Positive stories september 2014

Youth Voice: Positive Stories September 2014 2014

Brtish Youth Council members at the Annual Council Meeting in Sheffield

Youth Voice: Positive Stories A report by youth representatives and the workers that support them September 2014 Welcome to the September 2014 edition of Positive Stories. Our format reflects part of our commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child Article 13 - Freedom of expression ‘Every child must be free to say what they think and to seek and receive all kinds of information, as long as it is within the law,’ (UNICEF UK).

The British Youth Council will share this report regionally and nationally, with local councillors and MPs, and certain media outlets, in order to raise the profile of the fantastic local work that we know is happening every day.

The case studies and stories of the work of young people in their local communities are reproduced here in their own words. If you would like to find out more about one of the projects you read about in this report, please email: mail@byc.org.uk The online survey remains open and we produce reports once a month, providing young people the opportunity to shout about the great work they have been doing in their local areas during the previous month. Previous reports are available online: http://www.byc.org.uk/ukwork/youth-voice The British Youth Council would like to thank all the workers and young people who took the time to promote and complete September’s survey and we look forward to hearing more from everyone over the coming months.

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Contents Young People’s Stories East Midlands East of England London North East

4 7 11 19

North West South East

23 32

South West West Midlands Yorkshire and Humber Northern Ireland Scotland Wales

34 41 46 60 61 67

Support Worker Stories East Midlands North East Yorkshire and Humber

71 72 73

3

Young People’s Stories

East Midlands Derbyshire Lucy Boardman, 15, Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor Make Your Mark is now well under way and I have been very busy trying to get the message out there and getting as many young people involved as possible. So far I have distributed and collected one local school's ballot papers and am in the process of organising school assemblies and presentations with another two local schools in my area. I have sent ballot papers to my local army cadets, air cadets and guides groups and I have recently been writing to my local newspaper and they have agreed to let me write a guest article all about the UKYP and the work that we do involving Make Your Mark. My local radio station has also agreed to let me go to their studio and prerecord a discussion about the UKYP and Make Your Mark which I hope will be a great opportunity to get the message out there and raise the profile of the work we do as a part of the UKYP. Rachel Wibberley, 15, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor Since joining the UK youth parliament I've been trying to make people, particularly young people, more aware of who we are and what we do. I think that there needs to be more awareness in the media about UKYP and BYC and all of the fantastic inspiring things we all do on behalf of young people and just how passionate we are about making positive changes for the future! So, I decided to email my local newspaper because I wanted people in my area to know who their MYPs are and what we do. After emailing the Derby telegraph with details about what we do and who we are as well as why everyone NEEDS to vote in make your mark I received a reply asking me to write a 1000 word article about UKYP ready for the following Mondays paper. I was so excited to get the opportunity to express my thoughts about youth democracy, make your mark and UKYP I got straight to it, and a 1000 word article including a section about make your mark was sent off for printing with some wonderful pictures from annual sitting! It was in my local paper, the Derby telegraph, the following Monday and I urged all the young people in my area to go and buy a copy! Hopefully this will have raised awareness of UKYP and make your mark.

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Leicestershire Rina Roy, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been one of the busiest month due to Make Your Mark Campaign. I've tried getting all schools and colleges involved in Make Your Mark and Nicky Morgan had also helped me get across all schools and colleges in Charnwood Borough to be part of this amazing campaign. I've got some of the schools and colleges involved in Charnwood Borough, and I really appreciate all the schools and colleges that have given young people the voice to express their feeling. I also got youth groups/clubs involved like NCS and Charnwood youth council and I have e-mailed other youth groups to get involved. When I was promoting National Citizen service, I also did make your mark in Loughborough mela. I have also done assembly at Limehurst Academy which has been great and young people were very interested. I have couple more assemblies to do at Charnwood College, Hind Leys Community College. Then I have Loughborough College, Wreake Vally Academy and The Roundhill Academy. After doing one school and going around Loughborough town I have gained 1000 votes. The most popular vote has been "work experience and Everyone should be paid at least the living wage of ÂŁ7.65 per hour", it's going to be very interesting turnout.

Daria Eckert, 13, Member of Youth Parliament When I got back to school at the beginning of the year I applied to become house captain for my house . In my application I talked about all the thing I was doing will the British Youth Council; being a MYP, going to meeting, doing Make Your Mark etc. As well as The things I was doing inside of school for instance I am on the peer support team and was on the student council. Being a MYP has taught me great skill I can use anywhere and it is a wonderful experience for me. So after I had written an application and gone to an interview I was chosen to be a house captain.

Member of Youth Parliament This month has definitely been busy so here comes the Positive Story (for this month and last month)... as expected, the Annual Sitting was thoroughly enjoyable and immensely worthwhile. It enabled me to network with vast amounts of young people and found the opportunity to discuss ideas and campaigns with others very valuable. I was Debate Lead for the motion of increased coverage of women's sport, so was understandably delighted when the motion was passed! Returning home from Lancaster, full of motivation, I took the first few steps of beginning a campaign. The idea is to improve community relationships within and surrounding my local district, through the volunteer work of young people in care homes. A group of young people will visit care homes and help the residents become more accustomed with mobile phones, explaining the aspects of mobiles the residents struggle with most. Also, now my project has been granted funding, we will run a drop in centre in the local area, therefore reaching out to more people. This will help destroy negative stereotypes, promote 5

community cohesion and hopefully be universally beneficial for all. Finally, to mark the centenary of World War 1, my local parish council had organised a memorial event, allowing the village to gather together to remember those who died. As the local Member of Youth Parliament, I was asked to read a poem at the event - something which I found an absolute privilege! It was great to be involved.

Lincolnshire Georgina Hands, 16, Member of Youth Parliament On Wednesday 17th September I had an interview with BBC Radio Lincolnshire focusing on votes at 16, due to the momentum caused by the Scottish referendum. I tried to bring to attention the work the UK Youth Parliament have been doing on this issue, since it being voted as the national campaign last year. I also spoke of young people participating in politics, and urged for the views of young people to be taken more seriously.

Vertical Challenge at PGL with some of Youth Cabinet:

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East of England Essex Jakub Makowski, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month has been crazed by Make Your Mark. Getting into school, clubs, cadets associations, and youth clubs was not effortless as usual.

Perhaps a very positive thing about MYM this year is the huge involvement of my local Youth Strategy Group. It is an Essex County Council body which consists of County and Borough councillors as well as other professionals that are involved in youth groups. This year they have supported me and helped me to get direct contacts to individuals.

I hope we will see effects of their involvement and help in our Make Your Mark results.

Hertfordshire Ahmed Al-Maadanli, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Well from chaos to one of the most interesting and exciting time throughout being with UKYP. On getting a quick email at about 2:30 telling me I was going to be on the radio in 2 hours I had no idea what to do let alone what to say!! However after getting my head round a few things and making a few phone calls of sheer panic to people I was confident, then came the embarrassing calls to my family to tell them I would be on.

As this has been my first ever radio interview I was extremely nervous even though I had been told what was about to happen and when I was on the phone talking i was pacing up and down the living room. I was interviewed on the topic about young people not being prepared enough for work which came out of a report. I tried to show the work that UKYP has done with the curriculum for life campaign and MYM with as much passion as possible.

After I had finished the interview people had written in complimenting the youth parliament on their work, It shows if we really publicise our selves we can achieve great things.

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Emma Flude, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Since our first meeting last year, Chorleywood Youth Council members have aspired to putting on a music event for young people in our area. We hope that it will help engage teenagers more in the community, and encourage them to get involved.

After months of research and the difficult task of finding funding for the project, we were offered ÂŁ300 by O2 Think Big to run the event.

With the date set and venue hired our project is well and truly underway! It will be called CASA (Chorleywood and surrounding areas) Rocks, and will see singers and bands play for the chance to be voted the audience's favourite and win a slot at a local recording studio.

Something really important we had to consider was the safety aspect, but fortunately Youth Connexions who are supporting us helped organise those aspects.

We're really excited, and hope to see as many 11-18 year olds as possible there! It will be a really enjoyable event and we hope this will be the first of many youth council projects to come in our area!

Nia Powell, 13, Member of Youth Parliament On the 5th September, I went to see my local MP, Mr Prisk. The meeting started off by discussing what I did within my role in the Youth Parliament, and then we talked about the manifesto Herts UKYP write, using evidence from the surveys we collect earlier in the year, to show what young people want. I then asked Mr Prisk if he would come into my school and answer questions from the students about what he does, and how Parliament works. He agreed, and so we are now in the process of arranging a date for the meeting!

Reece Browne, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I love being an MYP, I am so passionate about all the work we do.

Becoming an MYP is a great process, I went to a husting event and recorded a one and a half minute video and a still was also taken from the video. I also had to write a small description (I had already written a very long one so it took a while to wilt down). Unfortunately at the time I was not elected and of course it saddened me. Six months later an MYP unfortunately had to step down I was offered the position and of course I accepted.

Being an MYP is all about talking to young people and looking at ballots that young people filled out and then figuring out what young people want most and trying to make that happen. It is amazing being an MYP because you get to work with some fantastic young people and work together, you make friends with them after a short while. Everyone has great opinions and while we do of course concentrate on the work we sneak a laugh in every once in a while. I can 8

say without doubt that so far my experience has been positive and I am certain it will continue to only get better.

Norfolk Emily Fox, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have done quite a lot of things to do with youth! Firstly, I planned and helped to run a summer activity programme with my local Youth Forum, Dereham Youth Forum! This was directed at 13-17yrs of age mainly however young people in Dereham and surrounding areas were welcomed if they were 11-18yrs old.

We managed to get a good amount of young people involved, and the key aim of the project was to reduce the amount of antisocial behaviour. We had a BBQ to celebrate the achievements of the young people who took part in the social action projects, it was a success!

Secondly, I have been working on a campaign to make transport free for those 16-18yrs old in education, employment or training, as it necessary. It is called No Fee For FE and I have been contacted by people in other parts of the country with the same view as me! I created a petition and would love to get more signatures.

Finally, I've been working on Make Your Mark. In Norfolk, we have sent tally sheets to all 54 (approx) schools in Norfolk to get them involved and to take part! Also for my school, I made packs including ballot papers and info & instructions sheet and I played a video about MYM in two assemblies.

Kieren Buxton, Member of Youth Parliament For the past few months, I have been working closely with Children Services in Norfolk County Council to help write and complete the Involvement Strategy. This is a written document by the Children Services team, councillors and young people to enhance the participation of young people across Norfolk within Children Services and the Council. This has given me further good connections with members of the council in my constituency and across Norfolk.

Within Norfolk Youth Parliament this month, we have been discussing the actions we will take in Make Your Mark and the most successful ways of enhancing the chance of young people voting. We achieved a phenomenal 37,000+ votes in the elections for our MYPs and now we hope to replicate a similar figure in Make Your Mark! We have been spreading the word to young people across Norfolk posting out one of the ten topics each day through social media and contacting schools making them aware about Make Your Mark.

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Suffolk Erika Spall, Member of Youth Parliament This month again I've concentrated on make your mark. I've had several meetings , including with a headteacher. Getting as many schools involved as its a big opportunity not to miss out on. I'm also meeting with a women called Nicky to consult with about size well C . Finally I'm heading over to the guide hut as I've been asked to speak about Youth Parliament and what a great opportunity that is to.

Liam Jackson, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The biggest success seen this month has been the East Suffolk Partnership Presentation a group of youth organisations including Suffolk UKYP (Michael and I) took part in. The presentation was regarding youth engagement in the East Suffolk area. I covered the issue of a lack of a sufficient curriculum, especially PSHE, and linked this into our campaign of 'curriculum for life'. This raised our profile for the organisation, and of course the young people we represent.

We were offered (along with the other organisations) a place on the board as a united force for young people, that has council leaders, business leaders and other people with power.

Secondly is the progress with Make Your Mark. I am currently feeding back results from one local school, and meeting with two others to get the consultation going before the deadline.

Michael Meredith, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I have recently been doing the make your Mark campaign, by talking to various schools. I took part in a presentation to the ESP, where I discussed youth views and issues with public transport.

Natasha Graves, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month I've hosted 7 assemblies, gaining about 1700 votes for make your mark, I also attended an NCS graduation and explained what youth parliament and make your mark are to young people across Suffolk and received about 140 votes. I've contacted every school in Ipswich regarding Make Your Mark so will hopefully be able to squeeze in some ballots. I also received a letter from Ben Gummer MP pledging his support for Make Your Mark.

I have also met with my head of PSHE and we reviewed our school's PSHE system, she will also be sending me the results of a youth survey regarding my school's PSHE system.

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London Barking and Dagenham Faraz Hanif, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Me and Stephen Bible Scholar Abordo have been working on getting our make your mark ballots signed. We have given the ballot papers into all schools in the borough and youth clubs.

We've also given out some ballots to the local youth council so that they can help us out.

Barnet Emily Otvos, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament So far this month, I have had lots of meetings regarding the Teenage Mental Health app that I am trying to create, with app developers and mental health charities. I am currently in the process of fundraising so I can actually make my project happen, as well as collecting information from CAMHS and young people to go in the app.

Nikhil Malkan, Member of Youth Parliament I have worked with my local school in regards to Make Your Mark, giving assemblies to each year, informing them about MYM and getting their support. I have given out ballot papers to students and teachers within the school and ballots papers have also been sent to all youth forums within Barnet, so hopefully we get a great turnout. In addition, as part of my personal project for UKYP in my borough, I have produced a 'Guide to Work Experience' for young people to inform them about all of the work experience opportunities available to them in a variety of industries in and around London. The guide also includes general advice on finding work experience and advice on writing CV's and cover letters to better equip young people with the skills and knowledge they need. I have been into schools promoting the guide which is due to be released online in a weeks time. It will be available online on the participating school websites, in addition to our Barnet UKYP site. I am also planning to set up my own website in relation to the promotion of work experience and informing young people about their career options

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Brent Hamza King, Member of Youth Parliament In Brent, last Saturday NCS did their campaigns. My group was involved in creating awareness about the issue of mental health. We got a lot of positive feedback from members of the public and we able to hand out hundreds of leaflets and badges explaining some of the issues and providing information on how members of the public could get involved in helping people with mental health (volunteering). Along with this I know other groups were doing 'smile london' and other campaigns to make a positive difference in their community!

Camden Hannah Morris, 15, Member of Youth Parliament Got 100 ballots signed on the way to school today with a youth council rep and have for a college with 2500 16-18 year olds attending to participate in Make Your Mark.

Croydon Bethany Monk, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I have been working on promoting mym in Croydon. Getting the youth councillors and the councillors on board with mym.

Ealing Ash Madhani, Member of Youth Parliament In Ealing, I have got in touch with my school and other schools in the borough to promote MYM and have handed out ballots to them. Furthermore, I have encouraged my friends to vote online through Facebook and will follow this up with them. We are aiming to also promote MYM in our local community by possibly attending youth events to increase youth participation in the area. Besides this, in August, me and other MYPs did a photo-shoot and a meet and greet session with the Minister for Civil Society - Brooks Newmark, so as to gain support for MYM from important political figures and to promote it further. The session was successful in communicating the aims of UKYP for MYM this year (1 million ballots) and how we will possibly go about doing so.

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Pervin Kaur, Member of Youth Parliament In Ealing, we have got most of the schools in our borough to get on board with MYM and have collected ballots from them. We have emailed our MPs and got in touch with the local press.

We have spread the word around the borough through youth councillors. Fortunately, we got a sponsor who is interested with MYM and has given us a generous donation to help us. We are also hoping to spread the word through a youth trust board meeting involving school head teachers, police officers, NHS staff etc. and hope they get on board.

Greenwich Chloe Toland, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament In Greenwich Kim and Rashedaa have been doing an amazing job of handing our ballots and at corelli I have been doing assembly's about the mym campaign Kim Emenike, Member of Youth Parliament Myself and Rasheeda Page-Muir have been handing out mym ballots in different Greenwich organisations that involve young people, such as; youth centres, churches,schools and NCS groups.

Hackney Gavin Alexander, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I've organised a meeting with Meg Hillier to discuss MYM and get its last days advertised around Hackney. I also am currently going into school assemblies and getting people to sign ballot papers.

Ife Grillo, Member of Youth Parliament In addition for Hackney, the elections for Hackney Youth Parliament are about to start and this week I'll be chairing the hustings for all the candidates. It's been great working with the old Hackney Youth Parliament and members, this year we're hoping to double the turnouts of when I was in office!"

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Hammersmith and Fulham Fred Gill, London UKYP Procedures Group Representative At the beginning of this month I attended the British Youth Council ACM, during this time I voted on trustees and manifesto points to be added. As well as that I attended Harrow Youth Parliament to see how things were doing. It was an honour to attended and I got see some elections to panel leaders, as well as the attendees to the next convention. Thanks again to the execs of HYP I had an amazing time.

Rahima Begum, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Last Thursday, we had our first BYF session after coming back from holiday, we had a discussion on we were going to become an elected parliament instead of a youth forum , we also discussed how many ballots we were trying to get, and also the best ways to approach young people and how to get into schools and assembly's.

Haringey Daniel Njoku, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Haringey alongside many other local authorities/ regions involved in the UK youth parliament around the united kingdom have been collecting ballots from young people to gain their opinions about what the following UKYP years campaign will be. In my college and other schools, I got the young people to discuss the most important issues to them and what was most important to them from the 15 motions chosen by their youth reps. I gained insight into what the young people that I represented, true opinions were and what they thought of the motions put forward. This will allow me to plan ahead for future youth council related events and campaigns for the young people in Haringey and further- nationwide.

Joe Hopkins, Member of Youth Parliament Haringey have got the youth council on board to target as many schools and youth groups across the borough as possible and we are beginning to plan for upcoming elections

Harrow Zak Wagman, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month, I have been promoting the Make Your Mark campaign. At the start of the month, some other Harrow Youth Parliament members and I were out at the St George’s and St Anne’s Centres in Harrow, canvassing for voters, and amassed approximately 400 votes to start off our 14

campaign. We have been promoting MYM in HYP, and have been receiving fantastic plans and a wealth of enthusiasm from our members. I have also met with local MPs Bob Blackman and Nick Hurd, in Harrow and Westminster respectively, to discuss HYP, MYM and youth political involvement and engagement. These have been productive and exciting meetings. I am now looking forward to the climax and culmination of HYP’s push for our high target for Make Your Mark.

Hillingdon Courtney Thompson, Member of Youth Parliament Hillingdon have emailed all the schools in the borough and have asked permission to present a make your mark presentation created by myself. We are also looking into getting a stool at the local street fair. I have visited the local drama group and managed to deliver two presentations there. Our youth council have all received their ballots and have gone around to various form groups. We will be visiting 7 schools next week so far as some have not replied Katie Turner, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Representation is the very core of UK Youth Parliament, we are part of an organization which strives to fairly and accurately represent every single young person in this country. Our ‘Make Your Mark’ campaign is the perfect opportunity for us to hear the great variety of opinions amongst our friends, family, peers and any young person in the UK. As you should be aware the Make Your Mark aim is to get around 1 million responses, although this number seems very high, it is still very much achievable, as we have proved in as during past couple of years UKYP have continuously doubled the number of ballot papers collected, and there is no reason why this year should be any different!

In a meeting I had earlier today with my youth worker and the MYP’s from my borough we discussed the methods which we believe will enable us to speak to as many young people as possible and get their opinion on which out of the 10 topics they think are most important. We believe that every young person should be heard and have the opportunity to have their say in what we Each member of Youth Council and Younger Members have been given 20 ballot papers to distribute in their schools, they are welcome to have more if they want and will use them!! Also we will be going with our youth worker to many different school assemblies to inform the students of the work we do and urge them to get involved, firstly by voting! Over the next two weeks we will be working hard collecting as many ballot papers as possible and ensuring that young people are aware of the great work UKYP are doing. Good luck to everyone

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Serife Gunal, Member of Youth Parliament In Hillingdon we have got all of our youth council members on board with mym. We are hoping to take full advantage of the upcoming Hillingdon street fest to make sure we reach as many of our young people with mym ballots as possible - plus it is a good way for our youth council members to promote youth voice in our local community and have a good day out!

Islington Tanjina Uddin, Youth Councillor I’ve just started my A-levels at College. I’m studying Biology, Chemistry and Maths.

Starting college has been a great experience because I’ve met loads of new people but I am still in contact with my secondary school friends and am an active youth councillor.

After college I’d like to go to university and study medical sciences. However, I know it’s really hard for a lot of young people out there who are struggling to find courses they like or work that is suitable for them.

One of the youth council’s priorities is education planning and employment, and we are trying to support young people who may not be sure what to do next. One of the things we have done is to submit a report to the Employment Commission. This report includes case studies of our experiences relating to careers information advice and guidance and recommendations on how high quality careers guidance can support young people to make successful transitions whether it is choosing their options in Year 9, helping to find work experience and post 16 transitions into education employment and training.

One thing that I love about being on the youth council is that I’m able to share my experiences about careers advice with the leader of the council Cllr Richard Watts and with Cllr Calouri who is the Lead Member for Children and Families.

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Redbridge Sabah Mohammed, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Redbridge have been extremely busy in trying to make MYM popular in the borough. The youth council members have been given ballots and have taken these in to their schools, a PowerPoint has been made and we have even made a video.

During the summer, members of the youth council, young cabinet, MYPs and DMYPs used new equipment to make a video for make your mark. This was our first video that we made and we hope to use these in assemblies to show all students what the make your mark campaign is, the ten priorities, and what the significance of voting is. The video can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqQCx984hAI. Personally, I have completed 1300 ballot papers, and as a whole, Redbridge has completed approximately 2500 ballots. We are hoping to achieve if not exceed our (approx) 4800 target.

It has been a great experience for us as we have had to work under certain time constraints and we have also learnt and developed skills such as campaigning and public speaking.

Wandsworth Wandsworth Youth Council So much for a sluggish September, this month the Wandsworth Youth Council has been as busy as popcorn on a skittle. Some of our youth voice escapades include: BYC Annual Council Meeting Where we:   

Debated the Manifesto, defended and voted through our two motions Elected this years Board of Trustees Elected BYC's Honorary Presidents

Funding Factory We delivered a funding factory for young people in Clapham Junction at Providence House to support and help develop their funding ideas for this round of the Youth Opportunity Fund. #showmethemoney The MOPAC Roadshow

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The Youth Council alongside senior Metropolitan Police officers and Councilor Cook, (Deputy Leader of Wandsworth Council and Chair of the Wandsworth Safer Neighbourhood Board), attended this year MOPAC Roadshow in Wandsworth. This was our opportunity to grill key decision makers, talk about local policing and gain an insight into to how our London borough is putting the Police and Crime Plan into practice.

To top it all off, we have been asked to meet the Borough Commander who is seeking our views on crime issues affecting young people. #watchthisspace Youth Enterprise Summit Agenda We spent the day with a wealth of practitioners all looking at ways to help young people gain a taste of the world of work and get inspired to run their own business. We made useful connections and gathered information, for the future betterment of our local young people.

Follow us @WBCYouthCouncil (Twitter) or @Wandsworth Youth Council (Facebook)

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North East Gateshead Matthew Spry, Member of Youth Parliament I and the Gateshead Youth Assembly have been busy collecting Make Your Mark ballots. I have stacks of ballots returned from 3 Gateshead schools, which I haven't counted yet, with 3 more schools' ballots to come in by the end of the week. Gateshead should be well above its MYM target by the weekend.

As MYP and vice-chair of Gateshead Youth Assembly, I recently co-hosted a Smoking Symposium with teachers, councillors, NHS staff and NHS Gateshead's Chief Executive about a survey GYA conducted about smoking and the perceptions of it among young people. From this event we formed strategies for schools and health services to reduce the number of young people who start smoking. Each adult went away having made and signed a pledge to develop these strategies, which will be fed back in six months to ensure they have stuck to their commitment.

Hartlepool Shay Miah, Member of Youth Parliament Hartlepool Youth parliament have been really busy since the launch of make your in early August! Our aim is to get 7000 young people’s voice heard in Hartlepool. We've been going around to schools handing ballot papers out, giving lectures, assemblies, emails. We are confident that we can achieve if not beat our target of 7000 ballot papers completed by young people! We have so far got 4000 ballot papers completed with more to come for schools!

Alongside make your mark Hartlepool participation team have events to get schools and colleges involved in democracy week in October. Working with the ceremonial mayor and the council to show and tell young people all about democracy and get a debate going!

Furthermore Hartlepool education commission have involved young people on how to improve our schools- the report went in last week which curriculum for life (C4L) came up quite a lot as it favoured by the local authority and head teachers so hopefully in January 2015 C4L should be in place for young people in Hartlepool.

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South Tyneside Youth Councillor FAB Group BBC Radio Interview Following the success of receiving our Diana Ambassador Award, BBC radio Newcastle asked if they could interview us and feature the story on their show. The interview took place on 27th August where we were asked questions about our bullying experiences, we also explained the work we do and gave advice to other young people who may be getting bullied. It was exciting to be interviewed by the BBC and felt good that we were promoting anti-bullying further.

South Tyneside’s Young People’s Parliament - Mindful Mentor Training Mental Health is something we feel is a problem for children and young people and we want to do something about it. We teamed up with North Tyneside and completed Mindful Training for the day. During the training we explored different Mental Health problems and symptoms. This gave us a good understanding of conditions and issues young people face.

We were then trained in how to be a good online mentor e.g. what to say/not say, using open questions, confidentiality and safeguarding. Finally we were introduced to the Mindful Website, how to navigate, connect with others and refer to a trained councillor. Four of us are now trained to be online mentors, offering support Nationwide. Our next step is to arrange further training for other young people living in South Tyneside and promote mental health support that’s out there.

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Isaac Sidney, Youth Councillor I recently attended the Labour Party conference with BYC. I was one of two representatives for North Tyneside. While there we discussed and debated issues with Labour MPs and Shadow ministers. This will help shape there 2015 manifesto regarding Young People’s issues. It was fascinating to gain this experience of witnessing a Party Conference and also to help shape future potential government policies. It was also interesting to find out the views of other Young People from across the country and find out the campaigns they are working on in their own areas. This was an invaluable experience.

Rebecca Moore, Member of Youth Parliament The North Tyneside Young People's Health & Wellbeing Reference Group has written a report and completed an audit on Mental Health Education. We attended MindFull Training in which we were verified as online MindFull mentors and travelled to York for training in the YoungMindsVs Campaign. Our report and audit will be presented to decision makers like the adult elected Mayor and North Tyneside's Director of Public Health. We hope to create an education pack for schools to use to teach Mental Health to students and to ensure every young person knows about this important issue.

Myself and another young person (Rebecca Railton) travelled 3 hours to London to an Alcohol Policy Youth Network UK (APYN UK) strategic planning meeting which I chaired as General Coordinator. Law students, medical students, young radio DJ's and members of APYN Europe attended the meeting and we have set out plans of starting a program involving University Students talking to High School Students about the effects of alcohol. A logo was selected and website/ social media designs were discussed. By the next meeting in November, our website will hopefully be up and running. We will keep you updated.

Make Your Mark is going brilliantly in North Tyneside. We have already had over 3000 ballots back (above our target) with more expected in the next week. We have had a very positive response from the schools with just about all of them participating. We emailed out resources we created a few weeks ago and have set a competition on who can collect the highest percentage of votes in the region. Everything is beginning to fall into place with schools wanting the top position in North Tyneside. Well done North Tyneside Schools!

Stockton on Tees Jess Belch, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been incredibly positive for Stockton. Not only have we had 7 very active young people engaging across schools, youth groups and young people across the borough with the

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Make Your Mark Campaign. Participation of the Stockton Youth Assembly is getting higher and is growing more members The Youth Assembly have had a busy August- planning the make your mark campaign and what not.

The SYA (Stockton Youth Assembly) also helped out at the Stockton Riverside Festival where they campaigned on Votes at 16. This was a fantastic day, 2 days prior to make your mark launch that engaged young people across the borough.

The Youth Assembly have also been asked to help on the 14th November in Stockton for children in need! In September, they will meet and plan ideas to raise money for such a great cause Many youth members have also been completing the youth voice award scheme by BYC, a couple of whom have completed and waiting to hand in. August has been an incredibly engaging month for Stockton. Let's step it up and make your mark!

Sunderland Brian Terry, Member of Youth Parliament Over the past week, Luwam Habte and I have been going around my secondary school and sixth form, St Roberts. We have made an assembly for sixth form and have also been going around tutor groups getting people to vote. We've received help from teachers and will soon have votes coming from across the lower school. We've had a very passionate response and have gotten many people talking about politics.

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North West Youthforia – North West Regional Youth Forum North West Regional Youth Work Unit On 10th September three young people from Youthforia attended the OFSTED Annual Further Education and Skills Lecture to talk about the messages from 'Simple Truths' the Youthforia Youth Employment Commission report. Members of the Commission, Gulwali Passarlay (Bolton) and Jamie Walker (Bury) were joined by Maddy Lackey (Cumbria) to put their views across to the 100 plus audience at Spotlight, Poplar at the lecture given by Lorna Fitzjohn, Director of Further Education and Skills at OFSTED. Their message was: listen to young people, treat them as individuals with potential, think about rural challenges, reconsider EMA and have a Minister to have oversight over issues that affect young people.

Copies of the report can be requested from: info@nwrywu.org.uk

Another outing for Simple Truths, the Youthforia Youth Employment Commission was to the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

MYPs and members of Youthforia Leon Hollinrake (Rochdale), Dylan Mcaughey (Oldham) and Michelle Saidi (Manchester) met Clive Memmott, the Chief Executive to talk about their work and to start to develop a positive relationship between young people from Youthforia and the Chamber and their business members. We are looking forward to a positive future.

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Blackpool Sam Richardson, 20, Youth Representative I am volunteering with the North West Regional Youth Work Unit this summer to work

on the

Make Your Mark Campaign. My role has been to go to as many youth councils and organisations across the North West to offer support on the Make Your Mark campaign. It's been really interesting to be among such a diverse, well informed and engaged group of young people across the North West. The presentations I have delivered have been really well received and I have had some positive feedback from young people saying they feel really involved in the process as a result of the presentations.

They've also expressed that they feel very comfortable and ready to try and gain as many Make Your Mark ballots as possible. I have really enjoyed my Summer working on the Make Your Mark campaign with the unit and Youthforia and I look forward to continuing to support young people across the North West with the Make Your Mark campaign.

Kirsty-Lee Topping, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament In Blackpool we've been focusing a lot on Make Your Mark and getting as many ballots as we can, even getting young people at the Blackpool switch on! We also have an event on Thursday with one of our local MPs for a young person's consultation as Blackpool recently has been getting a lot of bad press so we are trying to change that. We've also been asked to write an article for our local newspaper around the work we do!

Bolton Gulwali Passarlay, Youth Representative I have to say this summer break for me was an opportunity to get on with my political activism and participation, even more. The month of September, was the busiest as holiday came to an end. I was able to attend and take part in some exciting events, conferences and youth leadership programs.

On the 1st of September I went on ParliaMentor induction and training residential for a week, where we had the launch of the program in parliament and learnt more about this Political Leadership Programme. ParliaMentor is run by Three Faith Form in partnership with British council - Active Citizen program. ParliaMentor is a leadership programme which enables students to build closer relationship with people of all faiths and beliefs. This programme gives students access to professional training, mentoring and networking opportunities. By there are only 30 of us from 6 different universities and now we have to undertake a social Action project

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in the community. During the residential we learnt about identity, dialogue, communities and conflict, campaigns and impact, and social action.

On the final day we all presented our SAP before the Mayor of Camden at the council chamber in front of politicians and experts to give us advice on our ideas and how it will make a difference. It's a year long programme and if I do anything interesting will write about it and now we are going to start on with our Social Action Project which is looking at Stereotypes, (#StereotypeMe).

After a busy week with 3FF ParliaMentor's, I attended Model Westminster GCSEs and A level reforms event at the DfE. They brought students together to discuss And debate the changes to the eduction system and mainly the subjects affected by this new reform. We had an effective and useful conversation with DfE officials. The students had some excellent ideas on what's needs to be done and how. For me it was interesting because as part of NSG we had scrutinised and advised minsters on this policy matter.

In the second week, I was fortunate enough to participate in Youth Leadership Program with OneVoice and it's three days residential to understand the Palestine/Israel conflict. There around 20 students from across the UK who were of different view points and beliefs on the issue. It was mainly about giving UK youth a chance in leadership training to understand the Israeli- Palestinians conflict and know more about OneVoice work in both countries. We

discussed and learnt about the key historical dates, negotiations so far, history and narratives of religion in the conflict, and political leaderships and international context.

Moreover we visited interesting places in London and heard from knowledgeable speakers from both sides of the arguments, grassroots activism and its important to change, the role of extremism in the conflict, and the economic influences in the region. And at the end the group 25

had a good debate on the conflict and what should we all do to help. I learnt there is no right or wrong answers as both sides have legitimate claim to the land over it's sovereignty and we should understand the complexity of the problem - that doesn't mean to say we can't solve the problem. Also during the same week I went to Spotlight a youth centre in London where Ofsted had it's HESkill event and I was part of a panel of young people to share our views on youth unemployment and how the eduction is failing some young people especially NEET - but I was there because of YouthForia Youth Employment Commission finding as I was one of the commissioner.

It was good to know they listens to our opinions and what needs to be done for young people to have higher aspiration and chances of getting a job. In the 3rd week, I helped out at university but also ParliaMentor's from UoM had first meeting with our Mentor MP in Manchester. Mr John Leech kindly agreed to mentor us and supported the group throughout the leadership program and he was very impressed on how informed and inspired young people are and we discuss many political issues of interest not lest Scotland independence as it was the day after.

On the 18th of September, I had the opportunity to attend and participate in the NHSCitizen Assembly and it was of a great interest to me because of my involvement and membership of NHSYF. It was without doubt an excellent example of how the public should have say in their NHS. People were passionate about many issues and there different groups having workshops from mental health to young people voices. I was pleased to take part together with fellow NHS Youth Forum Members.

Afterward we had the NHS England AGM where I met most of the broad members including their chief executive and spoke to him about our youth forum and how important it's to have young people engaged in decision making of the NHS. Friday the 19th, the UK Young Ambassadors to Europe organised a workshop/event in London about Youth Empowerment - know your Rights. I am glad that I went along and good that they invited a diverse group of young people to share their views and I think we need more such an events. I believe it was part of the young ambassador wider campaign to engage young people in dialogue and encourage participation.

The next day, I had my first meeting with Youth Management Broad at NCVYS. Finally met the YMB and tried to understand what I was suppose to do as part of reward and recognition group. The young people involve were not only willing to make a difference but were also motivational and ambitious.

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And the final day before back to university. I went to the Labour Party conference in Manchester. This was my 5th annual conference and spent much of day at Youth Event as I am one of the Young Labour representative.

Also had the chance to meet young people from the youth zone and talk to them about my National Scrutiny Group work and my other engagement where I represent the views of young people. So it was a busy Sunday, spoke to the Leader of Opposition and shared a few concerned with him about child poverty, youth unemployment, refugee issues and young people disengagement with politics.

In the final week, back to Uni and start of my 2nd year Politics.

However, also managed to go to children's commission on poverty Roundtable discussion about our recent parliamentary inquiry findings with MPs, politicians and policy/decision makers, which gives me hope that there are people Fighting social injustice. And the year ahead seem challenging as there so much to study and do as part of my political and social commitments. I wish you all an enjoyable and productive year ahead. Good luck with all your youth representation. Time to change the world.

Cheshire West and Chester Alias Buchanan, Member of Youth Parliament MYM is doing well at the moment, and the ballots are getting signed real quick. I had a fly-by meeting with Mrs Yates of Blacon High to arrange MYM in her school. She accepted the campaign happily and was at ease with it since her school was part of my MYP election. I will be in regular contact with the school to arrange collecting the completed ballots. Another organisation I have got to take part, is a youth club nearby my house which has been a great help, inviting me to the facility in order to get lumps of ballots signed at a time! As a result of their contributions I'm in contact with football teams and various other clubs, like the dance troops. Finally after a few false starts I have got MYM in Upton High underway, so we should expect a nice big pile of completed ballots to contribute to our million soon enough.

Ciarรกn O'Shea, North West UKYP Procedures Group Representative On Sunday 21st September I attended the annual Labour Party Conference in Manchester. The event was a success, particularly the Youth Zone set up by the BYC which saw panels of MPs,

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Peers from the House of Lords and leading figures in the world of youth voice come together to talk to young people about politics and how we can feed into the bigger picture.

I took part in debates on mental health, volunteering, how to influence government and plenty of other topics. In addition to some brilliant conversations with other like-minded young people from various youth organisations across the UK, myself and Pegah Moulana (Barnsley) managed to approach a large number of decision makers - such as Luciana Berger MP, Angela Eagle MP, Andy Burnham MP and the Rt Hon Lady Angela Smith of Basildon - about Make Your Mark.

Every single one showed their support!

Cheshire East Zainab Cole, Member of Youth Parliament As soon as school re-opened, I organised a meeting with the head of years in my school to find out what was the best way to get the pupils involved to fill out the ballot papers. I asked them if I would be able to go in their assemblies to speak to the students about Make Your Mark and they agreed. I was really nervous to do this but I knew that this was the best way to inform every year of Make Your Mark.

So the journey began, with me speaking with year 7s from this, I was able to gain confidence and by the time I spoke to year 9s, it was a walk in the park. Before I spoke in assemblies, I sorted out the ballot papers so that there were 30 in each envelope and then gave them to the main office to put them in the form teachers' pigeon holes. This has been a great experience for me as I was able to build on my confidence skills and also my presentation skills.

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Liverpool Ciara Brodie, Member of Youth Parliament On Monday 14th September,I attended a Eurochild Conference in Brussels along with 2 other members of Liverpool Schools' Parliament. The title of the Conference was 'Protecting and Valuing Children as Consumers'.

This is 1 of a series of 5 seminars conducted by Liverpool and Southampton Universities. We presented on how children are being marketed to- particularly focusing on tobacco, fast food and alcohol. We were listened to by leading European academics and it was an amazing opportunity to contribute to a European study.

Oldham Oldham Youth Council Oldham Youth Council had its annual super resi. The two day even was full of useful training and team building activities to help the youth council move forward in unison. We also had Oldham's MP Debbie Abrahams deliver an interesting dementia friends workshop. Oldham youth council is extremely privileged to now be a dementia friendly organisation. We are planning to deliver this piece of work with other young people across Oldham.

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Mariam Waseem, Youth Councillor This month, Oldham youth council was recognised for it's efforts in aiding the Action Oldham fund which helps local causes. Last November a few youth councillors completed a 200ft abseiled off the tallest tower in Oldham! I was one of the lucky prize winners at Action Oldham's 1st Birthday ceremony, and was awarded the 'greatest overcomer' award.

Oldham Youth Council's Dylan McAughey was involved in producing and directing a moving piece called 'Girl in the Webcam' which challenges cyber bullying. The movie depicts the scenario of a girl facing cyber bullying and advices the audience on how young people that may be affected by this issue should deal with cyber bullies.

This is a follow on from Dylan's very popular 'Girl in the mirror'.

The video is part of Oldham Youth Council's priority 'I Love Me' campaign which looks to combat low self esteem of young people due to issues such as bullying, mental health issues, negative body image etc. Please check out our twitter @OldhamYC to watch the amazing campaign video.

Salford Laura Edwards, Youth Councillor Salford Youth Council (SYC) hosted the annual #SalfordYouthDay - an day to celebrate the good things young people in Salford do. Various activities were hosted by different young people in the day, which they had to have their bids approved by SYC. The celebrations culminated with an evening event; whereby guests enjoyed performances from talented Salfordian singers, bands and magicians. Speeches were given by Ian Stewart, City Mayor and Elisha Stephens, MYP to thank all the young people for their efforts and inspire

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them to continue the wonderful work they do.

We look forward to #SalfordYouthDay 2015.

Salford Youth Council gave their support as Salford City Council signed up to the Lanzarote Convention – an international campaign to protect children and stop their exploitation.

We spoke to Councillor John Warmisham, who explained that data suggests 1 in 5 children in Europe are victims of some form of sexual violence. We agreed this highlights the necessity to sign up to the Convention.

Unfortunately, sexual violence and child abuse of many forms are very real to far too many young people in Salford. We hope with this convention, which advocates good practice in preventing and dealing with such issues, helps to see a massive reduction in that number.

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South East Kent Angel Layer, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor Since the beginning of this month, promoting the big Make Your Mark has been the key topic of focus! I've spoken to schools, emailed newspapers and even managed to get a slot in my local radio station, asking people what their big issue is on the ballot paper! As well as that, I have been representing people in my local area through working with both my local MP and speaking to him about UK Youth Parliament and an event that I am organizing and running with another Youth Councillor in my local area to do with parliament week this November and my local borough council, talking to them about our plans for the WW1 centenary and got things moving, which is superb!

In relation to the event during Parliament Week that has taken a lot of my time up this month, not only have I secured funding, but we have also got Councillors involved, so the event is looking to be great and set to get a lot of young people involved.

In terms of the Kent Youth County Council, the focus is on 'Thumbs Up Thumbs Down' we have been encouraging local young people from all around Kent to get involved and I have also just convinced my school to get involved in our local school council elections, telling us what they like and dislike in their local area! All in all it's been a busy month! And schools just started, but hopefully Kent gains a lot of young people's votes and we would have therefore been extremely successful!

Milton Keynes Adam Rolfe, Member of Youth Parliament In Milton Keynes we have had our Curriculum for Life booklets being printed to be sent out to all schools in the constituency, all organisations involved as well as MPs, Councillors etc. Also we have started planning for our 4th annual MK Big Debate where it will allow the youngsters of MK to debate with decision makers. Not to forget that these two events have had press releases in the local newspapers and one due to come out soon about our MYPs attending the HoC debate.

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Reading Ellie Emberson, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been continuing the Make Your Mark campaign. It has been difficult to get schools involved but after some struggle I am happy to say Reading has already beaten last years total number of ballots, which of course is great! But we hope to get many more before deadline day.

As well as this I have been planning for the event I will be hosting in Parliament which schools from Reading will be invited! I am also seeking UKYP members to come along and help to facilitate the day which will be great as I love to get others involved in such brilliant opportunities!

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South West Bath and North East Somerset Edward Joseph, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Aside from my Gran turning 80, this month has been all work, school and Make your Mark. I attended the B&NES YPEG(Young Person Equality Group) and fed back about the feminism club that has started within my school, which I will be playing a lead role in coordinating and operating. I then signed up another school, St. Marks, for Make your Mark and then did a video explaining what Make your Mark is and the 10 issues, for schools who I cannot stretch to give assemblies to.

I also wrote a press release about Make your Mark which I published with a picture of me and a local secondary head teacher, Mark Everett, holding ballot papers. I then followed up about work experience schemes in our local schools so now after a bit of asking and a bit of telling from senior officials, schools will now have work experience schemes on offer! I then went to a PDS meeting where we scrutinised the council’s latest children service cuts of 30%.

In addition, I applied to be the SW Debate Lead and then met with my worker to catalogue everything I have done in since April for a report she was doing. It was 7 pages long when typed 34

font size 10 on A4. Furthermore, we arranged for a special guest to come to the B&NES youth forum meeting at the start of September, Bethany, who ran a workshop with us, helping us to understand the feelings and emotions of a LGBTQ (Questioning) young person when they come out to family, friends and loved ones.

I passed on the details of MYM to Bethany who has kindly offered to get some of the amazing groups she works with to fill out ballot papers. Hopefully she will be writing a positive story for B&NES to tell everyone about her great work. I then spoke to the owner of BZINE which hopes to offer pages and groups for the great work teams and individuals have been doing across B&NES, and offered to become an editor. He accepted and I am awaiting account details! At the end of September I will be meeting with the Conservative MP candidate for Bath, Ben Howlett.

More to follow next month.

Bristol James Gibson, 15, Young Mayor On Sunday the 14th, Young Mayors Rondene Vassell and James Gibson attended an education forum being held for the Archbishop of Canterbury's visit. There was an engaging discussion about ensuring all children across the city, especially those from poorer areas, get a chance to succeed in education and beyond.

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Orson Gard, 15, Youth Representative I have consulted young people on their views on lowering the voting age and provided their opinions to our clerk for the provision of a final report. I am also a member of the Bristol City Youth Council.

Cornwall Tabitha Wethers, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Although I have received emails from schools telling me that they will take part in Make Your Mark, they have not recently replied to emails, which is a shame, but I am really trying my best to contact them in other ways. On the positive side though, I have been really successful so far with getting a predicted 1,000 ballots from one school alone! I will be attending this school on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of September and hopefully I will get the turn out that I am promised!

I recently visited the youth centre in my local area to get more ballots completed, the young people were very positive and seemed very interested in knowing the topics in depth before making a decision, which is great! Other than that, I have been concentrating on getting back into college and starting my second year. Crossed fingers for the next month ahead of us!

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Devon George Downs, Member of Youth Parliament

Dorset Grace van Zyl, 13, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been getting as many people as I can involved in MYM especially my school because it has just over 2,500 students! The day after I write this I will be on an interview panel for the position of DCC Senior Manager of Strategy, Service Planning and Commissioning along with three other inspiring young people from my county's Youth Council (DYCE). Unfortunately this month's meeting had to be cancelled due to our Youth worker being ill... get well soon 37

Dawn! Yet I am looking forward to our next meeting where we will be joined by Sara Tough, the head of Dorset's children services! Also, next week I will be attending our local Transport meeting and possibly attending a workshop the week after to help bus drivers and teenagers see 'eye-to-eye'.

Gloucestershire Callum Coles, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been working hard on the 'Make your Mark' campaign. I have been in touch with many schools to arrange assemblies which will allow me to hold voting sessions. Deer Park School of Cirencester have already confirmed dates for me to hold 'Make your Mark' assemblies, with more schools finalising the days. From my own college I have collected approximately 500 ballots, so will continuing to collect more from this location over the next week.

I am also still continuing my fixers campaign producing a website for the young people in my area - which is still very much in progress - it has been recently put online at: whatwherewhenglos.co.uk

Isles of Scilly Zoe Jenkins, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I haven't had the time to write recently, but will now update you on the work I've been doing since June! So, to start where I left off, myself and Inca Reynolds met with two councillors and presented them with our ideas for a youth shelter. They both fully supported the idea, and told us that they were sure the rest of the councillors would be as well, they also gave us and idea what our next steps should be. At the start of august I met with Craig Dryden (planning officer for the Isles of Scilly) to discuss possible locations for the youth shelter and also the aesthetics, he also fully supports our youth shelter project and we have settled on a location. I also met with the local police, to get them on board our project; they approved the location and design and talked to us about why they would need to get involved (misuse of the shelter etc.). They both have children my age, which the youth shelter would benefit, so from a personal and professional view, we won them over! At the start of the summer holidays I was approached

by Sarah Taylor (local action group programme manager), who asked me if I would be interested in being the youth representative for the local action group. I said yes, signed the papers, and as a group we are now in the process of deciding which proposed ideas would be the most beneficial for us to spend our money (something like ÂŁ1 million!!) on. Me being in this post could help in getting some extra funding for the youth shelter. September and we're back at school! Me and Inca used tutor time to go and give a presentation to the new year 7s, to explain to them what youth parliament is all about. We also talked them through the make 38

your mark campaign, assisting them in filling in the ballot papers, then went round all the other classes doing the same. Recently we were asked to meet with the new Chairman of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board who had come over for the day. He talked to us about our roles in youth parliament, and student council, making sure that the young people on the island had a voice within school and the community. We then talked about situations when young people might need emotion support or heath advice, and I stated that with living on an island, it's hard to be anonymous, so young people may feel unable to talk to anyone for fear of it being passed on. The LSCB chairman agreed with me and said that this is something that was brought up by nearly every person he'd met with earlier that day, and that he'd look into how the issue could be solved. Taking into some of the planning officer's advice, I wrote a letter to send out to residents in the area surrounding the location of our proposed youth shelter, to let them know what we are planning to do. This consisted of a brief description of my role as MYP, what the youth shelter project is about, recent work I've done towards it, contact details, and pictures of what we are hoping it will look like and the location marked on a map. We spent just under an hour posting the letters a few days ago!! Our next steps regarding the youth shelter project are to: confirm a design, look in detail at the costs (of shipping and building etc.), to submit the planning application before Christmas, and to contract a local builder to build the shelter (hopefully this will be in spring next year!). In terms of youth parliament, I am looking forward to the house of commons sitting in November, and am planning to go through the ballot papers sometime next week!

Somerset Thrinayani Ramakrishnan, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I have been distributing Make your mark ballots for the young people in my area and I have also been updating my campaign twitter account (@youthofsomerset) about various employment opportunities and work based skills for young people in my area of Sedgemoor, Somerset.

Wiltshire Chloe Lintern, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor It's again been a really quiet month in terms of meetings however Make Your Mark really got into full swing. The schools that have signed up have been in contact with me from day 1 and hopefully we will have a good turnout for Wiltshire. I have 700 completed from youth groups and just asking random young people to fill them in. In Wiltshire we have a target of 7000 and I'm hoping that we can reach this. In our Wiltshire Assembly Youth Meeting we updated on the various boards and meetings that we had attended over the last two months and what the outcomes/actions of those meetings were. We also spoke about Make your mark as a whole group to get motivated to do well. Towards the end of the night we looked at the child health strategy which is out for consultation and what we thought of it and any comments we had.

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Towards the beginning of the month I had the chance to attend a Model Westminster event at the department of Education on GCSE/A-level reforms. Whilst I was there I was in the group that looked at GCSE art and Design and A-level Dance. We commented on what we thought was missing, what should be taken out and what should stay from the proposed reforms. The comments will then be published into a document that will be sent to the Department before they make any chance/change proposed changed. Overall its been a quiet month compared to the summer and we have been working EXTRA hard to ensure we smash our Make Your Mark target!

Jordan Green, 14, Member of Youth Parliament Me and my deputy Lee have been emailing schools asking for them to get involved doing MYM and we have recently had a meeting with the head of child’s protection teacher and we are arranging to email the ballot paper electronically instead of working with paper, we feel if we do it by computer the everyone will have a vote we will also go around with the ballots just to make sure we have the vote. We will then do an assembly expressing how we have progressed through the month. My target is too just getting as many votes as possible.

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West Midlands Birmingham Jovan Nepaul, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Birmingham is working hard and we are really trying to make sure we shout as loud as we can using social media! we have several elected counsellors who are actively supporting Make Your Mark and taking their pictures with ballot papers, retweeting our tweets and tweeting their local schools. Although not all schools are engaing as much as would like we have had our first ballot box returned and we are pleased that we have seen a 100% return so although we have a long way to go we are pleased that the schools so far that are engaing as fully as they can! We will continue to push as hard as we can. We currently have about 3000 counted and several more thousand out and about across Birmingham.

Since the start of UKYP’s national campaign ‘Make Your Mark’ in August; Birmingham’s MYP’s and DMYP’s has been working incredibly hard to reach out to as much young people as possible. This month we have been consulting with schools, colleges and youth centres. Using the skills we learned and improved upon at the Annual Sitting in July we have been in contact with leading city figure heads, so that their influence can help UKYP and Make Your Mark.

Fortunately in Birmingham we’ve had support from local councillors, MP’s and more importantly the electorate.

Although we have been set with a monumental task of achieving 1million votes nationwide, this is achievable. Best of luck to all!

Alia Khan, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Over the last few weeks members of UK Youth Parliament for Birmingham have been working together to get as many schools, colleges and organisations on board with Make Your Mark.

This involved getting local councillors to take part in advertising the ballot papers - by taking selfies and all of the corporate parenting board to do the same.

MYP's and DMYP's have been working hard to produce presentations and deliver them to some of many 11-18year olds across the city. Youth workers and elected members have constantly been emailing and tweeting schools and individuals to get them on board with MYM ... It doesn't end here ... We're still working on it!

Ciara O'Donoghue, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament

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Throughout the previous week I was in St.Pauls School for Girls, my actual school, doing assemblies to all year groups including the sixth form over the course of three days. My first year was y9 and y10 aka the attitude years and despite a few hiccups it all went according to plan and everyone enjoyed voting. The next assembly was with y11, y12 and y13 which went even better despite the nervousness I was feeling due to being in front of 300 girls many of whom were my peers. And then finally I had the easiest years for assembly, y7 and y8, who had all eyes on me and who didn’t make a sound! They were amazing as they all lined up orderly as they enjoyed the novelty of voting in a ballot box. All in all there were about 1100 ballots with the top issues being increasing the Living wage and Curriculum for life.

Gabriel Dobrashian-Yates, Member of Youth Parliament Currently I am working with Shenley Academy in a campaign regarding road safety. Did you know that in every region of the UK, young people are more likely to die or suffer life changing injuries on the roads than any other age group.

In the last few years students from Shenley Academy have been injured and one tragic case involved someone from the school being killed by a car directly outside the entrance of the school. Spending time in the school has left me amazed at how serious the issue is. The road to the school is a dual carriage way with limited means of crossing. Crossing the road involves teachers acting almost like 'lollipop me/women', who can be held responsible if a student gets hurt while crossing with them, or even if a car has an accident with another car while the teacher is helping someone cross the road.

I will be campaigning with the students, hoping to speak to Richard Burden MP about the problem and also the Councillors in the area – I will let you know how we get on. If you have any ideas about how to campaign against a 'terribly designed road' which threatens the safety and well-being of students from the school than it would be great to hear from you.

Rebecca Caffery, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament On Tuesday the 16th of September, me (Rebecca Caffery) and Alia Khan were fortunate enough to sit on a Young Persons interview panel for the new Assistant Director of Education for Birmingham. We had the opportunity to interview four candidates and ask them a series of questions and set them tasks based on the skills and experience they'd need to bring to the job.

Most importantly we wanted to find out why they thought it was important to listen to young people. The answers varied from one saying that Children are the future of our society and another saying that Children should be placed in the heart of all decisions. Overall it was a great experience and we got to learn some of the skills required to work in a political position and also gave us a chance to get a cheeky selfie with some important people.-

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Sohail Basharat, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Since make your mark has started all DMPYs and MYPs of Bham’ have been very busy in contcting schools, councillors and even friends (makeyourmarkchampions). I believe Birmingham’s elected members have done there best and are still trying to get more schools involved in make your mark. I believe we have work hard and that I hope for the best.

Vikram Patel, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The two things that have currently taken over my life include my university application and of course make your mark, it's that time of year again where we all start to distribute as many make your mark ballot papers out and about to the young people of Brum. Luckily for us councillors and MP's from across the city have been extremely supportive and promoted MYM through social media and their own networks as well as some schools signing up directly through UKYP. We've still got two weeks left and a huge amount of ballot collecting and distributing can be done in the last two weeks as this is when the biggest push for us starts.

Coventry Daniel Mckenzie, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Following from Question Time event in March, I was inspired and felt that it was really important for other young people to take a more proactive approach within their communities.

I was awarded ÂŁ500 from The Spark Award, Unltd & Santander to travel the country and do this.

I believe it's important to do and create community Projects because young people who lead them & take part - learn so many new skills, and makes them look so attractive to employers!

So I went all the way to Edinburgh, Manchester and County Durham! I gained so many new contacts and skills to progress onto more bigger things and create more events for young people in Coventry and across the UK! It's dead easy for young people to do this, they don't need to have a big text heavy business plan to create an idea a reality.

When I had this idea, I literally had a spider diagram on where I want to go, who I want to meet and how I'll get there... Did the Unltd application form and was granted the money! It was that easy, I just loved it - and strongly encourage any young person to do this and create a community project!

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Dudley Connor Hill, Member of Youth Parliament I have recently been working especially hard on make you mark. And that takes a lot of time in itself! I also have just recently been elected Chair of Dudley youth council and I was very proud of that! As a youth council we have been working on our antibullying scheme and also on the Dudley Youth Awards that happens annually. I am also proud to announce that we are making sure young people have a voice by doing make your mark in our local area. Oh and I am also holding elections in my school for the new Student Voice reps!-

Wolverhampton Kashmire Hawker, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament What a busy month: again! The month I turned 17! Make Your Mark is in full swing here in Wolverhampton are currently things are looking good. Our target of 4000 has a huge chance of being met as as at least 10 Secondary Schools and the only Youth Club left in the city has already hit 100+! Can't wait to report back the full figures next month.

What else I have been up to then?

I attended the BYC ACM for the 3rd year in a row at the grand setting of Culters Hall in Sheffield on September 6th along with Emma Curran, Alisha Cumber both Youth Councillors & Worker Andrew Scragg. It was a long but cracking day; the debates were very firery, elections very tense and of course the great British weather being utterly awful... On a serious note, Emma's speech on a motion was fantastic & my question to former Chair Marc Kidson was greatfully answered; that's why I love the event!

Back here at home, the Youth Council had its AGM on September 15th. For me it was a bad night as I wasn't elected an Officer. However following the evening, I feel things are looking strong to win a dozen fights with the Council which will make or break us. The following were elected to the following positions: Chair: Emma Curran Vice-Chair: Elizabeth Williams Secretary's: Izzie Ricketts & Grace Cameron-Douglas Finance Officer: Hope Cameron Douglas Media & Communication Officers: Alisha Chumber & Paul Kazadi Congrats to you all!

Finally to my work with Charity Changing our Lives. I attended the first full session within the "Right's For All" Programme on September 18th (Day of Indy Ref) which is training me & 9 other BME Disabled Young People to become future leaders. It's a programme that will send a message out there; Young People, disabled or not have a voice! Also on the 22nd, me and another COL Young Leader Lesley Acford trained 20 professionals on Keeping Up with us Youths! They enjoyed it, we both did & I have 2 of these more to come. Next month shall be fun; House of Commons Debate Lead & PG Elections are at Convention 2. Of course, that should 44

include the West Midlands winning Make Your Mark once more... Hopefully 1st before regional results however, we will hear 1 MILLION being uttered! Changing Our Lives are a Rights-based Charity that helps disabled people of all ages to have a voice & help make decisions, based here in the West Midlands. To find out more, visit ChangingOurLives.org.

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Yorkshire & Humber Barnsley Adele Denton, 13, Youth Councillor This September, as a member of I Know I Can voluntary scheme in Barnsley, I had the opportunity to volunteer for young children. This task enabled me to take a reading challenge, to help young people in Kirkbalk by expanding their interest into reading.

Alex Sails, 15, Youth Councillor This month I had the chance to join Barnsley Youth Council as a member and represent Hoyland and Kirkbalk in the youth organisation. This was an amazing chance for me to be directly involved as my area can be unrepresented at times but Barnsley Youth Council had gave a great welcome to me, allowing me to be part of the team.

Alexandra Hulme, 14, Youth Councillor Despite being the member of Barnsley Youth Council, I am also member of girl guide for the 10 to 17 year olds in Barnsley. This month I had the chance of volunteering every Wednesday's by running brownies workshop to influence young people in being involved and to experience a better social life in our community.

Anton Dobson, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Following up from the Young Reporters project from Yorkshire and Humberside Residential, I had the chance to become a campaign lead in Barnsley Youth Council and take this idea into planning process. My aim is to allow young people in Barnsley to have a chance of expressing themselves on their reports in our Barnsley Youth Council Website.

Chloe Briscoe, 16, Youth Councillor Following up to the internship of supporting the young people with careers advice and CV's, there have been an invite to do an presentation to councillors and students regarding to our work and promoting the project across the Barnsley to allow more young people to be benefited from them.

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My community struggles at times with the low English grades for key stage 2 and 3. Therefore by joining summer 30 days challenge in our area, we attempted to support the young people by increasing their potential in reading and extending their knowledge in English language.

By Representing the North of Barnsley, me and other youth councillors have started Make Your Mark from Holy Trinity and by doing assemblies we have completed 800 ballots for Barnsley in our school which has significantly contributed to Barnsley reaching its minimum personal target of getting the young peoples voices heard.

My involvement in the community has become more recently as I have joined an internship!

This allows me to have an ice breaker amongst the young people, such as providing them with career advice, CV support for the 16 year olds. In Barnsley, many young people are hindered in this type of support and by doing so; we allow them to have a better chance of being successful.

This month I had the opportunity to sign up to the young leaders leadership for the guides! This enables me to be a full time leader specifically to help out young people as a guide and often to help them with badges! As a Youth Councillor, this has enabled me to communicate better with the young members of community and to ensure I represent them in the council better.

Chloe Lindley, 14, Youth Councillor I represent the North East of Barnsley, despite having difficulties to get in touch with my school due to the Make Your Mark, Shafton Academy have decided to reach their aim of 800 ballots through drop in sessions at lunch times and ballots to be completed by the young people during tutorial sessions.

Connor Tate, 14, Youth Councillor Let's Grow was a introduced campaign to the Yorkshire and Humberside Youth voice in the December 2013. Follow up from Barnsley Youth Council contribution we have our first Let's Grow programme in Penistone. From a successful start, me and my youth worker have contacted Ward Alliance in Stairfoot to provide funding for this project and in result next summer this programme will be set in our area.

Danielle Hanlon, 14, Youth Councillor Horizon high school is located in the central Barnsley, the school with the highest percentage of BME, and other disadvantaged groups enrolled in the school. As a Youth Councillor with the help of youth worker we are dedicating Tuesday's, Wednesday's and Thursday's in our Heart Space to collect ballot papers! with the estimation of 800 in our school to help Barnsley with it's Make Your Mark target.

In Barnsley, young people In my community are focusing on planning the anniversary of Magna Carta and the influences it had in Barnsley. The plans includes young people and also member 47

of staff in our school. This enables our young people to take part in the planning by also learning more towards one of the most celebrated document in the history.

Nathan Swain, 15, Youth Councillor By being the member of Air Cadets, this September I had a great chance to represent the youth of Barnsley in Cadets. I had the opportunity to march in the town centre. By being a old member of Cadets I also help with the new recruitment and hand gliding.

Pegah Moulana, 17, Member of Youth Parliament By representing the young people on the Council education board in Barnsley, a booklet has been made in result of our teams dedication through Barnsley Together to provide information for the BME's or Asylum seekers who currently live in Barnsley or have just moved. This leaflet allows parents to have more necessity information towards living in Barnsley and best support the young BME people who may require support in schools.

On Friday 19th of September, my sixth form was invited to the Hull University (why politic matters) conference which focused widely on Scottish Referendum and Votes at 16! Due to the vast turn out and 90% of young people registering to vote, I was proud to represent British Youth Council as a organisation that supported UK Youth Parliament for making this chance possible!

Many MP's from 3 major parties were impressed to the youth Involvement with Lord Norton showing his positive comments towards reducing the voting age.

During celebration of Gay Pride 2014 which was held in Barnsley Central in Sunday, due to supporting South Yorkshire Police I had the chance of completing 183 ballots with my MYP whilst patrolling around the area to ensure the event is kept safe. This allowed us to express the voice of young people who were from Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual or any other gender to be expressed.

In Holy Trinity, with the support of Youth worker Clare Archer I had the opportunity to present BYC Make Your Mark Presentation for the year 7 up to 11 and afterwards completed ballots.

We are estimated to collect 900 ballots from our school.

Tom Collings, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Despite having a busy agenda of working on Barnsley Youth Council campaigns and MYM ballots, I had the chance to fulfil another volunteering work by promoting gulf to the young people. This September I did also stand for a trophy in my Gulf club which I had the privilege to be the winner.

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Doncaster Aysha Ahmed, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been particularly good in terms of the make your mark campaign although we had a slow start in the beginning, now that schools have opened the amount of ballots that I have got filled in has raised. I was also very excited this month as I found out that I had been successful and am the World War I commemoration speaker for Yorkshire and Humber. In addition I am looking forward to Convention 2 to find out the total number of ballots that we have got this year.

Jasmine Womack, Youth Councillor The youth council met with an RDaSH health representative who came to talk to us about the results of the previous consultation we undertook about school nurse provision and the changes they have made to their service as a result of the consultation. The previous consultation highlighted lots of positives about the service and some areas for improvement such as …we asked if young people knew who their school nurse was, a high number of young people said no they didn't know or were unsure, for those that said yes they mixed up the school nurse with their first aider. RDaSH have taken on board information from the feedback we gave and put together an action plan for improvements, for example… to avoid the confusion school nurses now wear uniforms in school with an NHS logo to ensure they are recognised and young people are not confusing them with first aiders in schools.

RDaSH Health Services are currently working on all the consultation information given and are creating new innovative ways to promote their services to young people. The youth council were very pleased with the changes and the action plan for service improvement, the changes and plans will be shared with other young people across the borough through youth centres and service teams. The health representative said she planned to return to the youth council to update us on future improvements and ended the meeting with the following statement: “Coming together is a beginning…. Keeping together is progress…..

Working together is success”

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Keiran Bennett, Youth Councillor Hear By Rights Peer Reviewer During the months of September and October myself and other young people from across Doncaster have taken part in the peer review of the Adoption team in Doncaster Children and Young People’s Services. The review is an interesting experience, the insight into this service really opened our eyes into the work that the adoption service does. We reviewed the adoption team using the Hear By Right Framework (HBR) a framework that Doncaster has adopted throughout, the HBR supports services to identify how much participation there is for children and young people within a service/team and supports in helping to make improvements and increase participation where possible. We have so far interviewed mangers, staff and other young people who have connections with this service and we have given verbal feedback of our findings, next week we are due to meet the Service Managers and Heads of Service to present the final report and any recommendations that we may have to help service improvements. On a personal note it is a great scheme to get involved in and an enjoyable experience.

Youth Council A recent consultation has been done across the borough about our youth provision due to the possible closure of some of our children and youth centres because of government cuts. The consultation was done over a 3 week period during the summer holidays, Neighbourhood Teams and Children’s Services have worked together to target as many people as possible, children, young people and families have had the opportunity to give their comments on a questionnaire about youth provision, the results of the questionnaire will be collated and put together in a report which will go to decision makers. On the 9th September, Doncaster Youth Council were also consulted about Youth Provision. During this consultation Doncaster Youth Council expressed the views of young people from across the borough which had been gathered prior to this consultation, we outlined some potential problems which could be encountered, and some possible solution to sustain provision. A three page report from the youth council has been put forward and we have been assured that it will be included in the final report of the consultation which will go to decision makers. The consultation was important to get the views of Children and Young People, It is important that children and young people are consulted especially when it has an impact on our lives and communities, the youth council in Doncaster strive to have the voices of young people heard at senior levels and will keep on doing so.

Phoebe Womack, Youth Councillor At the Doncaster Youth Council we have been working on the Make Your Mark ballot campaign. Working as a team, each member has chosen a school to get votes from young people. I personally will be focusing on the votes from the Doncaster College and I have high hopes to get the majority 50

of the students within the MYM voting age range. By working with the student union team, I have been able to publicise the voting by being interviewed on the college’s podcast. This interview will be put onto the student union’s Facebook newsfeed so any college student can hear this interview, and will be aware of what the youth council do and what the campaign is about.

Zac Swinburn, Youth Councillor I wanted to shout about a recent change in Doncaster that came about from an issue raised at one of my youth surgeries by young people in my area, the issues was about some of the barriers to accessing Sexual Health provision since the closure of their youth clinic that was run one night a week in the local youth centre. Sexual Health and many other health related services can be accessed in most of our secondary schools now through school nurses, however in my area sexual health service is not available in school due to the faith/ethos of the school.

There is provision in Doncaster town centre but some of the barriers of this for young people are transport costs, accessibility through the day time and having to inform parents why you’re going into town centre etc. So with the support of my local ward member Mark Houlbrook he agreed to look into this matter and try to find a solution. He met with Health providers and youth workers and together they agreed that in my area there was a need to offer the provision locally. So im really pleased to say that they have agreed to start up the sexual health session in our local youth centre once a week for young people. Im really pleased with this and want to say a big thank you to health, youth workers and to my local ward member, together we are helping to improve services and their offer.

Leeds Shamim Miah, Member of Youth Parliament This past month I have been part of the team that attended the Leeds Breeze Festivals. At the events we spoke to young people about the UKYP, the national campaigns and Make Your Mark. Our aim was to get as many signatures as possible for the curriculum for life camping, and start to gather ballots for Make Your Mark.

The Leeds UKYP have been planning for our Democracy Day event for schools and colleges. The events iis a chance for us to engage, empower

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and educate young people in politics.

Another thing I have been trying to do as an MYP is get votes for Make Your Mark. I have been trying to meet the Leeds target by getting all the Leeds Youth Council members to get votes and also work with my college.

Charlotte Williams, Leeds Children’s Mayor Happy September. The countdown is on for the Leeds Children’s Mayor Competition 2014 /15.

Children at my old primary school have already written their manifestos and are waiting to hear which one the school will choose to submit. I am really looking forward to being involved in the whole process during October.

At the end of August I was invited to attend the Leeds Launch of the Love Food-Hate Waste 10 cities campaign. This was rather fun as I got to drink a lot of smoothies that I wouldn’t have ever tried otherwise and I met some great people helping with this project. The campaign is aiming to reduce the amount of food waste going into landfill. They had lots of good suggestions of how to use up food, such as making smoothies. To learn more about the campaign and try some tasty recipes go to www.England.lovefoodhatewaste.com Joe Hill, LYC Member At Breeze this summer, with the help of Ben and many other LYC members, we campaigned to get more people involved in the LYC through leaflet distribution and discussions with a range of teenagers. We received a warm response and one of the teenagers that we spoke to was a friend of mine that is hoping to join the LYC. Josie Lee, LYC Member I went to Breeze this year and I got lots of votes for Make Your Mark. I also talked to a lot of people who were interested in the Leeds Youth Council I worked on the stall and walked around the event encouraging people to visit the stall.

Francis Edwards, LYC Member I was very pleased to hear about the achievements of both the Leeds Youth Council and the UK Youth Parliament at Breeze 2014. I was one of 14 people who gave over 160 hours of our time to promote the work of the two groups.

The Leeds Youth Council received 8 facebook likes and another potential 32 new members, who asked about our work and signed up for more information. The UK Youth Parliament received 473 curriculum for life signatures and 220 make your mark votes. OF course, these were two of many wonderful achievements from Breeze 2014, and as a group we can only become strong as representatives of young people in Leeds.

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Amy Kitchingman, LYC Member I hope that from being on the Leeds Youth Council I can gain a greater understanding of how a council works together and how to organise one so everyone works efficiently and accomplishes as much as possible. I hope that I can be on the Executive Board and have a large contribution to the work of the Leeds Youth Council once I am familiar with its members and work. By working with the Leeds Youth Council I want my organisation skills to improve, and to keep to deadlines that are set.

Nadia Saeed, LYC Member During the summer I took part in a presentation training day with some of my fellow LYDC members at the Civic Hall. This was really fun and beneficial as it helped my public speaking skills and it helped me to engage with audiences better. It also helped me when standing in the LYC elections for Exec Board. I had the confidence to speak in front of the other members, and it helped me calm my nerves.

Leanne Avery, LYC Member During the summer I took part in the public speaking presentation training where we learnt the dynamics of public speaking. This was a really beneficial course.

Bethany Rodley, LYC Member I attended the Breeze event at Kirkstall Abbey on the 14th August, I helped promote the LYC as well as get votes for the Make Your Mark campaign. I handed out leaflets and merchandise to young people and explained what Make Your Mark is about and how their vote would help. For the primary school children we advertised the Leeds Children’s Mayor and gave them leaflets to take back to their schools.

It was an enjoyable day and I cannot wait for the Breeze on Tour next year!

Sam Slater, LYC Member When I went back to school in September I arrange a meeting with my Head of Year to hep publicise the LYC amongst my peers and hopefully recruit someone from my year to replace me on the LYC, as this is my last meeting before becoming a Deputy Member of Youth Parliament.

Jude Mason, LYC Member When I went back to school in September I spoke with my form and helped promote the LYC and make your Mark. I spoke about the work of the LYC to young people who haven’t heard of us before, and got some really positive feedback.

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Tommy Schofield, LYC Member During the summer, me and several other LYC members attended the Breeze on Tour events across Leeds to promote Youth Voice. We did this by gathering UKYP petitions, finding new LYC members and informing young people of opportunities available to them.

Isaac Grinnell, LYC Member During the second week of the summer holidays I represented the LYC at the Breeze event at Temple Newsam. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and we gained many Curriculum for Life signature. Young people completed quizzes and found out more about Youth Voice in Leeds.

I especially enjoyed getting staff discounts on food! It was a great day!

Polly Foster, LYC Member For the Leeds Youth Council Exec Board elections I went for the role of treasurer. It was a nerve-racking experiences having to stand in front of many silent, blinking faces and try to persuade them to vote for me. The verdict is unknown, but I will be patiently waiting the results.

North East Lincolnshire Jordan Hammerton, 15, Youth Councillor On Tuesday 16 September, 2014 ;Two North Lincolnshire youth councillors, Jordan Hammerton , who is the youth councils minute taker and Chloe Musgrave, the youth councils Vice-chair went to Church square house in Scunthorpe to interview two people for two positions, data analyst and contracts officer for the council.

As well as the two youth councillors, there was the participation team, a representative from the carers association and the elderly community as well as two professionals on the panel. The people were given a question to answer in a flip chart presentation and then the members of the panel asked questions, the youth councillors asked some good questions and then they were discussed and scored as well as decided whether we would recommend them and so we duly gave our input.

Afterwards it was obvious that not only had we made links with the elderly community but with the local carers association as well. All in all it was an enjoyable, insightful and good experience.

We have carried on with the Be unique and YES (LGBT) campaigns.

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North Lincolnshire Connor Greenberg, 16, Youth Councillor In January 2014, North Lincolnshire Youth Council acknowledged a lack of education and awareness surrounding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues in their schools and colleges, and the very real issue of bullying of LGBT young people.

With those issues in mind, a small group of Youth Councillors formed the working group behind YES. The initial aim of the group was to develop and implement a project to raise awareness surrounding issues that affect young people who identify as LGBT. Our progress and successes to date include: - We have made links with the North Lincolnshire Council Behaviour and Emotional Wellbeing Advisory Officer, Mags Smithson to discuss the need for more awareness and she has continued to support our cause.

- We have also made links with Scunthorpe LGBT, as their group has similar goals to ours and we hope to work further with them in the future.

- We have devised an online and paper survey to gauge awareness of LGBT issues amongst students in North Lincolnshire schools and colleges. As of the end of July 2014 approximately 300 responses had been received and the survey is being rolled out within schools and colleges.

- Our social presence has been established and you can find us on Facebook and Twitter (@YEStoEquality).

- Our co-founders have since been invited to sit on the Humberside Police Divisional Independent Advisory Group (DIAG) representing both the views of young people and members of the LGBT community.

- We are working closely with the local branch of Samaritans to provide emotional support. The period of consultation for the survey will end on 30th September 2014. At that point we will collate the information with a view to directing our efforts accordingly. Suggestions for progressing the project are more than welcome, and currently include the production of a short informative film to be shown in schools & colleges, informative postcards, posters and the development of a support group and workshop.

Messages coming out of North Lincolnshire's Primary and Secondary Staying Safe Conferences in 2013 indicated that body image was a real worry for the young people of North Lincolnshire.

It's an issue for both males and females, with media images (which are often Photoshopped) causing unfair comparisons and contributing to low self esteem and reduced health and wellbeing. A group of Youth Councillors from North Lincolnshire Youth Council recently started the Be Unique project, which aims to celebrate individuality. As part of this, we have designed a very distinctive desktop wallpaper and a postcard outlining '10 Ways to Improve Body Image'. Both of these will be going into schools in the Autumn term of 2014, and information will be distributed via Young Voice activities and events.

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We have produced a portable roadshow, comprised of Laquiffa (our life-sized mannequin, a distortion mirror, 'doctored' weighing scales and informative and thought-provoking visual resources as a means of getting positive messages across. In June 2014, we presented our project, including the portable roadshow, at a Yorkshire & Humber 'Celebration and Sharing of Good Practice' convention in Huddersfield. Our material was well received and we had the opportunity to share ideas with young people heading up body image campaigns in other areas, such as Hull. Some of the ideas we received are being used to add value to our local project.

Our roadshow also made an appearance at the Secondary Staying Safe Conference in July 2014 and there are plans for us to work with school nurses and contribute to a workshop that will be delivered to schools. Indie Mancini, Youth Councillor and former Chair of North Lincolnshire Youth Council, who has been leading the Be Unique project, said: "The project to promote positive body image has been more of a lesson than a task. I think it's impossible to help others feel comfortable in their own skin unless you can do the same. 'Be Unique' has allowed me to promote self-confidence, but only because it first allowed me to gain that self-assurance. It is my wish for the lessons I have learned through developing this campaign to be communicated to many more that need it. Already I've seen people grow as a result of our endeavours. The number of people is small so far and I strive to increase it. This has been no less gratifying than if thousands of people had gained confidence in themselves. The knowledge that my team and I have affected at least one person is a profound reward. I now live by the title of this project; it's my ambition to 'Be Unique'. I urge others to do the same, rather than conforming to what society dictates. This really is the heart of this campaign."

North Yorkshire Olivia Newton, Member of Youth Parliament This month, I think make your mark has never been far away from any MYP's mind.

Working together as a county we three North Yorkshire MYPs have been working together to cover as much of our sparsely spread population. I believe this has allowed us to reach out to as many young people as possible. I have worked to organise many assemblies in my local area and made an action plan to gather as many young people's views as possible.

Rotherham Ashley Gregory, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament On Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th of September, Rotherham’s MYPs attended the 35th annual Rotherham show at Clifton Park. The main aim this year was to focus on the Make Your Mark ballot for young people, whilst getting Votes @ 16 petition signatures for the UKYP petition.

Being the largest free show in the north of England, this was an excellent opportunity to gain 56

both ballots and signatures. Even though the dreary weather of Saturday did put some of the public off attending, Sunday brought along rays of sunshine and plenty of people to canvass our ideas to. Overall the event was a great success and we got a substantial amount of both ballots and signatures.

Josh Parker and Oliver Blake, both previous MYPs, attended a meeting with Paul Theaker (RMBC Commissioning) and Kerry Byrne (Youth Service Manager) regarding the Carers Card scheme that the previous Youth Parliament introduced. The current MYP, Ashley Gregory, also attended to support the further advancement of the scheme. The Carers Card is a credit card size pass that lets teachers know that a young person is a young carer – for example, giving reason for maybe being a little late to school one morning. The scheme is being piloted in five Rotherham schools. We hope that the Carers Card will be up and running as soon as the results of the pilot schools have come through.

Rotherham’s Youth Parliament has been busy with Make Your Mark and getting as many ballots as we can! We met with someone from the local radio station, Redroad FM, to discuss an advertisement on the station. It was agreed that a thirty second long advert would be played every hour on the station to appeal to both young people and other listeners. There will also be a link to the online ballot on their website.

Sheffield Laura Nutton, 17, Member of Youth Parliament As an MYP this was my first annual sitting. Overall extremely efficient. Full on as soon as we got there, firstly, registration, going to rooms, and so on. Then the opening ceremony with a fantastic motivational speech from Kamal Hyman setting off the weekend with energy: start as you mean to go on. Next a meeting to prepare us for the big vote.

Sheffield then lead half an hour of the curriculum for life workshop, showing many other members of youth parliament how we were trying to get a curriculum for life throughout Sheffield, by going into schools and reviewing their PSHE lessons. We went through step by step how we dealt with it. The Saturday was packed full of important content: from the House of Commons to fantastic workshops (mine being: how to run effective consultations and applying for funding) which are incredibly important to our role representing young people; to enthralling speeches from Rt Hon John Bercow MP and Dr Maggie Atkinson. Then we went on to the Big vote, where debates were held for 26 issues which we had to vote as to whether they should be on the manifesto. Ranging from improving youth services to reintroducing exam resits in English and Maths to reducing investment in wind farms.

All representing incredibly important issues, and after two sessions of the big vote we got through all of the issues and then finally before we left we were briefed for make your mark

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including setting our targets (which were a lot higher). All in all a vital weekend for youth parliament.

Eleri Kirkpatrick This month I have been continuing my work for the Make your Mark, and with the rest of the Sheffield Youth Cabinet, have been visiting MP’s so they can show their support for it. So far, we have contacted (and had photo’s taken with) Nick Clegg, Paul Blomfield, Clive Betts and David Blunkett. They were all really supportive of the Make your Mark, and took a photo with us to help boost its profile; I hope that this encourages more people to participate in the ballot.

I personally have also been contacting youth clubs in Sheffield West, so that we can ensure we reach as many young people as possible. Katie also came to our UK Youth Parliament meeting this month, and I am now more confident that we will achieve and exceed our 9000 ballot target.

Wakefield Maia Parkin, 12, Youth Councillor In our meetings we have been taking about news4yuoths MYM. My schools are Kettlethorpe and St Thomas a Beket.

Morgan Lois Binnersley, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Me and Alex Pennington have been working on the Wakefield anti bullying charter mark and have come up with the layout, tasks and theme which will be a surprise. Also this month we lost somebody dear from Wakefield Lewis hart our secretary who has gone to start his career in refereeing so we wish him good luck.

News4YouTHS is coming along nicely could you please visit the website and ask all your friends to as well http://news4youths.moonfruit.com it would be much appreciated Wakefield is doing very well if I say myself with make your mark we are having them return and asking for more as they did not have enough. Wakefield is also planning there convention in December which sounds really exciting

York Dominic Fairbass, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month we have been focusing on meeting our make your mark target of 3000, requiring drastic improvements from last year. Ballot boxes have been sent to all the schools in the city with instructions on getting all pupils to vote, we are hopeful to meet our target and will have a 58

better estimation of how well are campaign has gone over the next few days. Looking forward to a lot of ballot counting to come!

Katie Ward, Procedures Group Representative Make Your Mark fever in York is still going! With schools and colleges on board, we are looking at getting the last few ballots to help meet our target. Personally I've been working with East Riding as well, to try and boost up their total. I was also fortunate enough to attend a Children in Care Council meeting, which was an inspirational event to attend and hopefully we will see some CiCC at our regional conventions in the future.

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Northern Ireland Member of Youth Parliament Last month I attended the Annual Sitting at Lancaster University. As well as attending a number of talks and workshops which allowed me to develop my campaign further, I also had the chance to meet MYPs from across the UK and discuss issues affecting young people with them. I have also started this month to work towards the MYM NI target by consulting young people in my area.

Upper Bann Neil Reilly, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been all about Make Your Mark! While I've been bogged down by schoolwork, I've been able to get ballots filled in at youth groups and am organising ballots to be filled in in local schools through assembly voting and physically filling in the ballots if I can't get to the assemblies. Everything else is on the back-burner until this campaign is done, then onto the House of Commons to stand-up for what young people in Northern Ireland and across the UK voted for!

West Tyrone Michelle Hamilton, 17, Member of Youth Parliament During this month, I have effectively carried out my roles and responsibilities as the MYP for West Tyrone in which I have been doing a lot of work on " Make Your Mark" in which I have been distributing ballots to the schools in my constituency and area, as well as encouraging people to vote online on the issue they feel Youth Parliament should raise and campaign on. I have also been working on my campaign and doing more work in relation to raising awareness of cyber-bullying.

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Scotland Glasgow and West Scotland Ewan McCall, Member of Youth Parliament On Tuesday 12th August I met with Council leaders in East Ayrshire to discuss a circulation of MYM Ballots across secondary schools and colleges. We agreed to have a trial period in the first week at my own school and then replicate the system across the councils 10 Secondary Schools and College. From this we hope to give every young person in the area the opportunity to have there say. Im getting in contact with other councils within my area to make sure all of Glasgow and West Scotland can enjoy a high quality of youth democracy in such important political times. After a productive series of meetings with local MP Cathy Jamieson she will join me in schools to promote the MYM ballot effort.

I am very passionate about the Vote at 16 campaign and so adopted a Lord at the July SYP sitting. Along with this I plan to bring this campaign back to the area by speaking to schools and youth groups about the it and how to get involved. I am also working with other young people on the local youth council to write a constitution to establish a greater independence from the council. We believe this will bring the area closer together and give young people an amplified say in local government. I intend to remain active, never loose sight of real work and grasp all the opportunities I can to make my term in office a successful and meaningful one.

John Gillies, Member of Youth Parliament During my term in office I will be planning to campaign for more activities such as classes, outings etc for young people in partnership with my youth complexes, schools etc. I believe that in doing this more skills will be gained by the young people in my area. In my area where I live it is known as a deprived area where there is serious drug abuse along with alcohol. I want to reduce that as much as I can and not only give young people another chance to attend the likes of college and university to follow careers in their new found interests but to give the area more role models to show that with hard work and respect to others people can live better lives.

Furthermore, I aim to improve Pupil Council's from standing in elections I feel as if the true message and lesson of these elections are overlooked resulting in people voting for the most popular in class. Not also that but I do not feel as if a lot of the councils are working to full capacity and it is seen as a 'Get Out of Class Card'.

To add I aim to achieve Votes @ 16 as this is something I feel very passionately about and 61

something that will keep generations engaged in politics and breach the gap between young people and politics in todays society.

I've emailed the head teacher of my school and my local councillor for a meeting. Both of which haven't got back to me. I'll be looking to email the local Youth Centre about coming in and setting up a 'polling station' for Make Your Mark.

To finish, I have been given a fantastic opportunity here with the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP). It is an opportunity not many get and it is a true honour to be have given it. I intend to bring the qualities I hold to the UKYP and furthermore grab it with both hands.

To contact me: Email - john.riley.gillies.msyp@sypmail.org.uk Facebook Page - John Gillies MSYP/ John Gillies MYP Thomas McEachan, Member of Youth Parliament Since I have been elected I have been in discussions with members of Glasgow City Council about what the city wide policy is on school bullying and how effective it is.

I am currently creating a survey to send out to a number of school pupils and teachers to find out what they think about school bullying policy and whether or not it works. I'll use this information to lobby councillor MSPs and MPs to gain their support for zero tolerance on bullying.

I've been getting university students and the university of strathclyde and Caledonian involved in sharing the MYM message. I've also collected 100 MYM ballots from 5th and 6th year in my school. I'm working my way down to 1st year and should have all ballots completed in two weeks.

Nicole Dempster, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been a historic one for Scotland, and I have never been so proud to be a young person. We have focused on encouraging 16 and 17 year olds particularly to use their right to vote in the referendum. This campaign has taken the form of using social media to reach as many young people as possible and make sure they felt prepared to vote. The referendum has been a real landmark for youth democracy, and young people are now more engaged than ever in politics. In addition to this, East Renfrewshire is well under way with Make Your Mark, and young people across the area are being given the opportunity to cast their vote in this national consultation. From schools to youth groups, 12-18 year olds are getting opportunities to debate what issues matter most to them.

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Highland and Island Katie Burke, Member of Youth Parliament There are so many issues for young people in my constituency with it being such a vast rural area.

Firstly, whilst in office I plan to focus on increasing local provision for youth clubs and forums to ensure all young people can be active and feel valued in their communities. As a start to this I'm taking part in the visit Scotland 'youth active expo' in our local areas which is a street fair style event showcasing what there is to do in our surrounding towns an villages. Rolling something like this out across my constituency is something I would be interested in pursuing.

More nationally I think votes at 16 is a major focus with the independence referendum so close and young people more politically engaged than ever before. We're nearly there, it's time for the final push! Registering young people to vote is a big priority of the Scottish youth parliaments 'aye,naw,mibbe' voter registration project and will be a focus of mine also.

Furthermore ensuring that on September 18th every young person makes an informed choice is crucial to me. Let's show decision makers that we ARE aware and care enough to use our vote!

Overall, I am very excited about my term ahead and would encourage anyone with queries to get in touch via email (Katie.burke.msyp@sypmail.org.uk) or like our local authority youth parliament Facebook page (Argyll and Bute MSYPs) to see all of our recent work.

Scott Simpson, Member of Youth Parliament My main priority is to continue with Votes At 16, which I believe the UK Youth Parliament is best to campaign for.

I'm also working on issues around isolation, public transport and lack of work opportunities, and I'm currently due to meet Rt Hon Charles Kennedy MP (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) to discuss these issues, which is a very serious problem for the young people in my constituency.

I'm also working with the Highland Youth Parliament on getting young people registered to vote, and I'm currently working with elected members of the Highland Youth Parliament to get young people engaged in the Make Your Mark ballot.

I had a brief meeting with Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP, one of the MPs in my constituency, and he is arranging a more in-depth meeting in October some time to discuss Make Your Mark.

Also, through Highland Youth Convener Shaun Finlayson, I have contacted all headteachers and youth workers to encourage young people to sign up as Make Your Mark Champions.

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Lothian Martyna Napierska, Member of Youth Parliament I managed to get involved with young Sikh women who are looking to be inspired and start to take action themselves whether that would be in politics but also youth engagement. The meeting went really well and I myself became inspired by these extraordinary young women who believe that they can affect the way their own lives are lived-very true! I can proudly say I managed to finish the Make Your Mark challenge with a satisfying turnout, and I am looking forward to standing for PG for Scotland!

North East of Scotland Eilidh Collins, Member of Youth Parliament During my time in office I hope to campaign on improving the quality of political education for young people. At the moment, there is a massive gap in the curriculum around politics - the result of a fear of politically influencing the voters of the future. I believe this needs to change, as it has led to a generation of apathetic voters. The only way to begin to engage young people in the democratic process is to provide them with the skills they need to make informed decisions. I have already started to engage with schools in my area, and explored the idea of the introduction of modern studies in my area. I also helped arrange a debate on independence for the young people of Angus, alongside the other Angus MSYPs. This helped inform a lot of young voters o both sides of the argument in an impartial way.

At the moment, I am also working towards getting more schools involved in the Make Your Mark Ballot by contacting head teachers of schools. I am also working on a campaign partially related to Curriculum for Life, as it targets improving the quality of PSE in schools. With this, I am carrying out consultations on the standard of PSE as well as drafting a press release on how PSE can be improved.

Emma Farquhar, Member of Youth Parliament I would like to use my time as an MYP to push for Votes At 16. It just seems fair and I believe that it would be beneficial for all. It shows young people that they are valued members of society and it also gets them thinking about what is best for their communities.

I will work hard to get every school in the North East of Scotland voting in the Make Your Mark ballot. It is a great way to get young people involved in politics and to help them realise the issues that they really care about. Voter turnout in this country is worryingly low, especially among younger voters, introducing young people to voting at an early stage and getting them enthusiastic about it is something that I believe is crucial.

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We have the opportunity in the Independence Referendum to show that Votes At 16 can be a great success. I have already heard so many conversations from young people that start about their vote in the Independence Referendum and goes on to discuss how to make our country better. It's great to see young people enthusiastically engaging with politics and looking to make the country a better place. I have held, along with the other MSYPs for Angus, an Independence Referendum debate for all the Angus secondary schools. This was to introduce them to the arguments from both sides and at this event we also worked to make sure everyone had the information needed to make sure that they could register to vote.

It has been truly amazing this month to have been a part of such an important moment for Scotland. The inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds in the referendum ensured that they got a chance to be a part of their country's future. I saw for myself how passionately involved young people felt while deciding what was best for Scotland. This passion from young people for improving our country surely means the future is bright. This month has also seen good progress with the Make Your Mark campaign which again gives young people the opportunity to look at how we can improve the way things are.

South Scotland Mason Rowan, 17, Member of Youth Parliament While in office I plan to campaign on careers advice to back up work experience.

Currently in my local authority, the set up for work experience is that each S4 Pupil will receive 1 week's work experience at a place willing to offer this opportunity - places may be provided via the school and chamber of commerce or by self-placements; i.e. at your dad's own company etc.

This opportunity is usually really enjoyed and well-documented by those who take part in it.

However, as much as we may enjoy it, is it really relevant?

The first work experience I had was in an insurance broker's. I have no intention of working in insurance and, even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I didn't feel I benefited directly from it.

I was then fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have work experience with the Fire & Rescue Service; which was great. Again however, I have no intention of joining the Fire Service and felt I didn't do anything that would directly benefit me in the area of work I want to pursue.

So, where do I go from here? How do I make the experience I gained relevant to what I want to do in the future? Not to worry. Careers advice will be available to help me, right? Wrong...

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Careers advice in my school is offered inconsistently and a lot of the feedback I've heard from the select few who have received it is that it is really ineffective and a waste of time out of class.

Knowing that I'm not the only one who hasn't had careers advice; it is my belief that every school should implement it shortly after a pupil has been on work experience. This would almost force the pupil to think prior to work experience about whether or not the work placement they have chosen is relevant to their future career paths and it would subsequently help the person offering careers advice be more prepared with information in order to give the pupil what they need - advice.

As a result, it would also help the pupils to see how they can get onto their career paths with provision of possible college/university courses, and entry requirements, for their short term goals and what roles they would need to cover in order to climb up the job ladder to their desired destination in the distant future.

I've continued to speak with my MP who has been in touch with the council and her colleagues.

I then met with the Young Scot team and plan to promote the Make Your Mark ballots more within the school and local areas. The responses we're at just now is at a decent level although once we start getting more active I can see it really taking off. I hope that, now the referendum is as good as over, I will be able to build on the engagement of young people in politics and use it to give them an interest in this important debate.

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Wales Cardiff Cardiff Youth Council BYC – ACM Sheffield Early last month, CYC members Najma Hashi and Sabiha Azad, had the opportunity to represent Cardiff Youth Council at the British Youth Council’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Sheffield.

When they arrived at the venue, they were briefed (as first time representatives) on how the debating and voting processes worked, and what their roles would be.

The demographic size of Cardiff meant that CYC were eligible for two votes. Upon arriving, red wristbands were given to each of the BYC representatives which validated the vote and assured that their vote would be counted.

After listening to the speeches, each representative voted for the positions of the new BYC Chair, three Vice Chairs (for Finance, Participation and Communication), and also elected eight new Trustees on to the BYC board.

The final input at the AGM, was to debate and decide which motions would be passed and would therefore be implemented into the BYC manifesto for the upcoming year.

Najma and Sabiha said: “Our on-going role in this position, as BYC representatives, is to get as many voices of young people in Cardiff heard through the Make Your Mark ballot, which will be debated in the House of Commons by the UK Youth Parliament in November”.

For further information see the article about the UK Youth Parliament.

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CYC Recruiting at Fresher’s Fayres CYC attended the Fresher’s Fayres at St David’s Catholic College, Cardiff & Vale College, Cardiff Metropolitan University and Cardiff University.

Much interest was shown in what CYC was and what they represent, and many attendees expressed an interest in becoming members of CYC and advocating on behalf of children and young people to make the City of Cardiff a better place to live, work and play.

While at the events the BYC ballot was promoted (see the article about the UK Youth Parliament for further information) and over 300 ballots were completed.

NATO—Youth Summit On Friday 5th and Saturday 6th September 30 young people from Cardiff schools, colleges and CYC joined other young people from across the UK to take part in the NATO Modelling event held in the University of South Wales Newport City Campus.

Model NATO 2014 intended to reproduce some of the decision making processes and debates of the actual summit. The idea was to give young people an insight into how international issues such as Islamic State movements and global stability are discussed and negotiated.

Each school/youth council brought delegations of five students, and each delegation was allocated a NATO member to represent. For each delegation, four students sat on committees, while the fifth student acted as a go-between - passing information between committees, observing debates and seeking advice from academic advisers.

The event was organised by the British International Studies Organisation (BISA) in collaboration the University of South Wales. Academics from Aberystwyth University and the 68

Universities of Bath and Birmingham helped to prepare the event and were on hand with advice and guidance.

The delegates had lunch with members of the Atlantic Council and inputs from a range of dignitaries including, Dame Rosemary Butler Presiding Officer, National Assembly for Wales, Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, Deputy Prime Minister & Matthew W. Barzun, Ambassador of the United States of America to the United Kingdom.

UK Youth Parliament Last year, the Make Your Mark ballot surveyed the opinions of a record 478,632 young people aged 11-18, making it the largest youth consultation of its kind in the UK. This year, MYPs have set themselves a target of getting 1,000,000 young people to take part.

The 12th August marked the launch of Make Your Mark, the UK Youth Parliament‘s annual ballot of the public, giving young people their say on what is debated by their Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs) in the House of Commons on 14th November.

CYC members Eva Ure and Fiona McGavin will be attending debate as the representatives for the City of Cardiff.

The ballot will decide which five topics from a shortlist of ten will be debated in the chamber by elected MYPs. The debate will be chaired by The Rt. Hon. John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, recorded in Hansard and broadcast live on BBC Parliament. From these, the Youth Parliament will choose its priority campaigns for the year ahead.

Conwy Ted Simonds, Youth representative The beginning of August saw the end of CATS, Children as Actors for Transforming Society, an international conference whose focus for 2014 was "children as advocates".

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A group of 4 young people from Funky Dragon traveled to Caux in Switzerland to help to run and also participate in the conference. The conference brought adults and young people together to talk about and explore what children's participation means to them. The young people used the event to bring the current Funky Dragon campaign to #ProtectFunkyDragon to an international platform. Also, a young person co-facilitated a workshop on youth advocacy over the duration of the conference.

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Support worker’s Stories

East Midlands Leicestershire Nicola O'Neill, Support worker One of our former CYCLe, UK Youth Parliament and District Youth Council members has just been voted in a British Youth Council Trustee – a massive achievement for a former Leicestershire rep.

Poppie Simmonds first engaged with the Leicestershire Youth Service in 2006 at the age of 12, when she attended a Blaby District Youth Council Conference - Blaby District Youth Council was then run by the Youth Service.

Poppie says herself that when she joined the Blaby District Youth Council she did not speak very much and she lacked confidence, then she became a regular attendee at Blaby District Youth Council and her confidence grew. Her first important role was Treasurer and later in 2011 she became the Chair.

Once Poppie had gained confidence she then became a regular attendee at CYCLe - the County Youth Council - and held the role of Vice Chair in 2010 to 2011 and was a very active Chair / Senior Member until she left school for university in September 2013.

From 2006 to 2013 Poppie also attended residentials, Senior Member Training, planned and ran Voice Conferences and events, sat on interview panels, inspected 'Positive Activities' Projects and Mystery Shopped Sexual Health Services all supported by the Youth Service.

In 2010 Poppie became a Member of the UK Youth Parliament representing young people from Leicestershire for two years. Then, in 2012 she became the East Midlands representative on the Procedures Group at UK Youth Parliament (an executive planning group) and this is when she 'moved on' to be supported by the British Youth council.

Her hard work was acknowledged in October 2013 when Poppie won an Award from Blaby District Council for promoting the voice of young people in the District.

This December Poppie will be 20 years old. She completed her first year at Birmingham University this summer and decided she wanted to stand as a Trustee on the board of the British Youth Council, which she achieved last weekend at the BYC Annual Council Meeting in Sheffield.

The Voice Team are very proud of Poppie's achievements and know that she is a role model for other young people engaged in voice work, the main evidence for this being that the East Midlands Representative on the Procedures Group at UK Youth Parliament this year is also a CYCLe member and a former elected Member of UK Youth Parliament for Leicestershire.

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North East North Tyneside Julia Bradwell, Support worker The Young Mayor and his Youth Councillors have had a busy summer!

Several Youth Councillors and helped at the Rising Sun Family Fun day. The theme of the fun day was the safety of children and reducing risks, it was for the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board.

There was lots of good advice from service providers and over 1,000 people attended. They were also able to raise nearly £100 for Age UK. Young MAyor Allen and Deputy Young Mayor Darryl Met with a local Cllr to talk about public transport issues that affect young people around the borough, he took their concerns forward to transport decision makers at Nexus.

Deputy Young Mayor Darryl was thrilled to be part of the World War 1 centenary commemoration in North Shields. He is in the air cadets and found it a great honour to actively take part in the service.The unveiling of the Boat seat took place in Wallsend Park last week.

Youth Councillors and past Young Mayor’s who are from Wallsend come up with an idea to create a sculpture in the shape of a ship which would also function as a seat. They wanted it to be put in a public area of Wallsend, to commemorate the important shipbuilding industry of Wallsend. The young people worked closely with artist Neil Canavan and created a timeline of three carved panels showing the Roman times, Industrial Wallsend and modern times including youth democracy. ISOS Property Service kindly funded the project.

Recently established, MindFull provides online professional counselling and advice about mental health and emotional wellbeing to young people, as well as peer support from young ‘MindFull mentors’ via its website.

Members of North Tyneside Council’s Youth and Children’s councils, Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Group and other groups in the North East were given the chance to take part in mentor training. Held over a full day, trainees deepened their knowledge of mental health and learnt about the role of an online mentor, before practicing how to facilitate a mentor session on the web and how to involve professionals.

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Yorkshire & Humber Barnsley Clare Archer, Support Worker August and September have been an action packed months with our Summer Programme and Make Your Mark taking place. Lots of young people of all different ages and backgrounds have taken part and we have used these events as an opportunity to encourage young people to give their views and opinions on a variety of things. Including our annual ‘youth offer’ audit, in total 691 were completed and the feedback will be published and made available to young people across the borough. A total of‌.. people have signed the Curriculum for Life Petition and we have over 2,000 completed ballot papers already handed in with plans for the ballot to take place in another 9 schools over the next couple of weeks.

The Youth Council have been busy planning how they will get the Make Your Mark Ballots completed in their schools in Sept and Oct and at least ten members signed up to be Make Your Mark Champions. Members have also been working hard on the various campaign areas including, Young Reporters, Votes at 16, Lets Grow and Anti Bullying.

Work on the Anti Bullying Charter has really picked up momentum. The Charter has now been endorsed by the Barnsley Safeguarding Childrens Board and will be recognised in the revised anti bullying policies. The Chair of the Youth Council presented the Charter to the Secondary Heads at the end of term, the Charter was really well received and five schools signed up to take part in the pilot starting this September.

Karen Lovatt, Support worker Barnsley's Children's Rights Service, Social Care, Independent Review Officers and the fostering team held an event at the Barnsley Metrodome. The event's focus was to give feedback on what has happened since our last consultation event. And to gather the thoughts, feelings and ideas on the work done so far on an information pack. The pack once completed will be given to children & young people when they first enter into the care system.

On the evening the children and young people had the chance to take part in arts and craft activities, balloon modelling and karaoke whilst giving their views and opinions on the things that really matter to them.

The event was successful and those who attended were able to speak openly about what information/material needs to be included in the information pack. The information pack should be ready to use in the next few months.

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I would like to say a big Thank you and well done to all who helped to plan and supported the event.

Emma Baines, Support worker IKIC Pop up shop During the summer Barnsley’s Integrated Youth Support service have been holding informative activities and sessions in the one of the town’s first “Pop up shops”. Young people have been able to come along throughout the week to access information and services from a range of providers each day. The support available to young people has ranged from advice and information on career development, getting started in business, interactive workshops and the chance for young people to give their views on activities and support available to them locally via the annual young people’s audit.

Barnsley’s Youth Councilors have also been using the Pop up Shop as a platform to get as many curriculum for life signatures and Make your mark ballots completed. Overall 228 Young People’s Audit’s were completed, 506 Curriculum for life signatures gained and 305 Make Your Mark votes were cast.

The Pop Up Shop was coordinated by the council’s Children, Young People and Families directorate, together with partners including First for Apprenticeships Barnsley (FAB). Find more information online at www.ikic.co.uk/pop-up-shop and through Twitter at #ikicpopup Barnsley’s Young people’s Audit Barnsley’s Participation & Inclusion Team launched the annual young people’s audit in July 2014 and since then has worked extremely hard to beat last year’s number of returns. Staff members and Youth Councilors visited schools, college, the town centre and local parks to get as many audits completed as possible & all the hard work paid off as we got a total of 691 audits completed.

The annual audit is used to gather young people’s opinions about the availability & quality of services and activities that are on offer to young people in Barnsley.

It is important that BMBC collect the views about different services & activities because this information may be used to determine what is offered in the future within the budgets & resources available to the Council & its partners.

Once we have analysed the feedback from the audit we will produce a report to let young people and services know the results.

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The Temple Newsam Learning Partnership Trust School Council brings together a group of pupils from six primary schools and two high schools from across the Temple Newsam Learning Partnership Trust. The school council meet every six weeks to plan activities, events and projects.

Members of the group consult with their peers in schools before meeting, meaning their action plans are driven by children and young people, and that the issues they address are those important to young people. An example of one of the issues that has previously been address is bullying and how to prevent it.

The group have the opportunity to influence decision-making within the local community and their schools. They have recently been involved in the recruitment of new staff members for the Temple Newsam Learning Partnership Trust. Children and young people from the Temple Newsam Learning Partnership Trust School Council reviewed the interview questions and suggested questions of their- with some of their questions being used during the recruitment process!

Projects like this are great for young people, here are just some of the advantages that the Temple Newsam Learning Partnership Trust School Council brings for the young people involved and the community:     

Children and young people get to have voice and influence within the community.

Children and young people are put at the heart of decision making within the Trust and drive future action plans.

Children and young people learn about the values of democracy, equality, social responsibility, and caring for others.

The community benefit from issue-based projects which focus on anti-littering, antibullying, fundraising for charities, raising awareness of internet safety, and other issues.

Improved relationships between children and young people, staff, and community members.

Foster Carer Awards Leeds Social Care held an awards ceremony for Foster Carers on 14 th July 2014 at the: Northern Ballet Centre; Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre. Over forty carers attended the glittering event with their families. Steve Walker Deputy Director of Children's Services compered the evening.

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Along with the presentation of long service awards to carers; there was performances delivered by ‘Dazl Dance’ troop and young people from both the Northern Centre and the ‘First Floor’.

There was also an excellent act from a young magician, Sebastian Walton who wowed the audience with his trickery!

Peter, Katie and Liam helped out on the evening with a range of responsibilities from running the registration desk at the beginning of the evening, assisting with ushering people into the auditorium, sitting with the technical operator in the box, assisting with refreshments and also handed out certificates for the ‘Supporting Arts Development’ category.

They had also initially been involved in consultations with the planning committee for the event, in giving their opinions about the event; and gave their input for the shortlisting panel deciding category nominees and overall winners.

“I was extremely impressed with the carer who looked after the children with disabilities and the commitment she has taken; I feel she really deserved the award” Liam “I really enjoyed presenting the award, it was a really good evening, I enjoyed helping out in the technical box!” Peter

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Thank you for your submissions this month, we look forward to reading more positive stories next month.

Also we have The Youth on Board (YOB) Awards which is an exclusively youth-led rolling award scheme that recognises innovative and exciting youth participation, both from young people and the projects and organisations that support them.

Deadline for submissions is quarterly.

To apply see more on: http://www.byc.org.uk/training-services/youth-on-board-awards.aspx

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