2010

The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Keith Towler concluded by looking to the future and how we can all work together to continue to push the Childrens Right agenda forward.

It was lovely to see so many old and even older faces. The reception that followed the speeches allowed everyone time to catch up and share their Funky Dragon experiences and memories.

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‘Participating in Funky Dragon helped shape who I am today and I am very proud of my Funky Dragon mascot/trophy which still sits on my mantel piece today!’

‘Funky dragon was one of the greatest experiences of my life so far. I learnt lots, travelled all over Wales, represented other young people and met some of the most amazing people ever!’

‘My time with Funky Dragon taught me lots of things, but probably the most important thing I gained which will stay with me forever is a real understanding of the importance of allowing the people who will be the users/ beneficiaries of a service to take an active role in developing that service from a very early stage. Funky Dragon is a great example of how that can (and should) work with young people, but the same is true for everything and everyone - there's no point in trying to second-guess what people want or need, you have to give them the opportunity to voice their opinions and then use that as the basis for going forward.’

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‘There are so many memories, milestones and experiences, but Funky Dragon would not be what it is without the people involved in it.’

‘FD gave me a whole new perspective on life through speaking to and working with others. All these experiences helped me mature into the person I am today.’

‘It only takes one person to make a difference. It doesn’t matter what economic background, race or gender you are your voice can make a difference.’

‘The one thing I have taken away from my time on FD is to always aim high and never doubt what I can achieve with hard work.’

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PORTFOLIO WORK Funky Dragon gives its Grand Council members the opportunity to become ‘co-chairs’ for a specific area of work, in line with Welsh Government Ministerial portfolios. Each area has 2 co-chairs. Their role is to direct and take forward the work within each of the portfolio areas whilst listening to the views and opinions of other young people, and then taking these views forward to Welsh Government.

In July 2012 at Funky Dragon’s residential in Bangor, young people had the opportunity to stand for election to become co-chairs for the following 3 portfolio areas: 1) Education 2) Environment 3) Health In order to find out what the most important issues were to young people across Wales in the 3 portfolio areas, the co-chairs designed an online survey which was completed by 166 young people. The results of the survey decided what work the co-chairs would work on throughout the year.

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This is a timeline of the work the co-chairs completed between July 2012 - July 2013.

July 2012 Young people were elected as co-chairs for 2012-13.

August – October 2012 Online survey to find out the issues for each portfolio and determine what work they would focus on over the year. 166 young people across Wales completed this online survey.

October 2012 Environment co-chairs attended a Climate Change Commission For Wales meeting.

SD/CC Steering Group met to plan research.

Residential in Cardiff Looked at the results from the online survey to decide what the top 3 issues were for each portfolio.

Explore what the issues were within the issues.

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February 2013 Residential in Bala Started to look at recommendations for the 3 issues in each portfolio.

Each portfolio area worked on devising a list of ‘experts’ they wanted to invite to the Annual Event in Cardiff.

Planned for Annual Event in Cardiff Co-chairs decided on questions they wanted to ask Welsh Government Ministers and Officials.

Finalised session plans.

Worked on presentation for the Welsh Government Ministers and Officials.

March 2013 Environment co-chairs attended a Climate Change Commission For Wales meeting.

SD/CC co-chairs launched annual report.

Annual Event Residential in Cardiff Met with ‘experts’ on the different issues in each portfolio.

Met with Welsh Government officials.

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April 2013 Environment co-chairs received a nomination and attended the Climate Week Awards in London.

May – June 2013 Planned for AGM. Started to look at writing Year Report for each portfolio area.

Residential in Swansea Delivered a presentation to Grand Council members on the work completed during the past year.

Ran workshops to inform Grand Council members what work had been done in each portfolio and what the recommendations were going to be from the co-chairs.

Informed Grand Council members about what it means to be a co-chair to prepare young people for the election for new co-chairs.

Held election for new co-chairs for 2013-14.

Work and Recommendations The portfolio work identifies the main issues young people in Wales would like the Government to address. Via extensive work throughout the year, our Grand Council has written a number of recommendations within each portfolio area. The following is a description of the work and the recommendations in full.

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4.1 Education Portfolio co-chairs. Elected at our 2012 AGM in Bangor Ryan Davies, 14, from Carmarthenshire, and Charlie Anne Prowse, 17, from Ceredigion.

The priority 3 issues identified by wider consultation via our online survey were: 1. Bullying 2. Post 16 Opportunities 3. Personal Social Education – PSE Once the issues were identified Ryan and Charlie Anne worked with the Grand Council to explore them further and look at why they are so important to young people across Wales.

They also looked at what recommendations they wanted to make to Welsh Government.

Ryan, Charlie Anne and other Grand Council members met with Welsh Government officials in March 2013 to talk about the issues and present their recommendations. It was an interesting and lively discussion. As a result of the meeting it was agreed that Ryan and Charlie Anne would run 2 consultations with young people at the residential in July 2013.

The consultations were around Personal Social Education in schools and the Apprenticeship Matching Scheme in Wales. Both consultations will be submitted to Welsh Government as evidence of the young people’s issues.

Ryan and Charlie Anne also tried to arrange a meeting with Welsh Government’s Education Minister, Leighton Andrews AM, but the cabinet reshuffle meant this was not possible. They will be getting in touch with the new Education Minister, Huw Lewis AM, to arrange a meeting to present the findings from the consultation.

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The issues and recommendations from the Education portfolio for 2012-2013 are in the table immediately below: 1 Bullying

Issue Schools/colleges across Wales do not have a nationally monitored anti bullying policy, just guidance, which leads to young people experiencing different standards and outcomes.

Recommendations Create (in partnership with young people) an All Wales Anti Bullying policy for schools/ colleges which is monitored and inspected

by ESTYN and ‘Young Inspectors’.

2 Post 16 opportunities

Issue

Recommendations

Lack of clear information about what student finance is available to young people as young people find it too complicated at the moment.

Provide clear information in different ways (website/school lessons etc) for students, starting at Key Stage 4 and continuing in Key Stage 5 in all schools and colleges.

Young people are not aware of apprenticeship options open to them.

Promote the AMS website which will inform and raise young people’s awareness of apprenticeships and signpost them to opportunities and help in every Local Authority across Wales.

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3 Personal, Social Eductation

Issue

Recommendations

Lack of knowledge amongst teachers in PSE subject areas because they have not received specialised training. This makes lessons ineffective and boring.

Every school/college should have at least 1 qualified PSE teacher who is responsible for delivering the lessons to make sure education is consistent and of a high standard. The teacher should have regular refresher courses to make sure they are up to date with issues/changes.

PSE is taught differently throughout schools in the same and different Local Authorities across Wales.

Create a compulsory PSE qualification with standardised and structured lesson plans to make PSE equally important as other subjects.

Have ‘cross-curriculum days’ to link PSE into all subjects in school for better learning and better interaction.

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4.2 Environment and Sustainable Development Portfolio co-chairs. Elected at our 2012 AGM in Bangor Hannah Prydderch, 15 from Wrexham and Andy O’Callaghan, 20 from Conwy.

The 3 priority issues identified by wider consultation via our online survey were: 1. Public Transport. (environmental impact, how to increase use in a way to reduce pollution etc).

2. Local Communities. (litter, dog fouling, smoking and gum bins, graffiti, public toilets, bin collections etc).

3. Public attitude to environmental issues. (attitudes, awareness, personal responsibilities etc).

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These priorities were also fed into the Climate Change Commission for Wales by our 2 co-chairs. The 3 priorities were broken down further during our October residential and the steering group developed what they felt the issues were and how they could best be addressed.

During our Annual Event in March, the group met with experts from Cynnal Cymru, South East Wales Transport Agency, Keep Wales Tidy and The Carbon Trust. The experts outlined the roles their organisations play under each of our portfolio priorities, as well as existing and future pieces of work that impacted on those priorities.

The following day the group met with the Sustainable Behaviours and Engagement team at Welsh Government, and asked questions including: How can you get local communities to do more for their local environment?

Do you think there should be an award for communities that become more sustainable and environmental?

How can you get the views of the community and young people?

How can we get more people using public transport?

How can we make public transport better for people?

How can you change people’s attitudes towards the environment?

How can we increase people's knowledge of the environment?

As part of our annual event we held a cross party debate with AMs from Labour, The Conservatives and The Liberal Democrats. The group explained to the AMs that attitudes towards the environment need to change.

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The issues and recommendations from the Environment portfolio for 2012-2013 are in the table immediately below: 1 Public Transport

Issue Negative experiences of using buses.

Recommendations Drivers of buses to have customer service training.

Newer busses and improved cleanliness.

A lot of the EMA money goes on transport to college.

Cheaper transport for students, child ticket prices to remain until the age of 19.

Freeze costs of public transport.

Unreliable.

To develop a live app/text service for public transport and to bring in a discount system for lateness (If a bus is ten minutes late, a 10% discount is earned on fare).

Promote the use of public transport.

Stamp scheme to promote use of public transport – 1 stamp anytime you use bus/train instead of car – collect so many stamps and get a free ride.

Try to find new sources of energy to run public transport.

Test solar panels as a source of energy for buses.

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2 Local Communities

Issue

Recommendations

Graffiti, vandalism and antisocial behavior in local communities.

More youth activities, youth shelters and anti-vandalism projects within communities.

Youth provision runs throughout the summer.

Lack of motivation within local communities, to improve their areas.

More public awareness campaigns, local community projects and celebrating good practice within communities, e.g award schemes.

Appearance of local communities.

Regular PCSO checks to become the norm.

Signs directing people to the next bins Increase the number of bins to dispose of cigarette litter.

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3 Public attitudes to the environment

Issue Complicated recycling rules.

Recommendations Develop a Wales wide reward system, i.e. so many bottles recycled equals a reward.

An environmental phone app, that can tell people when and which bins are being picked up.

More pick-ups of food waste bins and access to recycling bins on the street.

No belief that there are problems.

Sessions in schools, colleges and university to raise awareness of environmental issues.

More use of social media to raise awareness.

No examples of positive action for motivations.

Share examples of good practice across Wales.

Develop community and county wide projects for positive action.

Promote action on litter.

Enforce litter punishments and promote community litter picks and eco-friendly events.

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4.3 Health Portfolio co-chairs. Elected at our 2012 AGM in Bangor Lucia Jones, 17, from Powys and Christopher Walburn, 19, from Bridgend.

Tricia Jones, 18, from Wrexham acted as a support co-chair during residentials when Christopher was not able to attend.

The priority 3 issues identified by wider consultation via our online survey were: 1. Access to Health Care Services 2. Sexual Health Education 3. Mental Health Issues

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Lucia, Christopher and Tricia worked with the Grand Council to explore these issues.

The young people were able to highlight their main issues and look at recommendations they wanted to make to Welsh Government try and make a positive changed.

During the Annual Event in March 2013, the co-chairs and young people met with experts from Tros Gynnal and Mind. They recognised that the priorities our young people were talking about were very important as well as being issues their organisations were currently working on.

The co-chairs and other Grand Council members then had the opportunity to meet Welsh Government officials to present their recommendations. The session was attended by David Sissling, Director General of Health and Social Services. This allowed the young people to get direct and authoritative answers to their questions. David expressed an interest in meeting with the young people in the future to look at the issues in more depth.

It was a challenging and engaging session which resulted in all concerned coming away with new information and ideas. One of the main outcomes was that the co-chairs felt the issues relating to Sexual Health education should link to the Education Portfolio as they were partly about lack of suitable PSE lessons in schools.

The co-chairs are hopeful that the good work on the different issues will continue into 2013-14 and that their opinions and issues will feed into policies and practices across Wales.

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The issues and recommendations from the Health portfolio for 2012-2013 are in the table immediately below: 1 Access To Health Care Services

Issue

Recommendations

Not enough advice on available health service.

More awareness of options open to young people locally.

Young people struggling to make doctors’ appointments.

Set up an appointment service which can be booked by text messages or online.

Long distances for young people to access medical treatments.

Wider range of treatments available to access in their local doctors and health centres.

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2 Sexual Health Education

Issue

Recommendations

Not enough useful and practical information on STI’s and local services.

Create 1 National Wales sexual health website which will inform and raise young people’s awareness of symptoms and signpost them to local services in every Local Authority across Wales.

PSE lessons not useful or helpful, and taught poorly by untrained teachers.

Every school should have an outside teacher/nurse teach structured and informative sex education lessons to pupils, and also to learn from schools who are delivering sex education to a high standard.

Not enough advice from youth clubs or no drop in centres available.

Create more drop in centres across Wales to provide easier access to sexual health clinics with faster access to information and treatments.

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3 Mental Health Issues

Issue

Recommendations

There is no support for young people with mental health problems, and no information for young people about issues relating to mental health.

Promote support and awareness through training, workshops and young people friendly leaflets which can all be accessed in relevant places – i.e. doctors surgeries, schools, youth clubs etc.

Not enough support once young people have been diagnosed with mental health issues between their appointments.

Create a specific and dedicated free helpline young people can ring between their appointments and speak to specialists whenever they need support.

Not enough information given to young people once they have been diagnosed with mental health issues.

Create a support pack for young people which has in depth explanations of mental health issues, helpful and practical ideas to help manage their issues, useful contact details of organisations to help them, and approved websites which might be helpful.

Barriers between young people and doctors in relation to mental health issues and support from them.

Compulsory and relevant training for all doctors on mental health issues.

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5

YOUTH TEAM WORK SINCE APRIL 1ST Background The Grand Council were consulted on the proposed new staff structure at the February and March residential events 2013. In these sessions they worked on their ideas for how the organisation should move forward from April 2013 onwards. The Grand Council’s conclusions supported the work done by the Management Committee and it was agreed that the organisation should focus work around its core aims and values: Listening to the voices and opinions of young people and the issues which are important to them.

Taking action to ensure that these views are heard by the people with power to create change.

The Grand Council worked on how best to achieve these aims in order to promote the voices of young people in Wales. They looked at the organisation’s current range of work, achievements, strengths and expertise, discussing suggestions for improvement and change and also at completely new ways of working. For example they felt an improved use of social media and Twitter could promote key issues and be a way of maintaining a link with the Grand Council outside of residentials. Using Twitter would also help develop links with organisations and young people outside of Funky Dragon.

The Grand Council also looked at the structure of the Funky Dragon year, deciding how to make the best use of their time in order to achieve their aims. For example holding shorter planning residentials but increasing the number of work-focused meetings outside of the main Grand Council residentials in order to push forward work on the priority issues.

The Young People’s ideas have formed the basis of a new strategic work plan for the Young People’s Development Team and the Team have been working hard since the beginning of April on implementing the changes.

Please see appendix 1 for: Key changes and outcomes in the new work plan

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6

FUNKY DRAGON PROJECTS 6.1 Sustainable Development and Climate Change (SDCC) project Sustainable Development has many different definitions. The Welsh Government's official definition is: ‘an emphasis on social, economic and environmental wellbeing for people and communities, embodying our values of fairness and social justice. We must also look to the longer term in the decisions we make now, to the lives of our children’s children as well as current generations.’

Some of the young people in the groups we work with have come up with their own definitions, these include: Looking after our world now so future generations have the same opportunities we do.

Making sure we look after things now so they last longer and don't run out.

The team runs local action research projects within local communities, work with Funky Dragon’s environment portfolio and support young people’s representation on the Climate Change Commission for Wales. The project is funded by Welsh Government.

The aim of the project is to: Establish a steering group within the Funky Dragon structure.

Develop Local Participatory Action Research projects.

Increase awareness of the children and young people on how they impact on their local community.

Develop a national research project.

Support 2 co-chairs in their role on the Climate Change Commission for Wales (CCCfW).

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The steering group A steering group of 10 members was set up from members of Funky Dragon's Grand Council. At a residential in February, the new members had a chance to sign up to the steering group where the number of members on the group increased to 20. The role of the steering group is to ensure that the issues of sustainable development and climate change (SDCC) are incorporated into the work of Funky Dragon by: Increasing knowledge of SDCC policy and issues amongst the steering group.

Transferring knowledge to the rest of the Grand Council.

Educating the steering group on SD and CC and the relevant policies.

Monitoring and evaluating the work done by Funky Dragon staff working on the project.

The steering group met a total of 5 times during March 2012 - March 2013 at Grand Council residentials. The steering group carried out a consultation with the rest of the Grand Council on the SD bill for Welsh Government. This involved the steering group presenting what the SD bill meant and how it would work if it was passed. After the co-chairs attend the CCCFW, they report back to the steering group on any updates on policy they find out about at the meetings.

Local Participatory Action Research Projects This aspect of the project was designed to give children and young people the opportunity to have their voices heard on issues that affect them, and then give them the opportunity to address the issues most important to them.

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The aim of the work with the groups was twofold: Firstly to find out what they knew about Sustainable Development and Climate Change and through taking part in the project, develop and increase this knowledge. Secondly for the children and young people involved to learn about research methods used as part of the process in developing their project Many positive outcomes have been achieved due to the groups taking part in the project.

For example Barry Island Primary School are now in constant contact with with the local council and call them in whenever they see an area that they feel needs cleaning.

Forsythia Youth Club are going to be working with the schools and local police to look at anti- social behaviour and how they can tackle it together. After one of the projects finished in Ysgol Rhiwabon, the First Minister visited to hear about the work the children had done.

This year, 16 groups of children and young people took part in the project.

Project reports are available online.

Adamsdown Community First – Sustainable Communities Barry Island Primary School – Litter Bishopston Comprehensive School – Dredging Caerphilly Young Carers – Local Parks Forsythia Youth Project – Anti Social Behaviour/Community Facilities Rhws and Romilly Primary School – Litter Arddleen Primary School – Litter Ysgol Rhiwabon – Free school Meals/Poverty Dolgarrog Youth club – Community facilities Tal y Bont Youth club – Sporting facilities Flintshire Barnardos – Litter Gwersyllt Youth Club – Sustainable Development themes Ysgol Dinas Bran – Anti social behaviour/tourism

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Some projects held celebration events where the group showcased their work to AMs, council members and other organisations. Cardiff Central AM, Jenny Rathbone visited one of the projects in Adamsdown Cardiff, and Clwyd South AM Ken Skates visited Ysgol Rhiwabon.

National Research In December 2012 the Sustainable Development steering group met to discuss a piece of national research looking at education and sustainable development. The aim of the research is to look at how Sustainable Development is being taught to young people in Wales, and to come up with a list of recommendations on how it can be improved.The research tools and workshops to be developed by the young people’s steering group.

The group put a research proposal together to present to Welsh Government outlining their plan for the year. In March 2013 Welsh Government commissioned the steering group to carry out the research. In March the group met and developed a questionnaire for young people, looking at their experiences of being taught Sustainable Development , and any ideas on how this can be improved. The questionnaire was piloted with the Grand Council at our July Residential.

Climate Change Commission for Wales 2 Environmental Co-Chairs were elected by Funky Dragon’s Grand Council. The co-chairs lead on both the steering group and environment portfolio as well as attend Climate Change Commission for Wales meetings where they are Commission members.

The 2 Co-Chairs attended 5 Climate Change Commission for Wales meetings and helped launch the Climate Change Commission’s Annual Report. During this launch, the Co-Chairs gave a speech at the Pier Head in Cardiff, where the Minister of Environment John Griffiths was also present. The Climate Change Commission of Wales nominated both Co-Chairs for the Inspirational Young Person award at UK Climate Week. The award ceremony was held in the House of Commons.

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Peter Davies, Chair of the Climate Change Commission for Wales: “Hannah and Andy have been integral members of the Climate Change Commission for Wales over the last year. They were actively involved in raising awareness and understanding amongst young people about the implications of climate change and the need for action.”

“Their membership of the Climate Change Commission for Wales has been both significant and inspiring. They constantly showed a level of knowledge and professionalism around climate issues far in advance of their ages, and their views are well respected by the other members.”

“The Commission are extremely proud of our youngest members and we were delighted that both Hannah and Andy have received UK wide recognition for their work in being named as finalists in the prestigious Climate Weeks Awards 2013.”

David Fitzpatrick, CEO Cynnal Cymru - Sustain Wales “As providers of secretariat support to the Commission we have had the opportunity to see at first hand the positive impact both Hannah and Andy have made over the last year. It has been great having them involved, as they helped to ensure the needs of young people were central to plans the Commission developed and in advice given to government and they ensured we understood better the views and needs of a younger generation.”

“This is so important and valued as we seek to build a society with sustainable development as its very core. The entire staff team at Cynnal Cymru have been impressed by their constant enthusiasm and look forward to working with them again – they both have very bright futures ahead in the field of sustainable development.”

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6.2 Little Voices, Big Choices In February 2012 Funky Dragon were awarded two year funding by the Big Lottery to give children the chance to get their voices heard in Wales. Using the successful participatory action research model piloted in the 2009 Children As Researchers project, children chose their own topic, conducted their own research and created their own solutions to improve the issues they identified. The Children as Researcher’s model follows a number of sessions that cover: Awareness of Children’s Rights Research Skills Analysis/Recommendations Report Writing Dissemination (National and Local)

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Local Participatory Action research Projects In year one the following projects were completed: Caerphilly Young Carers - Bullying Gellideg Foundation, Merthyr - Local Park Millbrook Primary School, Newport - Opening a youth club Aberllechau Primary School, RCT - Anti-Social Behaviour Townhill Primary School, Swansea - Kidz Club Gladstone Primary School, Vale of Glamorgan - Litter Ysgol Baladeulyn, Gwynedd - What can we do about the local football field?

Ysgol Glantwymyn, Powys - Are there places for disabled people to meet in the countryside?

Llanelli Group, Carmarthen - Dog mess in town.

National Event The culmination of this project was a two day event in Cardiff Bay where children met with Deputy Minister for Children, Gwenda Thomas AM and Chair of the Children and Young People’s Committee Christine Chapman AM. Each project addressed their local concerns and questioned the Minister on their research topic areas.

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Local Events Each project held a local event where key decision makers such as Assembly Members, Councillors, School Governors, Communities First representatives, parents and other professionals attended. Presentations were part of all local events and reports were produced and disseminated. Those invited were asked how they would continue to support the projects in the future ensuring that the children’s hard work would continue and real change would happen.

The Project will continue into its second year in the following authorities: Pembrokeshire Blaenau Gwent Cardiff Neath Port Talbot Bridgend Torfaen

Conwy Denbighshire Wrexham Ceredigion Anglesey Flintshire

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6.3 ESF - Funky Dragon’s Reach the Heights Project Overview The aim of Funky Dragon's project was to develop young people's skills for learning and future employment through opportunities for participation in decision making in a number of different settings. The project aimed to develop skills and knowledge to a level where individuals and youth groups could develop their own work and engage with participative structures in the hope of achieving positive change for young people in Wales. Funky Dragon wanted to encourage better coordination of opportunities for involvement by developing standardised skills based training, which would fit well within the context and individual needs of each of the groups involved. The training was designed to provide generic skills which were transferable to most places of work. These skills, coupled with the focus on 'active citizenship' were designed to ensure that young people felt more equipped, motivated and able to engage with society.

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Funky Dragon's project and items of work were designed with the following in mind: The encouragement of participation in existing structures, with particular emphasis placed on those young people least likely to engage.

The expression of young people's views on issues affecting their lives – from local to national level.

The use of a range of methods, to ensure inclusion, equality of opportunity, individual development, innovation and experimentation.

The development of autonomy amongst young people; so they have the skills, knowledge and experience to effect change in their own lives, and ultimately to influence the work of decision makers.

Areas of Work: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Workshops relating to the Active Citizenship theme of the PSE Framework 2008.

Work with hard to reach groups and other youth groups.

Work with NEET young people (i.e. young people who are not in education, employment or training).

Participation Training for Local Authority Youth Forums.

Work Based Learning.

Funky’s UN Challenge/UNCRC Reporting.

Developing working relationships with different policy areas within the Welsh Government/Influencing Policy.

Accreditation.

Ongoing self directed learning/Website.

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Total beneficiaries during the period July 2012- April 2013

744

Demographic breakdown Female Participants

248

NEET Participants

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Qualifications gained

57

Basic Skills

Level 1

29

Basic Skills

Level 2

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Participants entering further learning (16-19)

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Participants gaining positive outcomes (11-19)

369

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1. Workshops relating to the Active Citizenship theme of the PSE Framework 2008 We designed 8 main workshops/sessions including session plans and resources, including: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

UNCRC Teamwork and Communication Equality and Diversity Active Citizenship Participation Decision Making and Problem Solving Government in Wales Political Awareness

The workshops can stand alone, be delivered in differing combinations and have also been grouped together into Agored Cymru units.

Active citizenship – Your Rights and Getting Involved (Credit value1, Levels 1&2, in both Welsh and English).

Active Citizenship – Equality and Democracy (Credit value1, Levels 1&2, in both Welsh and English).

Active Citizenship – Skills (Credit value1, Level 1, in both Welsh and English).

As part of the process of designing the sessions above, the team also developed other sessions and activities under these themes which act as alternatives or be supplemental to the 8 ‘main’ sessions. These additional sessions and activities are grouped separately as they may go into more depth about a certain topic or offer alternative activities to working on topics which may better suit the needs of different groups or young people.

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Evaluation Comments from Young People “Better lessons than other random PSE stuff.”

“More confident in expressing views in a group and more confident at working in a group.”

“That young people should have a say in things that affect them.”

“I love to come to these lessons – they are different and I like how people listen to what I think. Really different to normal lessons- more interesting.”

“Didn’t think politics was anything to do with my life, now I’m going to vote – or I will when I’m old enough!”

“Because of Funky Dragon I feel that I am able to work within a team better and I’ve learnt new skills and gained knowledge as far as achieving ACU accreditation work and participating in the millennium volunteers scheme.”

“I learnt to give people a chance.”

“I learnt that that a lot of ideas can be shared and issues can be raised whilst working with other people.”

2. Work with hard to reach groups and other youth groups We delivered sessions with a range of groups including young offenders, young carers, homeless young people, LGBTQ young people, looked after young people, disabled young people and with groups that included young people from black and ethnic minorities. Each session was tailored to the needs of the group and some groups successfully completed one of the accredited programmes of training.

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Due to the required change in focus brought about by the ESF projects’ mid term review, Funky Dragon staff met with organisations and worked with some young people who have a ‘specific-interest’ as part of one of the above groups; but have only been able to do so if they were NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) or ‘at risk of becoming NEET’ - rather than being able to work with them because of their belonging to one of these groups (as initially intended). Often, young people who do belong to one of the above groups are more likely to be ‘at risk of becoming NEET’ but this does not necessarily follow for all groups or individuals.

Some examples of the types of work undertaken with these groups include: film workshops and presentations of these films; local research projects around an issue of concern for the group, resulting in the young people presenting their findings to local councilors; and workshops to create posters and leaflets explaining young people’s rights under the UNCRC.

Feedback from Young People “I learnt to be proud of who we are.”

“I don’t care what people think ‘cos I am a good person.”

“We couldn’t have done it without her (FD Staff) support.”

“Learning to film was really cool.”

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3. Work with NEET young people (young people who are not in education, employment or training) In our initial project proposal we intended to: Develop links with local organisations working with NEET young people.

Offer participation training, skills based learning and promote work experience opportunities.

Offer accreditation in democracy, active citizenship, rights and responsibilities.

Procure work from sub-contractors to work with NEETs.

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It was decided that we would procure the element of work which was designed to work specifically and exclusively with those young people who were NEET. This was felt to be the most appropriate choice as it was one distinct item of work which we could procure as opposed to other, larger items of work which would then have resulted in a mixed delivery model with FD staff delivering some work, and outside agencies delivering some.

Contracts were put out to tender and the successful organisations were invited to attend a training day where they were trained by Funky Dragon staff, to deliver an accredited course (developed by FD) and to complete all necessary paperwork. Organisations were then given approximately 6 months to complete their project delivery; with a designated member of FD staff available to them for support.

Feedback from professionals “I found Funky Dragon to be supportive and efficient in their management of the Active Citizenship programme. (FD Staff) was available for help and advice and gave us support through the contract. I also thought the training was excellent.”

“Our biggest issue was the “NEETS” aspect of this contract – there are so many projects out there looking for NEET young people that none of them are truly NEET anymore.”

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4. Participation Training for Local Authority Youth Forums An Agored Cymru Unit specifically designed for County Youth Forums was developed in line with the National Participation Standards in order to support a cohesive national approach to this work.

The training included sessions around: Your Rights and the UNCRC. Participation.

What is Representation.

What is a Youth Forum.

Consultation Skills and Analysis.

Action Planning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EBHA4cJOtQ

Feedback from Young People “Learning how to take a more influential role in the youth forum.”

“How to plan a consultation and be a good forum rep.”

“One useful thing I will remember is ‘UNCRC history.”

“What qualitative and quantitative is.” “(FD Staff) was good and friendly, and made the sessions fun and interesting.”

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5. Work Based Learning Funky Dragon provided work experience placements for young people at their office in Swansea. These varied from a one week placement to 4 months in length. Funky Dragon worked with providers who already worked with young people that were NEET or at risk of becoming NEET and did not source young people ourselves.

The young people on work placement completed an ACU accreditation. This generic work experience placement accreditation was adaptable for many organisations to use and is available to download from the ACU website.

Feedback from Young People “Experiencing all aspects of work in the office – preparing for residentials, flipcharts, how the website works and meetings with Assembly officials.”

“Everything – I enjoy websites, designing the graphics mostly.”

“I really enjoyed learning with new software such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Movie Maker.”

“Everything, from meeting new people to the different types of work.”

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6. Funky’s United Nations Challenge/UNCRC Report Part of the ESF project was training young people in research and consultation skills.

They put these to use in collecting data for our next report to the United Nations Committee on the Right’s of the Child. See chapter 9.

7. Developing working relationships with different policy areas within the Welsh Government/Influencing Policy This part of the project involved supporting the Grand Council members in their roles as co-chairs and meeting with Ministers. Also attending Ministerial Advisory Groups and further networks as they developed. This helped to improve young people’s skills in teamwork, research, consultation, communication, presentation and literacy.

By improving connections and increasing awareness about policy events we hope to have offered opportunities for National participation to a greater number of young people.

The experience of presenting to politicians, professionals, and other young people has provided invaluable experience and improved young people’s confidence which may be beneficial for future employment.

Young people were offered a wide opportunity by Welsh Government to engage, these included: Representation on Ministerial Advisory Groups.

Meeting with Elected Members to raise young people’s issues.

Representation on National Issue based Fora, such as Mental Health or Older people.

Engagement in Welsh Government events.

Engagement in Welsh Government Consultations.

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8. Accredited Work (see sections 1, 3 and 4 also) The Development Team designed a range of accredited training in conjunction with the accreditation body Agored Cymru. The Team offered a selection of accreditation at different levels, with different credit values and in both Welsh and English which were designed to meet learning outcomes for the Welsh Baccalaureate, the Youth work Curriculum Statement for Wales, the PSE Framework and Guidance and the Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Key Themes. The sessions also addressed the development of skills useful in the workplace including: negotiation, teamwork and problem solving.

9. Ongoing self directed learning/Website The website was altered to ‘maximise publicity for our Reach The Heights (RTH) project and to highlight the contribution the European Structural Funds are making in Wales’.

This was done by: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Placing the ESF logo in a prominent position on the page.

Giving RTH elements of our work very obvious and colourful picture links on the home page. This included the AM interviews, the FUNC project, videos featuring RTH work and working methods as well as direct links to the RTH partners.

Building a specific RTH section of the website which features all the work carried out as well as some of the resources developed by and for the project. It also serves to inform potential participants of the work we do. This both advertises what we can do and publicises what we have done.

Setting up video interviews with AMs across Wales, to be carried out by Grand Council members and published on the website.

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Whereas before we had outsourced the design of the site we decided to use the RTH project to take all aspects in house. This enabled us to save money and have a greater degree of control over the format and functionality of the site. This enabled us to react much more quickly to any developments in our work. As a result we were able rationalize the site to reflect the RTH work and to give specific aspects of it more prominence as and when necessary.

The overall plan was to turn the website into a shop window for our RTH work. It was designed to enable our workers to give updates about what they have been doing as well as to showcase the more visual aspects of their activities. It would also give opportunities for young people to gain work experience. The fact that we are now able to control every aspect of the website means that we can give RTH participants, who are with us on work placement, a high level of training with regard to web design and office practice.

They were also able to gain experience of the administration and structure of the web site when we migrated content from the previous version.

In today’s society an online presence is an essential component of an organisation’s delivery mechanisms. This is especially true for a young people led organisation such as Funky Dragon which is working to engage as many children and young people as possible in the national policy making processes of Wales. Funky Dragon also maintains a safe but welcoming presence on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.

The aims of the website were to support the work of the organisation in delivering the RTH project and as far as possible to participate in delivery. These aims tied in with our strategic priorities. Refer to chapter 1 The numbers of people accessing the website have increased by over 19% year on year since we switched to the current format.

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Overall Conclusion and Lessons Learned Funky Dragon is immensely proud of its achievements as a joint sponsor of the First Footholds project. We believe that we have offered innovative and constructive opportunities to young people, who may not otherwise have received them. We believe that although the work delivered was not always exactly as it had been envisaged in the business planning stage of the project, any amendments made have been for the benefit of the project and its participants.

As an organisation, Funky Dragon has had the opportunity to expand its remit (e.g. to become an Agored Cymru Accredited Centre), and to extend its network beyond what it was prior to the Reach the Heights project.

The Reach the Heights project has resulted in Funky Dragon attempting new methods of working (for example, procurement), the learning from which will prove valuable in the future of the organisation.

Members of Funky Dragon staff have reported that the change of focus at the stage of the mid point review has meant that they have learned to work with groups of young people that they had previously found particularly challenging. Again, these lessons will benefit the organisation and individual staff well into the future.

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7

WORK WITH COMMISSIONERS Funky Dragon see that a key way to get children and young people’s views to decision makers in Wales is through Wales’ Commissioners. Naturally the largest collaboration and joint project we have is with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales.

However, formal relationships and joint working has been sought with other Commissioners: Children’s Commissioner for Wales Work has continued between the Children’s Commissioner for Wales and Funky Dragon, the Children and Young People’s Assembly for Wales. Following the success of the pilot project in 2011/12 it was decided to run with the second phase, which has seen young members of Funky Dragon helping to raise awareness of the Commissioner’s role and the UNCRC within their own forums and communities as well as helping to inform specific projects within our work plan. We will hold regular meetings to help progress the work.

Sustainable Futures Commissioner The 2 Environmental Co-Chairs elected at the AGM sit on the Climate Change Commission for Wales as full Commission members. There are 4 meetings per year.

Welsh Language Commissioner Initial meetings and discussions have been held between Funky Dragon and the Welsh Language Commissioner offices. We hope to be able to announce plans in the next years work programme. We have discussed working with the Welsh Language Commissioner’s office on their forthcoming health and care provision inquiry.

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8

FORUMS AND NETWORKS Funky Dragon has supported young people’s representation at a range of Welsh Government National Fora and working groups. Where possible Grand Council members attendance is supported.

Older people’s Network.

Childrens and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) Advisory Board.

National Expert Reference Group ( mental health).

Anti Bullying Network.

Participation Consortium.

GIR Implementation Support Group meetings.

National Forum Workers Meetings.

Travelling Ahead, the Young Gypsies and Travellers National Forum Network.

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9

FUNC – FUNKY’S UNITED NATIONS CHALLENGE The FUNC project follows on from the Our Rights Our Story (OROS) report. The aim of the project is to write a young person’s report to be submitted to the United Nations when the fifth Government submission for the UNCRC is presented in 2017.

The process involves training young people in the skills of teamwork, research, consultation, communication, presentation, literacy, numeracy and data analysis among others. A steering group of young people led the process and the Grand Council devised the research methods and content. They also analysed the data, made initial recommendations and presented these to the Grand Council for wider comments and recommendations.

The research followed on from the previous report and was partly designed to look at how Government had responded to recommendations made in 2008. The steering group did this by looking at: The OROS report.

The Welsh Government response to OROS which can be found here: http://wales.gov.uk/about/cabinet/cabinetsubcommittees/previous/cyp0711/23jun08/mins/?lang=en The UN concluding observations which can be found here: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/childrenyoungpeople/publications/uncrcconcludingobservations2008/?lang=en The Welsh Government response to the concluding observations which can be found here: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/childrenyoungpeople/rights/uncrc/reporting/20072010/actionplan /?lang=en

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The progress of initiatives stemming from the responses to be found in the various pieces of legislation, policies and strategies relating to our recommendations, such as “anti-bullying policies are extended to cover both after school activities and school transport�. This particular recommendation resulted in the development of the travel behavior code which was indicated by the Learner Travel Wales measure. http://wales.gov.uk/topics/transport/integrated/learnertravel/travelcode/?skip=1&lang=en From this process the themes for the next report emerged. They were: Education Health Information Participation Knowledge of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Safety and Protection from Harm Discrimination The right to meet.

Progress during 2012 - 2013 The second half of 2012 was the data collection part of the project. The Development Workers visited groups across Wales to collect qualitative data via workshops and focus groups and quantitative data using our survey. The survey was also available online.

The data collection period ended in December 2012 with a total of 1,273 people having completed the survey. Between December 2012 and March 2013 Funky Dragon staff carried out initial analysis of the data which involved basic grouping of answers and cross tabbing of survey results. The data was then ready for the steering group to begin more detailed analysis and the drafting of recommendations.

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March residential During the March residential the data from the FUNC survey and other research was analysed by the steering group. This took the form of an initial “Skills Audit� where the steering group split themselves into three teams to ensure they had a cross section of the abilities that would help with data analysis. Each group looked at different themes.

The groups and themes were: Education Bethan Domaille, Cardiff Aaron Hamilton, Flintshire Manon Elias, Gwynedd Health, Right to Meet, Safety and Protection From Harm Lucia Jones, Powys Rhys Evans. Pembrokshire Matthew Walker, Conwy

Information, Discrimination, Knowledge of the UNCRC Scott Allen, Vale of Glamorgan Rosie Barnett, Cardiff Alex Atkins, Swansea The analysis involved the following stages for each of the eight themes: Identify Key statistical finding.

Identify related significant/interesting qualitative data plus Grand Council evidence.

Discuss and write conclusions/findings.

Write recommendations.

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Using their new knowledge, following the analysis, they worked in groups to discuss how they would publicise their findings by answering the following questions.

What do we want people to know?

Who do we want to know about this?

How do we want to tell them?

After this they looked at what was left to do and who should be responsible for completing the tasks. One of the things they looked at was whether or not any information needed to go onto the FUNC facebook page for approval.

Lastly the steering group planned a session for Grand Council residential to scrutinise the data and make further recommendations.

Grand Council Residential March 2013 The FUNC steering group ran a session with the full Grand Council to get them to comment on the research findings and contribute to the recommendations. They asked them if they: Agreed with the recommendations?

Needed them to be reworded in any way Had any suggestions for additional recommendations?

They also asked them to look at: Who we should tell about the recommendation?

How do we tell them?

What should the report look like?

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The full FUNC report will be published in the new year.

As a result of the work up to April 2013 the Grand Council produced a list of recommendations to Government based on the FUNC national survey and qualitative research carried with groups across Wales.

Immediately below are the recommendations to go into our report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and be given as evidence to the committee at a date not yet set.

Education Bullying As part of the FUNC research we were eager to find out how many young people were affected by bullying. In Our Rights, Our Story, 45.68% of young people that took part said that they had been victims of bullying. In the FUNC research the number that said they have been victims of bullying had risen to 47.2%.

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In response to OROS, the Welsh Government stated that they issued anti-bullying guidance to schools in September 2003. This guidance, ‘Respecting Others’, advises schools to ensure that staff and pupils are involved in the development of a schools anti-bullying policy”. (p7 The Right Way Forward.)

Even though the numbers have only increased by just under 2%, the significance of the finding is that the percentage has increased rather than decreased. This shows that the guidance we have in place at the moment is not enough and that children and young people need a new approach to target bullying in schools.

In the FUNC survey 67.6% said they knew their school had an anti-bullying policy. Of those who answered ‘Yes’, the majority (53.2%) did not know the contents of the policy.

Of the young people who know about their school’s anti-bullying policy 40.2% think it is ‘quite effective’. However, 32.5% think it ‘makes no difference’. In our qualitative research young people gave a number of reasons for this.

Lack of awareness.

Lack of reinforcement.

Lack of action on behalf of the school or teachers.

Young people don't have enough faith in the policy.

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Bullying Issue The percentage of young people who say they have been bullied has risen since the Our Rights Our Story report in 2008.

2008 - 45.68% 2013 - 47.2%

Overall bullying Females: 53.1% Males: 42.2%

Recommendations Government should police School Bullying Policies.

There need to be national minimum standards which are monitored so that: â—? Schools and colleges reinforce anti-bullying strategies throughout all year groups. â—? Schools and colleges make young people more aware of their anti-bullying policy and what it says.

Teachers should be responsible for monitoring bullying and reporting/dealing with issues.

A support worker should also be available all day every day who only deals with bullying or similar issues.

Name calling Females: 86.6% Males: 82.3%

Resolve bullying issues VIA PSE by covering a variety of social groups/issues.

Cyber bullying Females, 43.8% Males, 27.4%

Specific policy/guidance should be developed to target cyber bullying.

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Bullying Issue Physical bullying Females: 53.1% Males: 42.2%

Recommendations There should be an online reporting system which includes: ● Feedback. ● End of term rating. ● Reporting problems to senior/people who can deal with it.

There should be strong PCSO links.

School premises should be patrolled to minimise bullying or make students feel safe.

Government should carry out research into: ● Why 5.4% of young people don't know if they have been bullied. ● Where do young people go for help/support about bullying? ● How easy is it for young people to access their school bullying policy?

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Careers Advice Issue

Recommendations

The majority of young people have not used the internet to get careers advice.

The services available need to be advertised widely so that all young people know about the services available to them, and how to access these services.

78.6% of those in danger of being excluded had not, compared to the overall figure of 58.8%

Do you feel you are able to meet careers advisors as often as you want?

71.9% of those who answered this question answered either no or don't know.

Services need to be more accessible in general, with more effort made to reach out to young people from the priority/social groups.

Every school should have peer support systems.

There should be more monitoring, of how those in danger of being excluded are accessing careers advice.

More research Look further than the web; where do young people go for career advice in general?

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Internet careers advice by grouping

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Internet careers advice all

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Education PSE The topics covered in PSE lessons vary between counties and schools. However, drugs, sex education and healthy living were the most popular subjects across all counties. This was also evident from the qualitative data. From the qualitative data, one of the reasons why young people don't find PSE useful or interesting is because of the way they are taught.

The majority of Lesbian and Gay young people disagreed strongly or disagreed that PSE is useful and informative. From the qualitative data gathered we can suggest that one of the reasons for this is that the information taught might not be relevant to them.

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PSE Issue

Recommendations

42.1% of young people asked, though that PSE lessons were useful and informative.

Create guidance on what age PSE topics should be covered for maximum relevance to students.

Although not a tiny percentage it is still a minority of all pupils.

More training for teachers responsible for delivering PSE. A database of external Organizations available for guest talks, training or workshops.

Monitoring PSE teaching within schools.

Certificate/accreditation so that young people get something out of it. This would also provide a way of monitoring quality of PSE in schools.

15.9% of young people asked said the subjects they would like to take are not available to them in their school. This was in relation to making decisions about education and future career. More information is needed about what these subjects are.

More research More information is needed on what age/school year, topics are taught in PSE. This might impact on their relevance.

More information is needed on which subjects are not available generally and in which parts of Wales.

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Education Counselling When discussing bullying for the gathering of qualitative data, a lot of young people said it would be useful to have somebody to talk to or counselling services available.

This suggests that they don't have access to this service or that they are unaware of how to access it.

Counselling Issue The majority of young people (54.1%) said they were able to access a school or college counsellor. However there was also a high percentage of ‘don't know’ answers (31.9%). This suggests that the young people don't know about the service or don't know how to access it.

Recommendations Better publicity for services and how to access them.

Every school should have peer support systems.

More research.

How often and where are counsellors available?

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Health The information we gathered, on young people’s views on healthcare, was from workshops, focus groups and our all Wales survey which was accessible to young people across Wales, via the internet. The questions we asked were chosen in consultation with young people and guided by the articles in the (UNCRC) and similar research conducted by Funky Dragon in 2007 called ‘Our Rights, Our Story’ (OROS).

Accessing school nurses – Across all age groups a significant number of young people told us they do not know if they are able to access a school nurse, with one young person stating that, “Mae angen I ysgolion cynnig fwg o wybodaeth meddygol” (Schools need to offer more medical information).

Exercise provision in schools – Our research shows that there is a discrepancy between age groups of young people accessing extra-curricular exercise in schools, despite individuals stating, “I would like tips on how to stay healthy”, when questioned about school exercise.

School nurse Issue 27.9% of 16-17 year olds don’t know if they can access their school nurse.

25.8% of young people aged 11-15 didn’t know whether they can access their school nurse.

Recommendations Uniform ratio of nurses to young people across Wales.

More information should be made available on how to access school nurses. Include how to access school nurse in any future PSE curriculum/framework.

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Access to school nurse 16-17 year olds

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Access to school nurse 11-15 year olds

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Access to services Issue 49.9% of all young people rated their dentist service as always being young person friendly.

Recommendations We think there should be a system to facilitate good practice sharing across all health services.

63.8% of 13 year olds rated their dentist service as always being young person friendly.

All young people asked

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13 year olds

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Physical Exercise Issue We asked the question “do you want to go to exercise/ fitness classes�?

Overall the majority answered yes: 16-17 year olds (60.7%) 11-15 year olds (60.1%)

Recommendations Our knowledge is that there is exercise provision but perhaps more research is needed to find out what young people want. If some young people are choosing not to attend exercise classes do they want another kind of provision?

We noted that there was a big jump between the number of 11 year olds and 12 year olds wanting exercise classes: 11 year olds (37%) 12 year olds (64.4%) 35.2% of 11-15 year olds took part in 5 x 60 activities.

10.2% of 11-15 year olds didn’t know what 5 x 60 was.

7272.8% of 16&17 year olds did not take part in 5 x 60 activities.

Despite the fact that this initiative is aimed at secondary schools, a very high number of 11-15 year olds do not know or do not take part in these activities. FUNC has also revealed that young people want more exercise classes.

As 5x60 is a secondary school programme does this mean that those attending 6th form schools have different access to these activities in comparison to those attending 6th form colleges? More research needs to be done into this.

Young people need more information and should be consulted about the types of activities they want.

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16-17 year olds

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11-15 year olds

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11 year olds

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12 year olds

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11-15 year olds

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16 and 17 year olds

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Safety and protection from harm Issue (66%) of young people from 11-17 do not know who their PSCO is.

Recommendations PCSOs are made better known and information on them is made more widely available.

The majority (59.7%) say having a PSCO makes no difference to how safe they feel although 11 year olds said it did.

55.6% of 16-17 year olds thought that making friends online was unsafe.

59.3% of 11-15 year olds believed that making friends online was unsafe.

This issue should be addressed via PSE lessons.

Although PSE is a framework it could possibly be made more uniform across Wales in regards to what is taught and how it’s taught.

Only 13% of 11 year olds believed making friend online was safe compared with 30.9% of 15 year olds.

We asked “what do you think makes a place safe for young people”?

68.3% of all young people said that street lighting made them feel safe.

69.6% of 11 year olds felt that adult supervision makes them feel safe. This generally declines with age, dropping by nearly 35% for 16 – 17 year olds (34.8% - 39.3% respectively).

Our research shows that street lighting at night is important to many young people with respect to them feeling safe. We understand that lighting is being cut in order to provide a sustainable future. However, we suggest the implementation of solar lights; saving energy and making young people feel safe.

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PCSO knowledge

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Online safety 16-17 year olds

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Online safety 11-15 year olds

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Online safety 11 year olds

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Online safety 15 year olds

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What makes a place safe?

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What makes a place safe 11 year olds?

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Discrimination Issue

Recommendations

We asked the question “have you ever been discriminated against?�

Keep the same levels of support that exist for younger children in place for older children.

Younger people reported less discrimination than older people by a significant margin; 5.8% at 11 to 28.1% at 17.

Government should commission research into why these levels are so high. Also find out where/which local authorities are experiencing the greatest levels of discrimination. Get very local and find actual incidences.

The people who felt most discriminated against were gay people 54.5% and people questioning their sexuality at 54.5% Disabled people also reported very high levels: 40.7% Children receiving free school meals reported above average levels of discrimination. 19.2%

We want government to increase awareness of discrimination.

Advertise more showing women in less stereotypically feminine roles.

Because race was the most commonly reported reason for discrimination, in our qualitative data, we think more cultural education should be offered to reduce discrimination levels.

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11 year olds

17 year olds

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Gay young people

Young people questioning their sexuality

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Young people who consider themselves to be disabled

Young people in receipt of free school meals

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Information Issue

Recommendations

We asked the question “were you able to access the information you wanted in a way you could understand on a number of different subjects?

The student finance Wales phone line should have free hours or have free access in certain places like school or careers Wales. SFW website should advertise this.

Less people are able to access financial information than any other type. It was the only information category where people said no rather than yes to the question.

Grand Council members thought that financial information is too complicated for a website and that you need to talk to an expert to get the full picture.

Children need to be IT literate with regard to finances so they are able to access information they need online at a young age to help when growing up.

We asked the question “where have you looked for information on any of the following”?

Government should promote young people’s information websites to a greater degree. They should also make them more young people friendly using examples from the BBC to see how it is done.

Mental health services Financial support Education Drugs and alcohol Pregnancy Sexually transmitted infections Relationships General health Fitness and nutrition

Government funded websites for young people need to be linked together. Government should encourage the BBC to link to the relevant/official information sites.

Most people have never tried to look online for the information in our survey.

When people have tried, most people used the BBC as a first source of information.

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Information

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Participation Issue

Recommendations

The majority of young people (55.2%) said they want the voting age lowered to 16.

Government should make young people friendly information about the political system available.

This should include information about the parties, their history and what they stand for.

There is a big difference between young people who know how to get involved in school councils and those who are involved. 163 are involved, 522 know how to.

Government should provide for youth workers or other professionals to attend assemblies in schools and tell them about the participation structures.

The figure for knowledge on how to get involved in participative structures was much lower in other areas, especially in relation to national structure for participation.

We think that young people don’t know about the other organisations. School councils are in schools. Other structures are not publicised enough. Unless you have friends who are involved, you will not know about them.

We asked the question “has your school council made any changes in your school”?

School councils need to feed back to their year group.

This must be regularly so pupils don’t think they have become inactive.

Of those asked, 56.9% said no. This figure was not surprising to the FUNC steering group because their personal experience was that school councils don’t make any difference. If they did make any difference nobody knew.

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Participation Issue We asked the question “have you ever taken part in a consultation”?

Recommendations Where professionals run consultations with young people they should feed back the results and details of any action taken.

Of those asked 28.5% said yes. This figure is low.

This could be because it is often difficult to know what a consultation is. They are so diverse in their form that it is often not clear what their purpose is.

Most young people (87.9%) didn’t know what had happened as a result of the consultations they had taken part in.

Always feedback to the participants.

Young people have a right to have their say and to be told what happens as a result. The steering group asked why you would give your views if you are not going to be told the results?

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Votes at 16

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WORK OUTSIDE OF WALES Funky Dragon members try to engage in U.K activities. This work can only be done where the cost of the activity is covered.

British Youth Council UKYP Working with Funky Dragon Over the last year the British Youth Council and Funky Dragon have worked closely together on a range of different programmes and projects. We held a joint Convention in Cardiff in August for youth forums to come together, develop their skills and knowledge.

Between August and October young people from across the Wales took part in the UK Youth Parliament’s Make your Mark ballot (a programme run by BYC) with over 12,000 young people voting for top topics that should be debated in the UKYP House of Commons Sitting. 24 young people from the Funky Dragon Grand Council represented Wales in UKYP House of Commons Sitting in November making sure the voice of young people from Wales was heard in the debate.

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House of Commons Event In November, the Speaker of the House of Common’s the Right Honourable John Bercow MP holds an annual debate with members of the United Kingdom Youth Parliament.

Welsh young people eagerly filled their delegated spaces in the Chamber of the House of Commons. Funky Dragon member Ryan Davies was debate lead, speaking for the motion of ‘Getting Ready For Work’. Other members participated in all 6 proposed National campaign debates.

Funky Dragon would like to thank the speaker’s office for supporting transport costs to Westminster for all of Wales’ young people delegates. Without this we wouldn’t be able to take up such an opportunity for young people.

The young people’s vote at the end of the day declared ‘A curriculum for life’ the priority for the 2013.

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Funky Dragon representative who attended the debate were: Bridgend

Catherine Jones

Caerphilly

Joel Nathan Price

Carmarthenshire

Adam Cousins Ryan Davies

RCT

Ben Hopkins Matthew Ingram

Swansea

Alex Atkins

Torfaen

Jennifer Coleman Laura Verrall

Ceredigion

Charlie Prowse

Conwy

Matt Walker

Vale of Glamorgan

Gwynedd

Charlie Arnold Harry Brown Beatrice Young

Scott Allen Matthew Harry Jessica Peters

Wrexham

Gary Jackson Tricia Jones Hannah Prydderch

Pembrokeshire

Rhys Evans

Powys

Jack Gillum

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Select Committee work Youth Select Committee The 2013 Youth Select Committee embarked on a new inquiry into the role of the education system and the national curriculum in equipping young people with the skills for later life.

The inquiry will look at the support currently available in schools to develop young people's 'life skills' such as personal finance, political education and cultural awareness. The Youth Select Committee (YSC) is a British Youth Council initiative, supported by the House of Commons. The eleven committee members are aged 15-18 and include two Members of the UK Youth Parliament (MYPs), two youth councillors, the Young Mayor of Bristol, one elected representative from each of the devolved nations and three reserved seats for groups who may be otherwise under-represented. The young person from Wales and representing Funky Dragon on the Committee was Joel Price. More information about be found at: http://byc.org.uk/uk-work/youth-select-committee/2013-youth-select-committee.aspx#

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INTERNATIONAL WORK Jacksonville, Florida, USA In August 2012 Funky Dragon members were invited by Dr Jeff Goldhagen to support young people in the development of a youth forum for the young people of Jacksonville, Florida. Tom Turner from Powys and Andy O’Callaghan from Conwy joined Gerison Lansdown in delivering training, sharing ideas and listening to the local young people.

We wish them all the best in their endeavours and hope to do more work together in the future.

United Kingdom Young Ambassadors Funky Dragon works with its sister organisations the British Youth Council; Northern Ireland Youth Forum and Scottish Youth Parliament in the UK Young Ambassador project. The aim of the project is to promote the voice of United Kingdom young people on international platforms such as the European Youth Parliament events as part of the European Presidency Events.

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In September 2012 Nathan Flanagan from Caerphilly represented Wales, the U.K and Abertysswg in the European Presidency Event in Cypress. The theme of the conference was young people and migration. In the months leading up to the conference each country had taken part in a consultation. Young people were asked or their views and feelings on the extent of migration in their community, the barriers they felt young migrants faced and how these barriers could be removed. Nathan ran the consultation at the July Grand Council residential in Bangor. The aim of the conference was to produce 14 recommendations of action based on what young people from across Europe had said.

These would be addressed to member states of the EU and hopefully adopted.

In October 2012 the Grand Council elected Catherine Jones from Bridgend to be the new UKYA representative from Wales. Once Catherine had attended her induction weekend the work began. In the early part of 2013 the UK Young Ambassadors lead a consultation with young people on whether they felt included in their communities, which young people were most at risk of exclusion and whether youth work can support social inclusion.

The consultation was run by Catherine at the Bala residential in February with the Grand Council. They then presented these findings to other young people and decision makers from Europe at the EU Presidency Youth Conference in Ireland in March 2013.

In July’ s residential in Swansea the Grand Council took part in the consultation about social inclusion and access to employment, education and training. The results from the consultation would be taken to the European Youth Conference in Lithuania in September 2013.

International Visitors Through the support of international organisations such as the British Council and Save the Children, Funky Dragon has hosted visitors from Mexico, Moldova, Romania and Palestine.

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COMMUNICATIONS The annual report for 2011-2012 did not have a printed version. It was produced in PDF form with short write ups and links to videos of the activities from the year. The PDF format was chosen for reasons of economy and convenience in line with our environmental policy.

The idea was to illustrate in a more accessible way, exactly what work we do. We recorded as much of our work as possible and produced videos of between two to ten minutes length. These can be seen in the “recent uploads” section of our youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/FunkyDragonWales

Although they covered the previous year’s work the post production of the videos and their integration into the annual report was carried out in the 2012-2013 period. Subjects covered in the videos were: FUNC SDCC work Children’s work Development work Residential work AGM business UKYP UKYA Work of the portfolio co-chairs AM interviews

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Website The development period for the new website has seen us testing out a number of formats.

The site currently uses the joomla web platform. We tried out a number of different formats during a prolonged development period for the next stage of the site. Eventually we decided to use an updated version of the Joomla platform we were already using.

We consulted with the Grand Council with regard to the basic content of the site and it’s design. Once we had done this, the build began. Alongside the development of the new website we have also been maintaining the existing one. This has included updates about the progress of the Reach The Heights project and developing the RTH section to accommodate the resources generated by the workshops. This means the legacy of the project will be available as widely as possible.

The communications team also gives technical support to the entire Funky Dragon staff both during normal working/office conditions and at residentials. The children’s website was incorporated into the main website during this period. It now has its own section rather than a separate site.

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We expanded our Youtube channel to accommodate both the increase in videos about our activities and the changes to the website. We will no longer be hosting video content on our own server so everything will have to be uploaded to the youtube channel.

Twitter became more of a feature this year with most staff developing their own twitter profiles. This has enabled them to tweet from events and workshops as they happen.

This helped us develop our twitter strategy of reaching as wide an audience as possible.

By widening our twitter profile we have also been able to integrate its use with our Welsh Language Scheme.

In the build up to the 10 year celebration we developed a Funky Dragon facebook profile.

(Funkydragon Wales). This was set up specifically to contact people for the 10 year event.

The intention was that we would let it run until the event and then review it for effectiveness and safety. We discovered that it was extremely useful for contacting Grand Council members and for setting up online groups for specific lines of work, eg current Grand Council, FUNC group, the Management committee group etc.

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We constantly reviewed the settings of the profile to make it as safe for young people as possible and to make it comply with our own IT policy. We now make sure that the news feeds from young people do not appear on our news section to protect their privacy and to prevent any potentially problematic material being viewed on work PCs. For the time being we have decided to keep the profile and monitor its effectiveness.

In addition to the facebook profile we also developed a facebook page. This is linked to our twitter account and contains more general information about our activities. The profile allows us to interact with individuals whereas the page is more of a one way presentation of what we are up to in real time. The page also has a greater reach in terms of the number of people who can see it.

Survey Monkey has also been used extensively for the FUNC survey as well as to record and analyse data collected during workshops. Other surveys we have carried out are our national survey around the Grand Council priorities for the year, the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Education survey and ones for local projects as part of the Little Voice Big Choices project. It’s use as an analytical tool has been as valuable as for running surveys.

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STAFF TRAINING Training First Aid at work, St Johns – Nicola (August 2012) Prevent training, Extreme Behaviours and Terrorism, South Wales Police – All South Wales Staff (September 2012) Prevent training, Extreme Behaviours and Terrorism, North Wales Police – All North Wales Staff (January 2013) Strategic Management, National Training – Kirsten (March 2013) Minute taking, SCVS – Melvyn and Nicola (March 2013) Accounting basics, SCVS – Melvyn (March 2013) PHP and MySQL for web development – Melvyn Introduction to social media, Native HQ – All staff (May 2013) Policy and Influencing Government, Mike Lewis – All Staff (May 2013) On-going child protection training twice annually – All staff

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FINANCIAL STATEMENT STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2013 Unrestricted funds INCOMING RESOURCES Incoming Resources from generated funds Activites for generating funds Investment income Incoming resources from charitable activities Charitable

Restricted funds

11,580 35

Total funds 11,580 35

418,000 _______ 429,615 _______

521,569 _______ 521,569 _______

939,569 _______ 951,184 _______

521,877

Total Resources expended

461,947 31,285 9,058 _______ 502,290 _______

_______ 521,877 _______

983,824 31,285 9,058 _________ 1,024,167 _________

RESOURCES

(72,675)

(308)

(72,983)

Total incoming resources RESOURCES EXPENDED Charitable activities Charitable Support Costs Governance costs

RECONCILIATION OF FUNDS Total funds brought forward TOTAL FUNDS CARRIED FORWARD

351,640 _______ 278,965 _______

6,979 _______ 6,671 _______

385,619 _______ 285,636 _______

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TRUSTEES AND STAFF FUNKY DRAGON MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE Director

Position held

Appointed

Resigned

Sean O’Neill Tara-Joy Baines Bryn Thomas Ann Crowley Helen Mary Jones Tom Turner Jamie Davies Catherine Jones Alex Atkins Dan Boughton Sophie Wilding Guto Davies Josh Heseltine-Smith Fern Price

Chair Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Chair Trustee Trustee

29/07/2008 26/10/2011 26/10/2011 16/09/2012 11/07/2013 20/07/2010 25/06/2012 25/06/2012 11/07/2013 11/07/2013 11/07/2013 26/10/2011 25/06/2013 25/06/2013

11/07/2013 11/07/2013 11/07/2013

Under 16 Advisory Board

Elected

Resigned

Matthew Walker Ben Young Jessica Peters Thomas Williams

11/07/2013 11/07/2013 26/10/2011 26/10/2011

11/07/2013 11/07/2013

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Staff Darren Bird Melvyn Williams Kirsten Buchanan Nicola Williams Kelly Bending Siwan Davies Lauren Evans Aaron Davies Arwyn Roberts Helen Cubberley Ian Thomas Anna Bowyer

CEO Communications and Corporate Services Manager Development Manager Office Co-ordinator South Wales Young People’s Development Worker North Wales Young People’s Development Worker South Wales Sustainable Development and Climate Change Development Worker North Wales Sustainable Development and Climate Change Development Worker North Wales Children’s Development Worker South Wales Children’s Development Worker South Wales Young People’s Development Worker (resigned January 2013) South Wales Young People’s Development Worker (resigned May 2013)

Redundancies March 2013 Rachel Penman Victoria Bancroft Melanie Blake Christina Jenkins Alison Williams Tam Church Doc (David Hughes)

Deputy CEO South Wales Development Manager Core Development Manager (Company Secretary) ESF Co-ordinator North Wales Administrator (appointed June 2012) Website Development Worker North Wales Young People’s Development Worker

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CONTACTS

SOUTH WALES

NORTH WALES

Funky Dragon 1st floor, 8 Castle Square, Swansea, SA1 1DW Tel: 01792 450000 Fax: 01792 450005

Funky Dragon 9 Wynnstay Road, Colwyn Bay, Conwy, LL29 8NB Tel: 01492 532005

enquiries@funkydragon.org www.funkydragon.org www.twitter.com/funkythedragon

Funky Dragon is a Company limited by guarantee.

Registered in England and Wales company number 4468384.

Registered charity number 1103806.

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FORUM PAGES This year we requested information from the local authority wide youth forums, regarding activities they had carried out relating to Funky Dragon. The following pages contain the reports from the forums who responded.

Caerphilly Youth Forum In the last year Caerphilly have led surveys locally to feed into Funky Dragon National Priorities. The surveys were completed across Youth Centres and Youth projects in the Borough.

In July we held elections for a new Funky Dragon Representative for the borough. The Forum currently has 3 reps on Funky Dragon, who have attended various Funky Dragon events throughout the year.

In September 2012 the Funky Dragon reps along with another Youth Forum rep attended a 5 day Conference in Caerphilly’s twinning town, Ludwigsburg, Germany. The event was called Its Our Europe, where young people discussed issues which impact upon young people across Europe with guest delegates and MEP’s.

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In the last year Caerphilly Youth Forum have been very busy addressing two main priorities which have been:

Parks – They get vandalised and people smoke in them – Young people presented this issue to CCBC Cabinet and Scrutiny, requesting the improvement of parks and a smoking ban in children’s play areas. The council agreed and the ban was implemented in play grounds, education also implemented the ban at outside schools.

The Youth Forum Won an Ash Wales Award for their work as they were the 1st authority in Wales to achieve the ban. An outdoor gym has also been installed in the borough to give young people different equipment in parks, more suitable to their age.

Leisure Services - Developing a rewards system – The cost of leisure services was identified as a problem. The young people ask Cabinet to support a reward system, where people can be rewarded with free activities for regular attendance.

They agreed and set aside money for leisure to work with the forum to develop this system. This reward system is due to be launched this autumn. Young people also felt free swim should be for young people up to the age of 18, they wrote to the Sports Council Wales and Welsh Government who stated they did not have additional funding for this, however CCBC decided to support the young people’s idea and are offering free swim to under 18s rather than 16s this summer, as a pilot, if there is an increase in numbers swimming they will report back to Sport Council Wales and Government.

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Other things the Youth Forum have done this year: Facilitated Junior Forum Meetings. Youth Forum members have helped to facilitate 3 Junior Forum meetings over the past year where around 100 primary school children attend to raise issues for Youth Forum members to present to CCBC Cabinet and Scrutiny.

Trained more Young Inspectors. Caerphilly now has 20 young people trained as Young Inspectors. The team have been visiting youth projects and schools in the borough to raise awareness of the Participation Standards, and have awarded two Kite marks to a Voluntary Youth Centre and New and Expectant Parent Project.

They are due to inspect a Primary and Secondary school in the autumn along with the Youth4U editorial group and the Adventure Play Service.

St.Fagans Consultation – The reps have had on-going involvement in recent years of the 11.5 million development of St.Fagons. The young people have worked with architects and staff on what they need to do to ensure the museum is engaging for young people.

In May 16 young people Met MEP’s in Brussels to discuss issues raised in the Annual Youth Forum Conference and learn about European Parliament.

Members have attended British Youth Council training in London to learn about Campaigning and public speaking. Reps also collected votes across the borough for Make Your Mark 2012.

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Carmarthenshire It’s been a busy year for Carmarthenshire Youth Council (CYC) who are deeply committed to improving services for young people in Carmarthenshire’s by providing opportunities for their views and opinions to be listened to by decision makers and service providers.

Not only have they continued to champion young people’s issues they have had difficult decisions to make with regards to their own work, exploring ways in which they can operate better with a new restructure that would provide more young people with the opportunity to be involved in meaningful participation.

Developing Youth Forum SKILLS TRAINING RESIDENTIAL During August 2012 Carmarthenshire Youth Council organised and held their Annual Residential at Dan Y Coed Residential Centre, Mumbles. The main aim of the three day residential was to take part in Agored Cymru training on Developing Youth Forum Skills.

Sixteen members of the CYC successfully completed the training which provided an opportunity for all them to develop their knowledge and understating on the skills, roles and responsibilities of a youth forum, while building relationships in an informal environment.

But it wasn't all work and no play. CYC members took part in team building task as part of the training and had the chance to try out their surfing and climbing skills, which brought them as a council together and forged good working relationships.

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Let’s Talk P.S.E. In the Autumn CYC developing on the successes of past conference had the support of over 100 young people from across the county at their annual youth conference held at Parc y Scarlets, Llanelli. This year the theme was ‘Let’s Talk P.S.E.’ and all secondary schools and youth projects within the county had the opportunity attend.

The aim of this year’s conference was to gather the views and opinions of young people on the subject of P.S.E. and how it is being delivered in Carmarthenshire schools. P.S.E. and Citizenship is a curriculum area which is designed to give pupils the knowledge and understanding they need to lead healthy, independent lives and to become informed active and responsible citizens.

The purpose of the conference was to bring young people together to share their views, ideas and experiences and highlight them to decision makers and service providers.

Since the event CYC have been working on and have collated all the information the gathered into an interesting ‘Let’s Talk P.S.E. Conference Report. The report highlights 5 main recommendations that the Youth Council believe need to be enacted to ensure that the standard of PSE is of a high standard, for all pupils in the county.

Qualified Staff Equal Status Skills Based Training Structured Programme Involve Professionals.

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The report has been sent to School Councils, Youth Projects, Head Teachers, P.S.E Coordinators and Decisions Makers so that they consider the youth councils recommendations and work on them to make a difference to the experience of Carmarthenshire’s pupils and enforces the important role PSE plays in developing the appropriate skills that young people need to progress into the wider world.

Community INVOLVEMENT Members of the CYC took part in volunteering and community involvement training, organised and delivered in partnership by Carmarthenshire Council’s Youth Service and CAVS. The training involved learning about the different types of volunteering and the benefits of volunteering for both volunteers and the people and organisations they help.

As part of the training, the young people had to give up their own time and complete a series of voluntary work; this included organising events, attending and contributing to meetings, taking part in community and environmental projects, with the most recent helping out at the Longwood Community Woodland Project, making bird boxes for the local wildlife.

Following the training 28 young people who are involved with the work of the Participation Project and CYC are enrolled on the national Millennium Volunteers Programme which recognizes the importance of young people under 25 years who commit their free time to voluntary services.

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Pembrokeshire Since July 2012 the Youth Assembly and the Youth Councils/forums have a busy time working on lots of different projects to raise the profile of young people having a voice locally and nationally.

In relation to Pembrokeshire representation on Funky Dragon the Youth Assembly feeds back and gathers the opinions of the Youth Assembly, promoted Funky Dragon and the work that is carried out at every meeting. The representatives always promote any surveys that Funky Dragon have distributed and encourage young people to complete them.

This year the Grand Council elections were held in June at a Youth Assembly meeting, Pembrokeshire had one position to fill and three people stood for election, a new member of the Youth Assembly was successfully elected. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Kelly from Funky Dragon for attending the elections.

Locally the Grand Council representatives have had the opportunity to attend a selection of different training courses to provide them with skills to help them be effect representatives for Pembrokeshire.

Pembrokeshire representatives have had many opportunities to get involved with Funky Dragon activities since being elected on to Funky Dragon and through these it has helped the development locally of the Youth Assembly. The representatives attended many of the planning residentials, been part of the Children’s Commissioners group and been involved in the FUNC project. One of the representatives also attended the British Youth Council conference last November in London.

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In Pembrokeshire the Youth Assembly is made up of representatives from Community Youth Councils, Special Interest Youth Forums and School Councils. The Chair of the Youth Assembly Co-Chairs the local Children’s Rights group a sub group overseeing the Single Integrated Plan The Youth Assembly have recently been involved in recruiting for Head of Services in Pembrokeshire, this proved very beneficial for the County Council and the young people involved. For this we have now delivered an Interview Panel Training pack and this has been delivered to 15 young people.

In June the Youth Assembly met with the Local Health Boards Public and Patient engagement team. This gave the Youth Assembly representatives an opportunity to share their views on the services they receive. The young people also signed up to the Siarad Iechyd/Talking Health campaign which gives people a chance to have a say in how local health services are planned, developed and delivered.

The Youth Assembly has also been involved in consultations on: Estyn Post Inspection Plan Single Integrated Plan Local Participation and Advocacy review.

In Pembrokeshire we have 6 community Youth Councils and facilitate a number of Special Interest Forums.

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One Youth Council which has been partially successful this year is Milford Haven Youth Forum who have developed relationships with the Town Council and looked at ways that the two groups can work together. The Youth Council attended a full Town Council meeting to deliver a presentation on the Youth Council and what a Youth Council does from this meeting a Town Councillor regularly attends the Youth Council meetings and a working group has been developed between young people and Town Councillors to look at working on joint projects. In order for this to be sustainable the Youth Council developed a constitution for the group. The impact of this work is that through the Youth Council the young people of Milford Haven have a direct link to the Town Council which allows young people to influence change at a local level The young people identified a community project that would help bring different parts of the community together; they decided to capture Milford Haven for young people in 2013 by making a Time Capsule.

Quote from a Milford Haven Town Councillor Cllr Matthew Rickard “I can honestly say that working with the youth council has had a hugely positive effect on my time as a Town Councillor and has made me more determined to break down the barriers that stop the youth having a voice in our society. With their help and the help of like-minded others, I believe that we are well on the way to achieving this in Milford Haven.”

Young Voices for Choices – Youth Forum for Disabled young people Once again Young Voices for Choices have had a busy year and been involved in many exciting projects both locally and nationally. On a local level the Youth Forum has worked closely with PCC Equalities Office and work on the Equality Plan for Pembrokeshire. 3 representatives from the Youth Forum sit on the Dyfed Powys Police Equality and Confidence group and ensure that the views of the young people are being heard. The young people delivered a presentation to students in Pembrokeshire College about the group and what they have achieved.

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Young Voices is recognised as an example of good practice nationally and this is why we have been asked to be involved in many projects. In March 2012 Young Voices were asked by Disability Wales to take a lead on their Travel Challenge for the 40th Anniversary.

The “All Aboard” challenge involved 4 young people travelling across Wales using public transport – not an easy task!! When the young people returned they had the opportunity to speak directly to Arriva Wales and feedback both positive and negatives of their journey with the hope that this would make a difference for all disabled people across Wales.

The young people presented their findings at Disability Wales AGM. One member of the youth forum has now become a trustee on Learning Disability Wales.

For more Information on what’s been happening in Pembrokeshire please contact Nadine Farmer on Nadine.farmer@pembrokeshire.gov.uk

Powys Powys Youth Forum is made of elected or nominated young people from across Powys.

Members are drawn from High School Councils, Young Carers, Coleg Powys, YFC, Junior Local Safeguarding Board, Home Educated, Youth Clubs, young apprentices and young people in work. We also have young people who are now away at university, in sixth form or college outside Powys and a county councillor. In total we have 37 young people aged between 13 and 22. The forum meets 4 times a year at residentials at which an average of 23 young people attend. The geographical area covered by Powys makes shorter more regular meetings unfeasible. We have focus groups for specific pieces of work through out the year and the young people also attend meetings with the CYPP and the County Councillors. Schools and youth groups are invited to send representatives in the Autumn of each year, we recommend these young people stay for a minimum of two years in order to gain an understanding of the work and benefit from being involved. After this time some members, especially those involved in projects, stay on as peer mentors for new members.

This system works well as it provides continuity, however we do have to manage the numbers carefully.

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The forum sits in the CYPP and is funded from the core budget. The CYPP has three part time Youth Participation Officers and part of their work is to facilitate and support the forum.

Current Projects Powys Youth Forum, like many youth forums, spend much of their time being consulted by a range of organisations both statutory and voluntary so each year the forum choose issues they feel are important to young people in Powys.

Forum members have identified Mental Health and Well Being as a priority for them to work on over the next year. This includes looking at a training programme similar to the Youth Mental Health First Aid but for young people. They feel there is a need for young people to have a better understanding of the wide range of issues and know how to help each other.

As a result of meeting the Participation Officer from the Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations they have been asked to take part in the Stronger in Partnership Mental Health conference, in Llandrindod Wells in September. Powys Youth Forum members are working with a theatre company to produce and run a workshop highlighting young people’s issues.

Transport has always been an issue for everyone living in Powys. The Cabinet of Powys County Council has asked the forum to help them make the case for the importance of funding rural transport. The forum will be working on ways of asking young people for their views and experiences, and hope to include this in the Powys One Plan.

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Vale of Glamorgan Youth Forum Volunteering Opportunities Votes at 16 Debate @ Senedd The chairperson of the Vale Youth Forum young members meetings had the opportunity to speak to Assembly Members at the National Assembly for Wales offices in Cardiff (The Senedd) about her thoughts on extending voting rights to 16 year olds.

Funky Dragon AGM and Residential in Bangor Funky Dragon is the Children and Young People’s Assembly for Wales it makes sure that the views of children and young people are heard at national level. Each year they hold an Annual General Meeting and a Residential where four young representatives from each local authority area meet up. The Vale Youth Forum is the conduit to elect the young people to Funky Dragon. Four young people attended the three day AGM and Residential in Bangor supported by the VYF Coordinator.

Funky Dragon Training - Being an effective representative Seven VYF reps attended a training away day in Atlantic College on the Funky Dragon Being an effective Representative Course. The young people learned about the difference between Rights/Privileges with regards to the UNCRC - United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. What Youth Participation is and about Consultations.

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November 2012 VYF Members Meeting – FUNC Research The VYF members took part in the Funky Dragon - FUNC Research Project and YP ran a Workshop) (14 Reps).

Funky Dragon 10yr Celebration Event @ Senydd Three VYF reps met with Keith Towler the Children’s Commissioner at the Funky Dragon 10yr Celebration Event in Cardiff Bay.

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APPENDICES Appendix 1: Key changes and outcomes in the new work plan include: Activity Focus on Key issues for Young People in Wales.

Tasks

Outcomes

Develop a consultation available to children and young people across Wales to find out what their main issues of concern are – promoting this via twitter, website, to young people’s organisations, schools, groups and at events.

Children and Young People from across Wales have an increased opportunity to input into the work of Funky Dragon.

Attend relevant Network meetings and schedule policy checks in portfolio areas.

Staff up to date with key developments in portfolio areas.

Input into participation work for Children and young people’s mental health service in Betsi Cadwalader Health Board.

Funky Dragon acts on the young people’s priority issues and supports the development of participation within public services.

Education Survey.

Recommendations in the Education Portfolio are supported by further data.

Training for young people at residentials to support action on priority issues.

Increased volume of work on main priorities.

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Activity Closer working relationships with forums.

Skills Training for young people to take issues forward.

Tasks

Outcomes

Attend 1 meeting per ¼ with all forums.

Improved communication and shared working between Forums and Funky Dragon.

Hold regional forum worker’s meetings.

Support development of broad representation on LA forums.

Forums to have an opportunity to input questions into FD priority survey and opportunity to access results via county breakdown.

Local Authorities able to access useful data on young people’s opinions in their area.

Forums have opportunity to input into Funky Dragon Annual Report.

Work of forums more widely promoted.

Youth representation, social media training for young people.

Issues worked on by Young People more effectively.

Achievement Folder created including recording of soft outcomes achieved and distance travelled by young people.

Achievements made by young people more easily demonstrated.

Grand Council members on work placement and Volunteer role started to support Environment Portfolio.

Work on Environment Portfolio improved.

Additional experience for Volunteers’ CV.

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Activity Promotion, Social Media + Website.

Engagement with young people, professionals and organisations outside of GC.

Tasks

Outcomes

Eisteddfod.

Increased awareness of work of Funky Dragon with Wider Welsh speaking Public.

Children as Actors (for the Transformation of Society conference).

Increased awareness of work of Funky Dragon in other nations and with international organisations.

Website Training, Social media training.

Staff are skilled to support the new work.

Twitter.

Increased awareness of work of Funky Dragon with Wider Public.

Develop good working relationships with other key groups and organisations via: Twitter Priority survey Network Meetings.

More young people know about and have input into the work of Funky Dragon.

The work of Funky Dragon is strengthened by relationships with other organisations and networks.

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Activity Key Partners:

Training for Staff to support new work.

Tasks

Outcomes

Children’s Commissioner – steering group of young people hold 1/4ly meetings with the commissioner and work is undertaken at residentials.

Work of commissioner is accountable to young people.

Welsh Language Commissioner steering group of young people hold 1/4ly meetings with the commissioner and work is undertaken at residentials.

Work of commissioner is accountable to young people.

UK Young Ambassador’s Project in partnership with: Scottish Youth Parliament, Northern Ireland Youth Forum, British Youth Council Consultations and sessions held at each residential.

UK youth representation includes the voices and opinions of young people from across the 4 nations.

Social Media Training, how to influence government, website training.

Staff are skilled to support the new work plan.

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