Ps june

Youth Voice: Positive Stories June 2014

Youth Select Committee Oral Evidence Session: Votes at 16

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Youth Voice: Positive Stories A report by youth representatives and the workers that support them June 2014 Welcome to the June 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 June’s survey and we look forward to hearing more from everyone over the coming months.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Contents Young People’s Stories East Midlands East of England London North East North West South East South West West Midlands Yorkshire and Humber Northern Ireland Scotland Wales

4 7 10 17 23 29 33 50 56 66 70 71

Support Worker Stories East of England London South East North East Yorkshire and Humber

73 75 76 79 80

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Young People’s Stories

East Midlands Derbyshire Shakeel Hajat – Member of the Youth Select Committee The oral evidence sessions for our Youth select committee on Votes @ 16 have concluded and they have been both an incredible experience and truly insightful! It's been fascinating listening to a variety of different people from both sides of the spectrum of opinion on the topic, including professors, young people, intergenerational organisations and even MPs such as Andrew Slaughter and Tom Brake Deputy leader of the House of Commons. The sessions have certainly been interesting, and I know all of it will be crucial when writing our report, which I'm now keenly looking forward to

Leicestershire Daria Eckert, 13, Member of Youth Parliament On Thursday 5th June the County Youth Council Leicestershire hosted the Unheard Voices event, a celebration and exhibition of young people’s voice work. The theme was “Respect Difference, Say No To Hate”. The exhibition was for the early help 11-19 service and other voice projects from young people across the county. There was “Adopt An Issue” a new format to link elected members and service managers with local projects.

UK Youth Parliament members including myself and deputy members talk to the elected members about how to progress with votes at 16. We also got feedback from the young people on five issues that are to be debated in the annual sitting and any issues to do with health or sexual health for Healthwatch.

Unheard voices were really constructive for me because I got great feedback from the elected members on campaign for votes at 16. I got to talk to members of the LCC Leicestershire County Council and members on local councils; I hope to go to some of their meetings and hopefully get more people interested in helping votes at 16.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

The atmosphere was great: people look happy and engaged in what we were doing. I was my first time going to the event and I really enjoyed it. It was also nice to meet lots of people from different Boroughs; we had a good mixture of people. The feedback we got from the young people about the five issues will be useful for us at the annual sitting.

Rina Roy, Member of Youth Parliament Unheard Voice was one wonderful event organised by young people in CYCLe (County Youth Council Leicestershire), it was great working with everyone to make this event happen and it was my first time doing/ seeing something like this happen. I was involved in Charnwood Borough display board and the UKYP but mainly UKYP. On the UKYP I had to write stories about the Residential weekend in Kent, Positive stories, Citizenship Award of the year and my story how I got involved. Most young/people came from different Boroughs it was great seeing young/people everyone get together celebrating “Respect Difference, Say No To Hate” and different Borough had their each display and project on show, and there were young/ people going around rating each display and project and at the end the winner was announced and they won vouchers. On that evening we had other activities going on there was the lovely Beacon Voices Choir and they were amazing and made my evening.

We also issue raised about “Vote at 16” me, Daria and Sâin we spoke to the elected members/ managers to inform them of the progress, and to hear what their point of view was, which was interesting we also had members supporting us and they said they will be in contact with us.

Afterwards we had the “Next Year’s Issues for consideration” and “Debates” which was really fun and interesting and we had lots of people taking part in. I was really involved with the “Next Year’s Issues for Consideration” we brought the topics that are already being discussed and are already in “New UKYP Policy Motion” these were “ Free Higher Education”, “Exams Re-sits in Maths and English”, “Self Defence Training”, “ Sexual Health Screening” and “Severer Consequences for Bullying”.

Then we did a small speech on each one of them and explained, then asked young people to write on post it notes what they think about these issues and how they feel about it. Then it was stuck to flip chart which is going to get typed up by Ashleigh our very hardworking PG. From that event there was lot to learn and take away, and this would be beneficial for me because it gave the practise for me to speak front of the public which will help me in the Annual Sitting in July.

Siân Vincent, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Firstly, on June 5th Leicestershire Youth Council (CYCLe) we held a 'Unheard Voices' Event, It was very successful and it was great to see everybody leave with smiles on their faces. I got to consult with some official members of authority (I think ???) about Votes at 16; They seemed very

Youth Voice: Positive Stories inquisitive and asked many questions. We answered all clearly and gained lots of knowledge. The event in itself was a good experience, I had to speak in front of a lot of people which proved that I was confident, I had to co-run an activity and it went pretty well if I do say so myself. Therefore it was a really great night. Lastly, On June 7th, I went to a BYC convention in Birmingham... Wow was it fun! I really did not want to leave. The workshops were very informative and inspired me to move my ideas further. I met a lot of people and met my old friend from the residential in April. I cannot wait for the future events, they're going to be a blast!

Rutland Lauren Taylor, Member of Youth Parliament In this month’s meeting we had some very important guests representing the Rutland County Council coming to talk to us about the new re-form of youth groups. We started by talking about what’s already available and the problems they’re facing. Having more space and making them more diverse were both issues. Then we moved on to talking about what we want and a very exciting new idea of a milkshake bar that would be youth led.

This would give youth in Rutland a chance to gain work experience from bar work to finances.

Next we talked about how we could improve awareness of these groups. When discussing this the council seemed to lack in knowledge of resources already available and so we encouraged them to go into schools and make use of the Rutland youth website Raw4youth.

Another idea that was talked about would be having a representative from each school that could feed in information about upcoming events. It was really great to see the council listening to our views and taking in our ideas. We look forward to see the council’s outcome of this consultation.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

East of England Hertfordshire Alex Hirsh, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Update on the 2013/14 Manifesto “ and the future will bring ….”

We then turned our attention to the 2013/14 Manifesto to begin discussing action plans. For an initial discussion, the outcomes were remarkable positive - everything from ‘Building positive relationships between young people and the police’ to ‘increasing apprenticeship opportunities’ to ‘Olympic/Paralympics legacy’ to ‘supporting young people with personal issues’.

We were fortunate to speak to senior officers of these respective issues who work in the County.

I, like my colleagues, are eagerly anticipating the prospect of real implementation on the scale that last year’s manifesto has seen.

On a personal note, it was great to meet my colleagues from the 2013/14 group as well as having the chance to meet the 2014 cohort - the ‘new lot’! I trust they will do their utmost to continue our work, and we hope we have laid strong foundations for them. I also hope the success of yesterday’s meeting is a message to all groups from around the Country that the hard work will pay off, and people of seniority are willing to engage and work with young people.

We live in a world where people are often very cynical about the prospect for improvement, and it fills me with great pride to feel I can defy the cynics. My thanks to Mr Donovan and Mr. Simmons, as well as all those we met yesterday. Of course, special thanks to our very own Alex Ferguson (Youth Connexions) who helped make yesterday another memorable occasion for us all.

Keep up the fight!

Update on the 2012/13 Manifesto “It makes it all worthwhile...”

As I’m sure you are aware from your own work, making progress can be frustrating, slow, and there are moments when you might feel like giving up. But then you have those times when you begin to see change, and Herts UKYPs Youth Summit with Hertfordshire County Council on the 1st April was one of those occasions.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories As last year, we met with the Director of Education & Early Intervention, Justin Donovan, and Andrew Simmons, Deputy Director of Services for Children and Young People. Following an informal introduction, we were given a progress report on implementation of the 2012/13 Manifesto following last year’s meeting. The progress is highly commendable.

For example, on the priority of ‘Child Fares for all under 18’s’, HCC will now include our date of births on saver cards from September 2014, and are supporting us to work more closely with bus companies.

From the priority of ‘Wider Leaning Opportunities in schools’, the current Work experience and Work Related Learning is now integrated into Youth Connexions working to make the system far more accessible and effective for all young people in the county.

In terms of ‘Supporting Young Runaways and Homeless’, we are proud to announce new initiatives such as the ‘Numbers-you-need’ booklet being put online, and new projects to find out what help would be best for young runaways and homeless.

As I am sure you too understand, the austerity of the last few years has seriously threatened Youth Services, and we are pleased that thanks to the efforts of the 2012/13 group, the importance of youth services in now included in the HCC Corporate Plan for 2013 – 17.

Samaya Woolner, 19, Youth Representative ‘ ….. I always refer to "mental health problems" as mental health conditions because with or without a diagnosis having a mental health condition doesn't have to be a problem in your life …..’ http://www.rememberyouwontfeelthiswayforever.blogspot.co.uk/

Norfolk Emily Fox, 14, Member of Youth Parliament for Mid Norfolk In March 2014, I was elected as the member of Youth Parliament for Mid Norfolk with 1,788 votes. Since then, I have been to a number of meetings and we have discussed the top 5 Make your Mark issues and how we are going to make these better in the next year.

Recently, I have been part of a youth supplement called ‘Future Voices-Young People Divulge’ in the Eastern region, featured in the EDP. There are four editions and as an editorial board, we take turns to edit the articles that come in from young people across the county.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I am part of a youth forum and we are currently planning summer activities to decrease the amount of anti-social behaviour in the area over the summer. Being part of a Youth Advisory Board, has widened my knowledge further. Also I am doing my work experience with the MP for my constituency, George Freeman for a week this month which will be inspiring and helpful to my future MYP work.

Suffolk Toby Jeffery, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I recently attended a Public Priority Tasking Meeting for my local policing area, where young people were discussed in both positive and negative terms. I made sure that young people that caused problems for the police in the community were seen as the minority.

Other events include the first British Youth Council convention at Pimlico Academy in London.

There I attended several sessions to further my knowledge of campaigns relevant to young people, including the Votes at 16 campaign.

Ben Herbig, 13, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I am starting up a campaign for litter, and am starting to think about sports facilities. I am also meeting Suffolk county council to converse about public transport and bullying (In the coming weeks).

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

London Camden Hannah Morris, 14, Member of Youth Parliament I have been participating in the planning of a new youth hub for young adults ages 16-25. Today we had the stakeholder event. The event was to consult with the market and offer future partnerships with them and the multidisciplinary team to operate from the hub. The youth are behind the main decisions and ideas so it is related to the needs of a young person and not made patronising. At the event we performed a role play of the sorts of people the hub would be targeted at, so the audience could gather a better picture. Additionally I performed my beatboxing alone for entertainment. The event as a whole was a triumph and many people gathered an interest.

Recently after being elected I went and met the Mayor of Camden and many of the councillors. I then gave a speech of thanks in the Council Chambers Meeting. This was to close the gap between the adults and youths of Camden and to determine our teamwork in the future. I started to say this in my speech and now they have said they are interested in what I and the youth council are doing.

This is the web address, I speak at 6.07seconds: http://www.camden.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/131472

Ealing Ashvarya Madhani, 15, Member of Youth Parliament As I am one of the Media Representatives for the BYC, I had been asked to submit a quote, surrounding the issue of mental health in young people. Personally, I believe that mental health in young people today is a major issue and there is not enough being done to tackle it effectively.

We need to stress the significance of introducing this topic within the PSHE Curriculum in high school education, in order to better inform our young generation about this important, issue, which is becoming widespread in society. Of 400 educators recently surveyed by the PSHE Association, 76% said they wanted more support on teaching about young people’s mental health, more than any other issue covered by PSHE education and up from 65% in a similar survey

Youth Voice: Positive Stories last year. This suggests that there is not much of a focus placed on the issue of mental health and that there needs to be wider emphasis on this issue, in order to make people more aware and informed. Early Intervention is vital; this means that the UK Government needs to start investing in services and support for young people. Statistics suggest that there is a clear connection between a child possessing a mental disorder and the likeliness of that child committing crime in the future - 95% of imprisoned young offenders have a mental health disorder. We need to act now and show our support for mental health in young people.

By publishing my quote regarding mental health in young people for the PSHE Association, I have been able to represent the views of thousands of young people on a nationwide scale; those that are suffering from mental disorder, as well as, those who support my views and believe that mental health is a significant issue, which the government should take extra care of and enhance the range of mental health services available for young people, today.

Greenwich Chloe Toland, 15, Young Mayor Corelli College in The Royal Borough of Greenwich, which is the school that I go to. During my time as a Community leader which would be a non co-operative academy's year group school council representatives. myself and some amazing people who are all in year 11 and year 10, have been working on two separate campaigns which we came up with because of a lovely visit from Greenwich Citizens rep Karina, who encouraged us to create the best campaigns. One was road safety which is currently being lead by an extremely intelligent boy called Ciaran who is in fact in year 10 going into year 11, his ideology about the school bodies safety to and from school but also the community's idea on the amount of tragic accidents that had occurred on the streets. Our second campaign which was made part of the manifesto for the Greenwich Citizens reps was my campaign which i really shouldn't say mine as my friend Natalia who is a very creative student, and very cool in just about everything she does. Here’s the thing, our campaign wasn't about the idea's people have on mental health but the idea that we could raise awareness of young people who suffer from bad mental health, which we then went on to run a survey where we wrote and interviewed a various of different pupils and teachers within our school. We hope our campaign is positive enough.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Hackney Ife Grillo, 15, Youth Councillor and Member of Youth Parliament I've been working Hackney Youth parliament looking at how we can prepare the next youth parliament. We've designed a training workshop for them and have looked at how we can make sure they are ready to represent Hackney's youth!

I've been working with Model Westminster and attended their event at the department of education which was about the EU and Youth.

Hammersmith and Fulham Fred Gill, 17, Youth Representative At the start of this month we had the first Youth Voice Convention. It was a great day and our MYP sessions went really well. In the first one we went over the national campaigns and the Annual Sitting getting everyone prepared and excited for it. In the second session we started to plan regionally our strategy for Make Your Mark. We shared past experience and tips to make sure everyone is ready to go out and do themselves proud. We had some great circles of influence and other workshops throughout the day. A massive thank you to everyone who came you really made the event what it was.

Mina, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament We have now got an action plan for our campaign to organize a one stop shop that is for young people led by young people in order to combat the issue of engaging young people in the world of work. It will tackle issues such as finding work experience, jobs, volunteering as well as helping to construct your CV etc. We are currently in the process of creating our presentation to present to the councillors. Hopefully they support us!

Harrow Zak Wagman, 15, Member of Youth Parliament The past month has been a busy and exciting one. A week after Harrow’s local elections, me and four other members of the Harrow Youth Parliament went to the Harrow Civic Centre to present

Youth Voice: Positive Stories ourselves and introduce ourselves to the newly elected councillors. Supported by over 15 other members, we arrived at a reception for the councillors, where we had a chance to meet with them. There, I had a lengthy discussion with the youngest councillor, and we spoke about the problems facing the youth. Then, after an introduction from one of the managers in the council, we gave our presentation. This was ten minutes long, explaining who we are, what we do, some of our past achievements and also what our current projects are. This was a great chance to meet the new officials, and a number of them spoke to us afterwards and were looking forward to working with us.

The second big event came as the BYC’s Convention One. Held in Pimlico Academy, in London, myself and 5 other HYP members travelled up, where we saw some friends that we have not seen since the last BYC event. We heard from keynote speaker Benjamin Cohen, who was inspirational on the topic of campaigning. After a session for all of London’s MYPs, as the chair of the Transport Circle of Influence, I met David McNeill, Public Affairs Director for Transport for London. We had a brief discussion ranging from the infamous ‘Boris Bikes’ to the Tube, before making our way to the discussion room. The discussion was very interesting and constructive, and the main topics were cost of transport and problems young people face with transport. This was a great afternoon and group to chair, and concluded a great day.

Overall, this month has been very successful for both myself and HYP, and has had a few standout moments.

Islington Hiba, 16, Young Mayor We have gone to different meetings regarding out priority area. Most recently I attended the youth health forum. We are holding a session where young people in the borough can come in an give us their opinions.

Taiga, Youth Councillor I've been an active part of a couple health forums, and have given constructive feedback on both services provided to young people as well as the deliverance of these services to young people.

Can't wait to really kick off as a youth council now that exams are finishing up.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Kia Augustin, Youth Councillor Since my one month I have spoken with a variety of adult Councillors who also take interest into my priority area of Career and Education Planning. Also we have arranged a summit where young people can meet with head of apprentices and understand what it means to work.

Islington Youth Council Islington’s youth council decide their priorities Islington’s youth council have set out their four key priorities for the next two years.

The 12 youth councillors began their electoral term on 1 February 2014, after nearly 5,000 local young people voted in the youth council election last November.

Since then they have been given an induction aimed at equipping them with the skills and knowledge required to meet the challenges of their new roles.

The youth councillors are responsible for making sure the opinions of young people in Islington are heard. They work with council officers and elected members to ensure young people have a key role in planning, designing, delivering and reviewing services.

Based on the manifestos and election campaigns the youth councillors have identified and agreed the priorities they will focus on during their time in office.

The four priorities are: health and wellbeing, youth employment, youth provision and career and education planning.

Youth Mayor Hiba Warsame said: “With the help of all the young people who voted for us, we have set our four priorities.

We hope the work we do will give the young people in the borough the head start they need."

Joe Caluori, Executive Member for Children & Families said: “We’re really excited about the Youth Council's priorities. I am looking forward to working with them to help them achieve their goals. The youth council is a great opportunity to empower our young people and make their voice heard in the community.”

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Newham Saadia Sajid – Youth Councillor and Member of the Youth Select Committee The oral evidence sessions as part of the Youth Select Committee's inquiry into votes at 16 has been an intriguing one to say the least! After much preparation for the witness sessions, there was evidence gathered from a wide range of different organisations both for and against the topic. From youth workers, the electoral reform society, Andy Slaughter MP, all the way to young people themselves! All evidence given was very articulate and I'm sure all the evidence will be more than valuable to our final report consisting of recommendations to the Government which I am increasingly excited for!

Wandsworth Hilary Juma, Youth Councillor This has been a busy-bee month for Wandsworth Youth Council. Even in exam time we are still working hard to ensure young people’s voices are heard!

Some of our youth voice adventures include: 1. Annual Report presentation to Committee – we presented our annual report to Committee Wednesday 25 June. We have been working hard to make sure we were slick and profess. Have a sneaky peak at our annual report: http://vimeo.com/participationpeople/wbcyouthcouncil2014 2. Greenwich Young People’s Council and Wandsworth CLICK– we met with both of these amazing youth voice groups. We asked questions, presented our successes and learnt a little bit about how we can listen harder to vulnerable groups of young people. Nando’s was good too! #food 3. Community Grant – four of us sat on the Community Grant panel to help Wandsworth spend £175,000 on youth projects. We love how seeing how our decisions positively affect young people in Wandsworth. #favproject

Youth Voice: Positive Stories 4. Funding Factory – we delivered a funding factory for young people in Tooting and at Linden Lodge SEN school to support them to develop their funding ideas for the Youth Opportunity Fund. #showmethemoney 5. BYC’s Youth Voice staff meeting – Ania and Antonia went to the London region’s Youth Voice staff meeting to learn about what everyone else is doing. They shared our new Participation Action Plan and Strategy. #proud.

6. Primary School Youth Voice – we have met with two Primary Schools to help them build their Student Voice. We are super excited to see what they will do with our free training and advice. #watchthisspace 7. Staff training – we are building up to a busy July where we are helping Antonia to deliver four lots of staff training. This includes: introduction to youth participation, creative methods of delivery, building a culture of youth participation and how to use social media to engage young people. #buzy

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North East Hartlepool Rachel, Youth Councillor My name is Rachel and I currently attend Hartlepool Youth Parliament. I love Youth Parliament as it gives young people, like me, an opportunity to have our voices heard and somebody to talk to if we encounter problems. This is a really positive group experience! We meet every week on a Monday to discuss different topics of things that we think need addressing.

Bilaal Saddiq, 18, and Jannat Khanum, 14, Youth Councillors In our area we have been helping candidates to campaign to become MYP. This was a great experience as we were able to interact with a wide range of people from different ages and different groups of people.

Shay Miah, 18, Member of Youth Parliament Firstly I have been elected since April 2014, but have been part of Hartlepool Youth Parliament for a couple of years now and have worked closely with Hartlepool Borough Council to be at the heart of young people decision making. However as being MYP for Hartlepool I have tried to make a change for young people and was voted in for my 5 main policies: Tackling Youth Unemployment - which I will be starting a youth employment skills group, which I will try and give young people the skills they need to find work so they get the experience they need for employers Transport - Hartlepool had a massive cut in the Transport 3 years ago and we are still facing the aftermath from it, I have successful been able to work with stagecoach to get one bus back into place but I am still trying to a few more back on.

More Facilities for Young People - this was going to be the hardest thing to do for Hartlepool as Hartlepool is getting a big make over in the next 15 years and resources and capital is limited but I am working with my local authority to ensure more activities should be in place.

Representation - I believe this is one of the most important thing when becoming MYP is to remember that you are not representing yourself but representing all the young people in your constituency and those young people who voted for you, I ensure that I represent the young people of my constituency by going into schools, talking to young people outside attending

Youth Voice: Positive Stories school council meeting and offer to attend groups to get their issues and to deal with them.

Politics - we all in the process of fight for the curriculum 4 life (C4L) I have been working with organisations such as the safeguard group, health, education etc. to ensure that all needs for young people are met in the C4L and this is under process as we have done a consultation in schools done by the school council forum to get their views on their PSHCE and for the first time ever the school council, myself and the DMYP will be attending the head teachers meeting on the 2nd July to discuss about PSHCE and the need for amendments to help young people prepare for life outside of school when they become part of they become part of the big world of work.

Furthermore I have taken on another piece of work to ensure that the voice of young people is not missed out in the council- this is to create a youth cabinet in Hartlepool who are elected representative there will be 3 representatives of mixed ages for each secondary school (there is 5 schools in total) which is 15 and 2 elected representatives for each college (2 colleges) and 4 youth councillors so we get a variety of people in the Cabinet. They will be divided in to 4 different groups and to hold their own investigations with permission from the Children Service Committee and to feed it back in the cabinet and the Committee. The youth Cabinet will also be voting for MYPs and DMYPs to give candidates a fair voting system. However this is at its early stage but I have organised meeting with the Assistant Director of Education in Hartlepool and the councillors as well as taking this up to the head teachers meeting on the 2nd of July.

Newcastle upon Tyne Liam Binns, 17, Youth Councillor I have been working with The Newcastle city council (Woolsington ward) to meet at my local youth project to help young people in my area get their voice heard I also volunteer at a youth centre in town called space 2 and on the 29th and 30th may I went on Newsround for space 2 with a few other young people Neil Kotre, 15, Member of Youth Parliament One’s sixteenth birthday is increasingly seen as the gateway to adulthood. Gone are children’s transport fares and in comes taxation, gone are GCSEs and in comes A Levels. Beyond the threshold, it is possible to marry or sleep with many individuals regardless of class or status – even a local Member of Parliament. But strangely enough, these pioneers of the future can’t decide on the direction of that great pathway. They can’t vote. Even though I don’t exactly feel that this argument is watertight, it would be interesting to behold the reactions of those who consider “the yoof of the day” to be the cause of every evil in modern society when they are presented with it. Bushy eyebrows would dart suddenly to the top of a wrinkled forehead.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Spectacles would be removed and held against pallid lips. A prolonged exhalation in the manner of a tired workman would signal vehement disapproval.

I can even imagine the group of individuals who would present their opinions before this difficult chap; far from the donkey-jacket wearing, red-flag waving disruptors of thirty years ago, this motley crew would consist of the widest variety of activists that it is possible to envisage. Ever ready with a quip of middle-class sarcasm or thoughtful statistic, these are the voice of the North East’s young people and their tireless champion on a national level: the Members of the Youth Parliament.

The North East British Youth Council Convention on the 7th on June illustrated this mental image with exceptional clarity. The wide variety of topics discussed in workshops, debates and social media proved beyond doubt that young people have their causes and will battle for them tooth and nail, however difficult the task. And never stop. If there’s one final image from that day which sums it all up, it’s that of the most unassuming of aspiring politicians. Picture small eyes shoot an intense glance from behind thick-rimmed glasses, piercing a sea of debate with a look which appears to ask “…and do I really have to lecture you on the basic laws of economics?” For me, its one of the most striking sights conceivable.

North Tyneside Amy Bell, 11, Youth Councillor In my school we are currently writing the Mag4u which is an online magazine for young people in key stage 3. the theme is 'Things to do, places to go'. We will be visiting a City Learning Centre to edit are articles and decide how the magazine will look. it will go to all young people in North Tyneside.

Dea-Jai, 14, Youth Representative Recently the Children in Care Council were awarded some money from Starbucks Youth Action Fund to develop a new contact room for young people in care. i am very excited to do this project with my group. i think that this will create an impact as people may enjoy their contact with family Eric, 16, Youth Representative I enjoyed doing our practice Duke of Edinburgh Expedition, it was really good fun. i learnt new skills such as map reading and working as a team. The things I enjoyed most was doing the long walk and getting called nicknames such as 'supernatural'

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Isaac Sidney, 16, Youth Councillor On Wednesday 4th June we had the premier of the One to One's sexual health DVD at the Jam Jar cinema with important decision makers in North Tyneside present. It has been made by North Tyneside Young People Health and Wellbeing group in collaboration with the YMCA's Young Health Champions'. It was an extremely successful event with all Young People talking about the work we had taken part in. It will be distributed in schools to improve Young People’s confidence of visiting the service.

Jess Perkins, Youth Councillor Over the Easter Holidays the Youth Council supported the 'Ban Boredom' campaign, promoting activities for young people in North Tyneside. One of us dressed as the Easter Bunny and we visited parks and leisure centres in borough. There was also a competition, if you took a photo with the bunny and tweet it with #BanBoredomBunny. The winner won a huge Easter hamper.

Lewis Allan, Youth Councillor On Wednesday the 4th June, North Tyneside Youth Council members attended The Children, Young People and Learning Strategic Forum with adults decision makers to discuss services which may affect young people. We were able to communicate with adults and share our views on Mental Healthcare, fostering and adoption and education.

Steven Foggon, 13, Youth Councillor A while ago I took part in a mental health training scheme. At this event we learnt about mental health and how to help stop it, we are also going to continue by being admins and talking to young people with mental health issues and try to help them.

Northumberland Annabelle Cooper, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament On Friday 13th Matt Butcher from the Northumberland Youth Cabinet and I attended a meeting with the creator of an online monthly survey called 1001 Voices, which is emailed to young people of ages 13-19. The aim of the meeting was to create a survey focusing on public transport which we will use to gather the opinions of 255 young people and around 7 schools all over Northumberland. The questions we designed gather information regarding whether they use public transport, their opinion of public transport as well as if they do not use public transport, the reason(s) behind this and the alternatives they may use. In addition we would also become

Youth Voice: Positive Stories informed of any promotional offers or saving schemes the young people are aware of or may use.

Our plan is to use the answers of the survey in our campaign for cheaper and more suitable public transport either by using it as evidence in meetings/consultations or by using them as a stepping stone to kick-off ideas for our campaign.

Later in the day Alnwick Castle celebrated the Commonwealth Queens Baton passing through Northumberland. It was celebrated in style with a steel pan band, live music, flag procession and of course, classic fish and chips. The baton itself was put on display in the middle of the courtyard free for photos to be taken but it was later removed to be ready for the flag procession.

As a newly elected DMYP I am new to the whole structure and culture of the BYC. However on June 7th I attended the first BYC convention of the year and to put things in basic terms I cannot wait for the second. Right from the start when I registered and signed up to workshops I made friends. MYPs from North and South Tyneside, Stockton, Darlington, everyone was welcoming and certainly happy. The DMYP/MYP workshop in the morning and afternoon allowed time to meet and talk to people I will hopefully be working alongside in the very near future. I now have a clear understanding of my role and what to do, all systems are go.

To say the day was all work and no play is a massive understatement. A panel debate which included Labour MEP Liam Carr and UKIP MEP Jonathan Arnott was entertaining and definitely helpful to hear their views on Europe and young people. However it would be a crime to leave out a true highlight of the day, a performance from an X-factor hopeful which was amazing. All that is left to say is watch out Lancaster, UKYP are on their way with excellent ideas.

Matt Butcher, 16, Youth Councillor In May and June 2014 the Northumberland Youth Cabinet launched our first award for "Youth Participation". In this we are sponsoring an annual award in each of the 16 major high schools in the county to give the young people in Northumberland the recognition that we feel they deserve for the work that they do. So far we have 4 schools confirmed in taking part in our project and we hope to have all remaining schools taking part in the near future. We also aim to have a Cabinet member present at each award ceremony to hopefully present our award to the young people who have been selected by the staff at each of the schools.

The young person will be chosen by the staff at each participating school to receive this award every year and when we are informed of when the ceremony will be, we intend to have a member there to present the award. This is to improve our relations with young people and show that we are living up to the policies we emplace to represent the views of young people and make their lives better.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Sunderland Joel, 14, and Brett, 18, Youth Representatives We are Brett and Joel and we are members of City equals, this is a committee group for young people with LDD, we currently have 4 young members we meet every Wednesday and sometimes on a Saturday. We are also working with some youth clubs like HYPP, Lambton Street and Blue Watch.

Kieran Boyce, 15, Youth Councillor I am Kieran Boyce I am part of 3 groups children's trust advisory network (ctan) also sunderland young inspectors (syi) and one last one which is Change Council which is for young people in care and care leavers.

Joshua Cameron, 14, and Ashleigh Robinson, 16, Youth Representatives As part of CTAN (children's trust advisory network) we were elected for the Sunderland volunteer awards. The volunteer awards happen every year and award the people of Sunderland who volunteer throughout all areas and topics. However, this was the first year that the young people were put forward and acknowledged for their volunteering over the years. CTAN (children's trust advisory network) and SYP (Sunderland youth parliament) were very privileged to be awarded for their efforts throughout the years.

Rhiain Hackles, 16, Youth Representative CTAN (Childrens Trust and Advisory Network) is partnered with the Children's Trust, which is part of the Sunderland City Council. Local Businesses and companies come to us to get the views of young people, on certain topics, and let us have our input on what they should involve in their issues. Our meetings take place monthly and we discuss different topics each time, and often revisit issues. Our views get taken to the Children's Trust and they value our opinions and help take action upon the issues we put forward.

Young People aged 11 to 18 (25 in some circumstances) can take part in CTAN to discuss issues for the young people of Sunderland. This group has been running 2 years, this year, and we are extremely proud of the success we have made.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North West Bolton Ebony Cropper, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Health and well being consultation Myself and Bolton Youth Council consulted with Marie Bissett who is part of the health and well being board for young people within the council and the NHS. We helped create a timeline to determine at what age various things to do with health such as mental health, sexual health, dental etc should be focused on through the NHS and schools and at what age it would be appropriate.

Bring back our girls!

Bolton Youth council made posters with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls to show involvement and support to the current situation in Nigeria. This was also shared via social media by Chair Ryan Wallwork.

Youthforia Several representatives from Bolton attended the latest Youthforia meeting and contributed towards the movement with the mental health campaign. We are soon to meet with Sam Richardson about Make your mark!

Gulwali Passarlay, 19, Youth Representative The month began with end of my first year university and exams, The year has been challenging because University wasn't easy especially due English not being my first language but I managed it well. In the first week of June, I was invited to participate in debate at BBC Pashto 'Path of Thought' youth debate program which was seen by millions in Afghanistan and here in the west.

The discussion was around the causes and consequences of illegal immigration to Britain in EU. It was my first major afghan TV attendance, which will hopefully take me a step closer to my aim of becoming a leader there one day.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

This year Refugee Week was between the 16th - 22nd of June - I was selected a Refugee Week Ambassador and was involved in planning of events across the county and taking part in important events I give speeches about my experiences and why we should welcome refugees.

Refugee Week is an international programme of arts, culture, community and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees and encourage a better understanding between different communities and to have successful integration enabling refugees to live in safety and to continue making a valuable contribution to the UK. Therefore, I was part of reception in parliament to start the Refugee Week with guests from parliamentarians to those that work with and are concerned about refugee issues. I was given an opportunity to speak about refugee week young ambassadors and my own experiences which was useful and interesting step forward. During the week I visited many afghan communities in London and beyond to discuss issues and difficulties Afghan refugees are facing in the week and what can be done to resolve it. The week ended with an event at the People's History Museum Manchester, where I share a few words of wisdom :) On the 25th of June, I was invited to my former school Essa Academy for talk about refugee week to some younger students - studying British national identity. But more so to be a special guest at their Achievement Evening to present awards and certificates which was indeed an honour. I was also able to interview the Principal about Child poverty and what role does school plays and how it can help to reduce child poverty at school and what needs to be done. This was because I am a

Youth Voice: Positive Stories commissioner on Children's Commission on Child Poverty with Children Society and we are looking to find evidence regarding the cause and consequences of child poverty and how school sometime reproduce it unfortunately.

Finally the month ended with a meeting at children society to share what we have done and the progress made and what the commission needs to do next - sharing the findings and ideas for the next month parliamentary inquiry into child poverty. Overall it was a productive and successful month for my activism and engagement.

Well, nothing really but recently my TEDxManchester talk went online which can be seen from here. http://youtu.be/hBVMLY1KyhE Thank for your supportiveness and time.

Cheshire East Zainab, 17, Member of Youth Parliament On the 11th of June, I took part of an event in Cheshire East which involved different people from organisations in Cheshire East. This included council members, police officers, governors and etc.

This event was all about creating and establishing a partnership between the organisations in Cheshire East and the young people. This is very important, as we wanted to make sure that in the future, young people would have a say in the decisions that were being made that would affect them. During the event, there were different types of activities that people took part in.

One of the activities was looking at other organisations vision statements and writing down what was good and bad about these statements. The main outcome from this activity was to find out what makes good and bad vision statements. Such as having a long vision statement would not be suitable because when people are reading it, they may get bored and stop reading it half way which is not what organisations want.

The second activity, involved all the tables creating a diagram of what they thought a partnerships between young people and the organisations in Cheshire East will look like. There were some amazing diagrams that all revolved around young people. But the one I thought was the best was my table. Our table drew a festival to represent what we thought the partnership should look like. The young people were the core of the festival and the different organisation was surrounding them.

Connecting all the departments together was a rope but we thought of it as a blood line, which was connected to the young people in the middle. This is because if the blood line is broken, then the other organisations would not be able to communicate effectively and efficiently therefore;

Youth Voice: Positive Stories the young people would not be able to get involved. However, when the lady who was hosting the event asked me how was the discussions in the table, I noticed that they did not really involve me in the conversations, as they were communicating in a way that young people could not understand and over thinking the problem.

I then gave a quick summary of what I thought about the event and what I have picked up from the event. I told them that in order to start their partnerships with young people, communication is really important as they will need to be able to communicate with young people in a way that they could understand which will make the partnership successful. Overall it was a great event and all of people were lovely and I gained lots of experiences from this event.

The Main issue in Cheshire East is the lack of youth previsions as I was able to find out from the elections. The MYP's, DMYP's are currently creating a questionnaire which will be handed to young people to find out what kind of youth prevision they want and would benefit from. Other representatives from different councils in the area will be involved in this project, to make sure that our sample size is really big so that we can get accurate answers.

Cheshire West Alias Buchanan, 15, Member of Youth Parliament This month I attended the Youthforia-North West BYC convention, which was not only interesting but extremely fun too! I met lots of new people and made some good friends as well as getting some extra information about our campaigns.

I also arranged a meeting with a headteacher of one of my local primary schools to discuss some future plans, which link our work with the school. I felt that this was another step taken in order to build bridges between the YP and the wider community.

Rochdale Christopher Robinson Marland, 19, Youth Councillor I attended the European Youth Event with the BYC. I learnt a lot about European Institutions, political issues in Europe, the current debates taking place, the perception of the United Kingdom in Europe and a lot about the cultures of Continental Europe. From this, I intend to inform people of what I have learnt and want to involve myself more in the European work being undertaken.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Salford Rebecca Knowles, Youth Councillor Hi, my name is Rebecca Knowles. I am from Salford Youth Council. My role is currently Youth Councillor. I am currently fundraising for the Alzheimer's Society in aid of my granddad who suffers from Dementia and Alzheimer's at the same time. But not just for him, for everyone who suffers from the disease. Today there is still no cure, but with our help there could be. Since the 3rd June, I have raised £317 within a few days. Recently I have also regenerated Irlam Youth Forum alongside Elisha Stephens and Lewis Nelson.

The first official meeting was successful. At the meeting we discussed what makes a good youth forum member, we also discussed what an MYP is and why we have them. We also discussed how the youth forum feeds back into Salford Youth Council discussing what they want from our current campaigns. Lewis and I are also planning to run a campaign focus group within our school to then feed back into the structure of Salford Youth Council.

Sefton Ryan Everett, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The Sefton members of Youth Parliament have been granted £10,000 worth of funding to deliver curriculum for life to schools and youth groups throughout the Sefton area. This youth led project is appropriately named SELFIE, thanks for the name Shannon. Those running the project involve our lovely MYP's Eleanor and Laura, the charming DMYP's Owen, Shannon, Kev and yours sincerely Ryan along with are other valuable members Jack and Flynn. The youth workers responsible for making sure our feet stay on the ground throughout SELFIE include the wonder woman that is Alison Lovelady and the ever present and lively Liam Cunningham. As part of the project we attended an overnight residential in a nice little place called Crosby Lakeside.

However we were joined by the political wiz that is Robyn Dooley from Knowsley Youth Council along with Alison’s son Michael who taught us what was needed to know in order for us to be effective throughout the project.

The workshops were informative, the food was nice and the weather was fab not much to complain about besides the lack of sleep of course. So the SELFIE project is up and firing from all cylinders and we are hugely optimistic about what we can teach the young people of Sefton as well as what we can gain from the project.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Wigan Grace Thompson, 16, Youth Representative Recently, Wigan Youth Cabinet has been designing a leaflet which will be used in schools to gather opinions from young people on different issues, which come under five categories: “Feeling Safe”, “Where you live”, “Education”, “Health” and “Personal to you”. Young people from the Wigan and Leigh area will be able to use the tick boxes on the leaflet to indicate the issues that are most important to them.

We spent several weeks coming up with the category names, subtopics and the design we wanted for our leaflet. Our press officer, Andrea, initially came into a meeting to show us some examples of past Youth Cabinet material and choose our favourite layouts from among them.

Andrea provided us with a template the following week, which we amended. After having another meeting with her, we finalised our ideas so that she could adjust designs for printing. We believe that the leaflet will be successful, we look forward to analysing the results and we will attempt to reform areas that young people feel strongly about!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South East Kent Tamanna Miah, Youth Representative As usual it has been a very busy month and one of the projects I have been working on is my Fixers Racism bullying project, as I was growing up, I was the target of severe racial bullying.

Want to know what Fixers do? Watch this short film… http://bit.ly/1qvZ9ns Fixers is a national charity which gives 16-25 year olds a voice on any issue which matters to them. Fixers allows young people to use their past to fix the future, often motivated by personal experience to make a positive change for themselves and those around them. They create a resource with trained media professionals which could be a film, music video, song, leaflet, flash mob, website or app.

Then young people then launch their resource in their community.

For more information like the Facebook page FixersUK, follow them on twitter @FixersUK and search FixersUK on YouTube and Instagram.

With the help of Fixers, I’ve started a campaign to show the damage that racist taunts and attacks can have on a person and how it can affect self-confidence and how it can potentially ruin someone’s life, like it did to mine. I was verbally, physically and emotionally abused by young people who would pick on me because of my ethnicity.

I want to show how bullying does not have to leave physical cuts and wounds to cause damage to an individual – a tormentors’ words can inflict just as much pain. The goal of our campaign is to encourage young people to look beyond someone’s skin colour and value them for who they really are. I want to show young people today that there is light at the end of the tunnel, I went through it and managed to come out of it and young people can also do the same.

Sarah Corrigan, Fixers Young Person Coordinator for London: "Tamanna and her group have been working really hard to set up their campaign raising awareness of racist bullying. With the help of Fixers they have created a hard hitting film

Youth Voice: Positive Stories and are now developing a workshop to deliver in schools and youth clubs to ensure their message is heard by as many as possible".

It was promoted out by many organisations I currently work with and have previously worked with. It reached one of my targets in gaining over 1000 views in the first week since it launched.

For more information about me, please see my Fixer profile: http://bit.ly/1nNZl3f. Please feel free to embed the Fixer film on your website from the YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/1oVnZii I have received lots of wonderful feedback for my Fixers film and broadcast story, which was shown on ITV News London on Thursday 5 June 2014 from 6pm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5tM6hlflYQ I want to continue to spread my message and hope to work with any individuals, groups or organisations who want to tackle racism whether it is via workshops, events, etc. You can contact me via tamanna.am693@hotmail.co.uk or alternatively Facebook or Tweet me!

Lastly a HUGE THANK YOU to my Fixers team, crew, cast and everyone who is a part of this project and all our supporters – couldn’t have done it without you! 

Portsmouth George Elliott, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I have to the mayors making which is where the retiring mayor steps down and the deputy mayor steps up for the forthcoming year. I represented the young people on this occasion.

West Sussex Nima Khorramrooz, 20, Children in Care Councillor It began as a whispering in the air. The day had been beautiful and the sky was like a dome of plasma-blue. The clouds had looked like airy anvils drifting under the gleaming disc of sun. Fresh air filled my lungs and I felt refreshed and exhilarated. A very beautiful day to attend Young People’s benchmarking Forum!

Another chance for me to see young people in care, carers and professionals whom gathered in a place to make changes in their lives and to be the voice of others. People from Cornwall, North Somerset, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, Gloucestershire, North Lincolnshire, and Suffolk came to the

Youth Voice: Positive Stories 29th may YPBM meeting in Birmingham to talk about issues regarding the staying put new legislation and concerns they might have in terms of leaving with foster carers, etc.

Myself and another member of WSCICC (West Sussex Children In Care Council), represented Yp’s views on staying put and shared our own ideas of how we can help informing young people of changes in the new staying put legislation and try making it better for people leaving with foster carers to comply with all changes efficiently. Our meeting started with an update presentation on the staying put legislation and guidance in which our wonderful Facilitators’ talked about the children and families Act 2014 and updated us about impacts this Act will have on local Authorities.

The 29th may meeting was specifically set to look deeply through staying put and ideas Yp or carers/ Professionals may have about this issue. Further to our discussion we were asked about guidance for staying put and the fact that guidance believes there should be discussion with the young person and carer ideally prior to the young person’s 16th birthday. All of which, we felt that workers & foster carers should be having discussions with young people as early as possible and depend on when the young person is ready to have those discussions. It was stressed that young people need to be informed of options as soon as possible so they can discuss when they feel ready. One young person suggested having regular brief conversations in place with young people and the rest seemed to be happy with this idea, stating these regular conversations should be taken place as early as possible and could take place on young person’s 15th birthday.

Another question was about PAs and how often they should visit young people. We all know that most local authorities visit Yp in every 6 weeks- 2 months. However, it seems to be too long for young people waiting in about 2 months to visit their PAs. In particular, people in the meeting wanted every single individual young person to decide how often the contact should be with their workers, as regular visits should then be arranged for them if they have issues that need to be discussed with their workers. Research shows young people living with foster carers don’t normally contribute to their keep or have problems in managing their budget to save money for the “bottom draw” whilst savings can be an important buffer for times of financial emergency but young people are not saving enough to protect themselves during these periods. They may prefer to buy their own foods themselves. Having said that, should a young person contribute to their keep?

The general feeling amongst both staff and US was that it is different for every foster carer and young person and those discussions should take place when staying put arrangement is starting.

YPBMF and staff members could not agree on a set amount as they all had different opinions. Of course, every circumstance is different and there is no right or wrong answer for this question as it should be on a case by case basis.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Young people suggested local authorities to pay them £20.00 a week so it can then gets taken out of the Foster carer’s allowance. It would help young people learn to budget and help to prepare for independence if they contributed. Constructive criticism always helps! Verily we expected people to criticize and suggest what they felt would help young people more. Some were completely disagree with the fact that young people have to contribute under certain circumstances, for instance if young people buy their own food then they should not contribute or even if they do, should be put into savings for when they move out. Should a young person be going on holidays with the foster carer?

Staff and we again felt that this should be between the foster carer and young person. We felt that it should depend on the relationship, how long the young person has lived there and if the young person and foster carer want to go on holiday with each other. Time went by so fast and in our afternoon session, we were asked to split up into 3 groups and asked to edit, keep or bin top tips that were produced by young people on the 1st May. We understand that everyone has different experiences within the household. Therefore, in our afternoon session, we created a table using these top tips as guidance for the staying put arrangement. In regards to the staying out leaflet/ guide, we all decided on what we would want the booklet to look like and what information needed to be in it.

Great pleasure for me to be in the YPBMF meeting. Thanks to the organizers for helping us all to make the most out of our meeting discussions. We had different group activities and now I find new people whom have better understandings of their situations and are helping care system to be improved and performed efficiently. Our meeting finished at 5. We met new people and had a mesmerizing day in Birmingham! Wish you all happiness and success!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South West Bristol Christy Nunns, 19, Youth Councillor Along with three other young people (members of the Bristol City Youth Council and Children in Care Council), I participated in the interview process for the recruitment of a new chair for the Bristol Safeguarding Children Board.

In the interviews, we discussed the main safeguarding issues for Bristol's young people, different methods of involving vulnerable young people in safeguarding discussions, and improvements that could be made to the relationship between Bristol's primary and shadow safeguarding boards. After interviewing the candidates, we assessed their strengths and weaknesses, and their suitability for the role, and provided feedback for the main interviewing panel.

Theo Davies, 13, Member of Youth Parliament This month hasn't been as busy as most, with many members of the BCYC and UKYP revising for exams. That said, we have planned a meeting with the group 'Mentality'. The Bristol City Youth Council has met as a group to discuss our current campaigns, and I have again emailed my 'adopted' Lord, and am yet to receive a response.

Bath and North East Somerset Edward, 17, Member of Youth Parliament I’ve had a great month of not only sun, but success. Not only have I started a new job as a waiter and had my first 3 driving lessons, I have most of all found out that my hard work to reduce bus fares by conducting a survey amongst local youths and presenting the findings to councillors, MPs and directors of first has paid off! The main result is that the most a child will have to pay now when travelling in the west of England is £3.50.

The most use to be £6. Furthermore, the most a young adult (16-21) will have to pay is £4.90 which when the maximum price use to be £7 it is a great improvement that will really affect the lives of 10s of thousands of youths. The same evening I met with a local councillor and we wrote a press release on the matter. After 2 meetings with the youth council, I steered them towards choosing their top issues to campaign on. They chose Education, the Environment and Mental Health.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Furthermore, I attended the election of the new mayor of Bath, Cherry Beath, and on top of that I met Mary Berry. In addition, I met with the steering group who are deciding what to do with local wards £1 million and they said that a youth forum with a % to spend how they wish will be written into the first year plan. I attended the primary parliament which was composed of workers from Off the Record and the local council and 2 representatives from every primary school in BANES. I helped run a workshop on narrowing the gap between genders, ethnicity etc. On top of all this, I volunteered at 2 local events.

1 – Peasedown party in the Park which had over 2500 attendants 2 – Shakespeare in the park which was a Romeo and Juliet show in green park station, Bath, who have donated all their profit to Off the Record.

Cornwall Jaspa Stritt, 18, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been pretty busy for me. As a second year college student, I have been hard revising but the good news is that my exams are now all done, which means I can now dedicate a lot more time into my MYP work.

I recently spoke to Andrew Wallis, Lead Member of Cornwall Council for Children and Young people, who has very kindly offered to send an email on my behalf to all the secondary school heads about the Make Your Mark ballot. I hope that this will raise a higher awareness of the campaign and will result in a higher amount of schools signing up in Cornwall.

In the coming weeks, I plan to start a few new campaigns myself as I will now have the time to really concentrate on this work!

Tabitha Wethers, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Due to exams still, I have dedicated much of time to revision and completing my first year of A Levels. Therefore I have not been able to do much inside of Youth Parliament, but I did make sure to write to local schools that I would be able to access for Make Your Mark. I have emailed 7 schools/colleges, 4 in the East of Cornwall and 3 in Mid-Cornwall.

I had two replies in the first week of sending out the email. To those schools who have not contacted me (the remaining 5) I have sent another email to them about Make Your Mark, hoping they will soon reply!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Another area I try to cover every month is progress with Kernow Young Carers, I attended the Carers Meeting Board on the 12th June and presented a new contact card for young carers. The board are made up 12+ adult professionals and adult carers, the appearance of a young carer at these meetings keeps the meeting itself refreshed and hopefully reminds people of the pressure and stress young carers get. From this we aim to carry on getting funding for the project and attention to get change for young carers.

I will also be attending the annual young carer’s festival which is organised by the Children's Society and YMCA. It is a great opportunity for young carers to not only communicate and make friends inside Cornwall, but to integrate with young carers from other areas of the United Kingdom. The young carer’s festival is also seen as a stress-free break from their role, also known as respite. It gives young carers the chance to be young and not have to maintain such a level of maturity. The young carers festival is one of the most successful events and I will look forward to it very much.

Devon George Downs, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Last month on 4th May, youth activists inspired by UK Youth Parliament Devon caused political tremors in County Hall as an extremely rare "Extraordinary Full Council Meeting" was held. The main topic on the agenda was the massive and devastating cuts to Devon Youth Service putting thousands of young people at threat. Thanks to the strong arguments made by the young people who attended, Devon County Council announced in early June that instead of the closure of all 32 youth centres, only 24 would be closed.

This change in policy by Devon County Council is a hard-earned victory for the: thousands of members of the public; hundreds of youth activists and dozens of youth workers who have been critical of the original proposal. The dedication and commitment of campaigners across Devon illustrates the extent to which people are willing to go when the livelihood, identity and family of 12,500 Devonian young people are threatened. We hope that we have made it clear to the county council that it is a very detrimental idea to make decisions against expert advice and the needs of service-users.

Let this be a starting point for the county council to improve their current model of consultation and finally put the interests of the people of Devon first. We call for the views of all service-users in whatever county council service to be taken into account. Hopefully, the response to the review of Devon Youth Service will serve as an example why the county council needs to listen to front-line staff and service experts. However, this is not a time for complacency. Thousands of Devon's young people will still be put at risk by this updated proposal.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories In my district of East Devon, only one out of the five current youth centres will remain.

Communities will be hit by these losses so it is vital not to solely celebrate but to use this announcement as encouragement for further campaigning. This will, with hope, show that young people can make a difference if they unite and rally behind a common goal in the face of damaging authoritative decisions.

Melissa Beer, 19, Member of Youth Parliament Since the start of this month I have been to a youth forum to help dream catchers with setting up a campaign about an issue which most affects young people.

As part of dream catchers I have helped organise for an event in July for young people to encourage young people to join service which are relevant to them.

I have emailed youth workers in my area so that we can run a body image workshop to help us collect research on issue effecting young people with this campaign so that we can use the research in our final campaign report.

I have also support young people by giving some statement about the youth service and to help young people give testaments about how the feel about there youth service to the local press in our area.

Dorset Cerys Pumphrey, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Throughout the last month we have mainly focused on the Make Your Mark campaign, and I have managed to contact schools in my local area to persuade them to join the Make Your Mark campaign, in order to help more young people have a voice in politics. These schools include Highcliffe and Twynham School in Christchurch, as well as some Bournemouth schools such as BSG, which is Bournemouth School for Girls, and Avonbourne School.

I have also attended another Dorset Youth Council (DYCE) meeting, where we discussed an upcoming Shadow Council for Dorset Police.Young people, like myself, will give their views on actions the police takes, connected with young people. I have also taken part in a regional meeting with the South West, where we took part in discussing the Make Your Mark campaign and were asked to discuss our views about tourism in the UK.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Grace van Zyl, 13, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Hi everyone, over the past month things have cooled down a bit since I am going through my music exams and my school expecting us to do twice as much work! But I have gotten in contact with 11 schools asking them to sign up for Make Your Mark; I have also had an arranged meeting with my school council, Head teacher, Head of Curriculum, Deputy-Head and office administrator to get the Curriculum For Life campaign on full steam ahead in my school! I have also been updating my adopted Lord; I attended my Dorset Youth Council Extra meeting where we gave feedback to Sue Bickell (Police Crime Commissioner) and met up with my fellow D/MYPs in our Regional meeting. My Youth worker has also managed to get in contact with the Head of the Max card and is arranging a meeting so that I can move forward in my own campaigns.

James Jones, 13, Member of Youth Parliament Well firstly I had a great month last year: On 30th of April, I attended the Transport forum where I met with my local MYPs, local transport groups and children’s services. We discussed about what the perfect driver and perfect passenger was and how we can persuade the society on copying this for when using public transport for the future. This discussion also spoke about the empathy towards the blind, disabled and stereotyped. We spoke about voluntary car schemes and Max cards for the Disabled and young people in care where they get a significant discount towards transport: Taxis and Entertainment Cinemas. I took this and discussed all the maters arising with the Dorset Youth Council who were eager to listen.

I haven’t been contacted to date yet from my lord about the votes at 16 campaigns but shall politely enforce it.

I have been given new contact details for contacting my local MP Christopher Chope in the post.

And shall arrange a meeting with him soon.

On Thursday 29th of May, I attended the South West Regional Meeting with my fellow Dorset and Poole MYP’s. We met up with Wiltshire and other local South West MYP’s and we knuckled down straight to business. First of all we split into groups to work on a workshop, which was based around views from Young People about careers in Tourism. There were neutral debates upon the questions given. An organization called Bite The Ballot came in which is a non-profit organization which helps empower young people to speak up and act, to make their votes and opinions count. We were given workshops that gave us information about the Governments Budget and that it may lead to dept and what happens if so.

We spoke about our future plans and about the Make Your Mark Ballot papers which are all the MYP’s and DMYP’s manifestos put together and edited into a massive ballot where Young People would vote and the votes would be collated and debated in the House of Commons.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

This Month I gave Ferndown Upper school the Curriculum for life audit your school Survey. Which I will be sending to my Youth workers soon. Also I have sent a promising letter to Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall again asking about his views towards the Votes at 16!

Owen Shepherd, 12, Member of Youth Parliament Hi I'm Owen and I'm an MYP for Dorset. On the 29th of May I went to the residential in Taunton where we did a few w/shops and planning. I am also preparing to send an email to my Lord (Lord Joffe) I will be exceptionally excited to hear from him a talk about his views.

Gloucestershire Callum Coles, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month our area has been starting a fixers project, we are in the early stages so have been gathering information and thinking about the best ways that we can proceed. We are planning to make a website that will feature all the activities that it is possible to do in Gloucestershire, in order to make young people do more. The reason behind this is that we feel many young people do not realise the vast opportunities that exist in the area and we think something as simple as a website could easily solve this problem.

James Bennion, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Firstly, I can report the fantastic news that my 'adopted' Lord, the Bishop of Gloucester is in favour of Votes at 16. I am thrilled that he supports our campaign. I think this to me has highlighted there is a lot more support for Votes at 16 than I originally though there was.

Secondly, Gloucestershire MYPs and our Youth Worker have had our second meeting with the Fixers for our website to show all activities that young people can take part in in Gloucestershire.

During the meeting, we met with a web designer from Fixers who will provide a crucial role of establishing the website. We have also created the name of WhatWhenWhere.Glos. The research to collate all the needed information has begun which is surely going to be a lengthy process so we will need all the help we can get!

Nathan Howarth, 15, Member of Youth Parliament In Gloucestershire we have started a new campaign with fixers to create a website for teenagers showing what they can do: what when where Glos.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories We recently had are creative meeting to discuss the website design, name and content. We are under taking a survey to help tailor the website to the needs of young people.

As we have divided the work load between the three districts, I have began to put a team together and start the research for rugby and Cheltenham district events.

Recently I have been involved in charity fundraising for the RBL, as the 14 18 legacy. This led me to be at the arm forces day representing young people at the launch and meet with MPs and arm forces personal (from around the world).

Isles of Scilly Inca Reynolds, 12, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament As the DMYP of the Isles of Scilly, I have helped in creating a survey for the young people on the islands to hear their opinions and ideas on our captain of getting a youth shelter. The campaign is coming on quickly but still needs a lot of planning!

Zoe Jenkins, 14, Member of Youth Parliament Last minute positive story for me!! I’ve got my school signed up to make your mark with no problems, and considering there is only one school on the island that’s my work done!! I’ve also done an assembly at school to present the results of the survey, which I mentioned in my last positive story. This provoked a lot of feedback, most people saying that they want the shelter to be an actual room that’s inside otherwise there is no point in wasting money on something that nobody will use because it doesn’t actually shelter us. I do really agree with this, and am stressing the point that we don’t have a very big budget (£6000, which doesn’t actually buy that much), and it would be practically impossible to get planning permission to build a small building, and there are no existing rooms available to be used as a shelter.

Despite the negative feedback, one of my friends spoke to me and highlighted some points, gave me her ideas and really encouraged me and showed her respect for the work I’m doing as an MYP – just her small comment made my day! Our next steps are to create a visual display of the results and photographs of possible locations to present to the councillors which we will be meeting with in the start of July.

I’ve also been working with the Deputy Head of my school on the Curriculum for Life campaign survey we got emailed at the start of the month. We’ve decided that as we are only a small school (around 270 pupils in secondary) it would be best to complete section 2 by recreating it as an online survey, which will be e-mailed out for everyone to complete next week. My article that I wrote for a local magazine has recently been published, and I am very pleased about how it has

Youth Voice: Positive Stories turned out. I have also decided that I won’t be attending the National Residential due to the fact I will have just returned from an intense hiking trip to Norway two days before and it a lot of travelling in a short space of time!

Plymouth Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month I've been working on Make Your Mark as well as local plans to renovate Fort Bovis.

Sarah Staples, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament During this month I wrote to the 26 educational institutions in Plymouth with pupils eligible for Make Your Mark. I have signed up one school officially and are maintaining contact with the other schools. I was also lucky enough to be invited to attend a meeting about the development of the Plymouth History Centre and it's progress into round two bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Along with my youth worker, we are arranging for a follow up consultation to take place involving the Plymouth Youth Cabinet.

Poole Francesca Reed, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month myself and the Deputy Member of Youth Parliament for Poole Thomas have been busy attending various meetings, for example as part of the Children and Young People's Board we are in the preliminary stages of planning 5 PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) sessions to be run for Year 10 students at Secondary schools in Poole, following successfully applying for funding to support the project.

The five areas we intend to plan sessions around have arisen from a survey we carried out in April in which over 800 young people gave their opinion on the most important issues to them in Poole. In addition we are both also part of a Young Inspectors Team, whose role involves inspecting various services in Poole from libraries to leisure centres, assessing their accessibility for young people, as well as their effectiveness and user satisfaction among other things.

Furthermore, we have also made progress on one of our 3 local priorities, namely youth opportunities, as we are currently in the planning stages of putting together a coupon booking promoting the range of opportunities already available to young people in Poole as well as the chance to attend free trial sessions to various activities. This project has been developed as a result of the fact that it is clear that despite their already being a large range of opportunities for

Youth Voice: Positive Stories young people in Poole, the majority of young people are unaware of them. I have also been involved in the development of a new arts project with Poole Arts Stepping Stones in Poole which aims to give young people who would otherwise not have the opportunity to take part in the performing arts for example for financial reasons, the chance to get involved not only performing but also assisting with the directing and the opportunity of working backstage.

Thomas Rowledge, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This has been another productive month, despite the ongoing exams far into June. Following our work on the your choice survey, we have formed a connection with the children and young people's board to deliver a comprehensive set of PHSE lessons, aimed at year 10 covering all the top 5 most picked sections of the survey, allowing us to customise the experience for the age of the pupils and create a fun enjoyable PHSE session that will be educational and helpful - this is also part of our ongoing work for curriculum for life.

In addition, to help support our priority on youth involvement we have decided to create a booklet of coupons for young people allowing them to redeem them in return for a free trial session in a sport or other activity, hopefully getting them more involved, generating new opportunities and opening the door to a myriad of others. In order to help support this, we have managed to raise an amazing ÂŁ2000 over the two projects, to make them a reality. This has been an amazing month with more to come!

Somerset Cat King, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Well, this month's been an odd one! Exams are finally over so my focus has been more towards Youth Parliament!

I met with ITV Fixers, a charity, for young people and their campaigns! I'm lucky enough to be furthering my campaign with them. So in the next few months I'll be working with them creating resources for schools and making a promotional video! Exciting stuff coming from South Somerset. Many Thanks.

Chelsea White, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I attended my local Somerset UKYPAG meeting, where we discussed make your mark and what we are doing for it. We created ballot boxes which we thought would be a fabulous idea for the ballots collected. We also worked on local issues and discussed funding for local projects, youth clubs.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I have done a lot of representation in school, involving my student council and involving them with make your mark, helping the school to get involved.

Ellen Collard, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been busy finishing off exams and finally getting back into normal routines!

Nevertheless, I've been frantically catching up on emails and working to try and finalise plans for the coming summer and how my deputy and I will complete our aims.

I managed to get the chance to see Cafe Paramo, my old secondary school's business which sells ethical coffee for a profit. This is then sent back to the local school in the Dominican Republic to help improve education standards and facilities. They were at a local trade show, this was great to see them and just to be a small part of it again!

Thrinayani Ramakrishnan, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month I attended the Somerset in business conference and delivered a speech on how employers can engage more with young people and why employers in Somerset should provide more employment opportunities and work experience for young people.

My manifesto revolves around employment for youth and getting young people the skills needed to enter the world of work so I was honoured to speak the Somerset in business conference to raise awareness on the importance of work experiment for young people and the engagement with young people from employers. I met with the head of the Somerset association of Headteachers and talked about the UK Youth parliament national campaign, curriculum for life and how it could benefit young people of schools sign up to the pledge.

I was interviewed for radio Breeze.fm and talked about my experience of speaking at the Somerset in business conference and I also raised awareness of the work that I am doing as an MYP. I talked about my manifesto of employment for youth as well as the UK youth parliament's national campaigns of curriculum for life and votes at 16. Being a member of the youth select committee 2014 on Votes at 16, I researched methods on questioning ready for the youth select committee oral evidence day one in the select committee rooms of Westminster.

South Gloucestershire Becky Smith, 18, Youth Board Member Rebecca Harrold and the CCG came to visit us at the Youth Board to do a consultation for the Children's Health Service. She asked us to come up with things about the service that is being provided. We came up with some ideas. We then filled out questionnaires which were easy to

Youth Voice: Positive Stories understand. They were very helpful to us. I have now sent some questionnaires out to young people I know and I have 5 completed so far. It's important to ask young people what they want from their services and what they want in their local area.

I feel really good about helping them to find views on the services. I am also doing my D of E therefore this will help with my evidence.

Lauren Kelly, 16, Youth Board Member This month the Youth Board have been split into two groups. One group is thinking about Politics and encouraging young people to take part and vote. My group have been researching issues and services relating to young people. We decided to do this because more awareness needed of what services which are available for people my age. We have been playing fun games at the beginning of each meeting to welcome new people.

In July I am going to the Houses of Parliament with the Youth Board and Children in Care Council.

I'm very excited and interested to find out how it all works.

I achieved Volunteering Awards, Consultation Training and meet loads of new people.

Swindon Ellie James, 16, Member of Youth Parliament A few months ago the Young Carers Forum in Swindon visited us for a meeting about standars fro young carers in Swindon. We have now been invited to observe another a forum meeting in September where we can develop our relationship further to work together with the Youth Forum.

A PSHE conference has been organised where we will be able to present the 'Review your School' plans for the Curriculum for Life campaign to important decision makers in Swindon. Hopefully, we will then we able to review every school in Swindon and offer a better curriculum. We have been asked to review a 'Feeling Safe' survey for young people in Swindon and present our suggestions in a meeting.

We hope to incorporate my deputy Wilf's campaign about anti bullying into the survey to get the views of young people in Swindon about how they feel with bullying and if things need to change.

Personally, I had a creative meeting for my Fixers project and in the next few weeks ideas will be finalised.

Deputy Member of Youth Parliament

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

The exams are almost over, and I have emailed my school about Make your Mark. In addition, I had a meeting with my Youth Worker (alongside Ellie James) about what to do with my campaign.

At some point, (I am yet to be emailed the exact dates, but I have emailed about them and waiting). I will have a meeting about the result of a "Staying Safe" survey, to look through the results to help my campaign.

Torbay Samuel McCarthy, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament -

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Meeting with Su Maddoclk the Labour PPC for Torbay to arrange UKYP's involvement in live streaming lectures from the Royal society of the Arts at South Devon College (for continuities sake the Conservatives are also doing a good job too) No political bias to be found here.

Funding for the Torbay interfaith youth forum has been discussed.

Developments in the design and heavily discounted price of a new youth discount card to soon be rolled out across Torbay, looking pretty snazzy dare I say.

Gazebo preparations have been approved with regards to plans of an apprenticeship convention in Brixham, Torquay and Paignton.

Exams are over and Make Your mark is looming ever-present upon the horizon, there is always something to look forward to

Sophie Hunt, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month has been quite tough because most of us have been coming to the end of out exams.

We haven't been meeting weekly as we should be due to this but next month we should be back on track as normal, all ready to get stuck in. However I have got my school which I attend to sign up to make your mark campaign and I have met with my head of department to do section one of the curriculum for life review your school campaign and organised dates for the focus groups.

We have progressed quite a lot in terms with the Torbay discount card, we have got a design, negotiated a price and got most things set. Next we have to advertise and print to get this card on the roll.

The young people of torbay will be effected a lot because we are making this card for them to get discount in some of the most favourable places around Torbay. Next month Torbay should be making a lot more progress in many different areas now that exam season is over.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Wiltshire Alice Moore, 12, Youth Councillor Hi, my name is Alice, I am 12 and I represent Wiltshire in WAY (Wiltshire Assembly of Youth). In this month's WAY meeting, we worked on 2 main areas: HealthWatch and Child Poverty.

Firstly we looked at a scheme called HealthWatch which introduced taking 12 areas of medical care and putting them into 1 whole program. We said whether we knew what each area was and whether everyone could understand their technical explanations. Once that was done and everyone understood, we were to choose a HealthWatch Champion who was to report every month on how their peers find the medical facilities in their area so they can try and improve or keep the system depending on the report.

We then lightly looked at Child Poverty in Wiltshire. We were asked what we thought when we heard the word 'poverty'. Most people (me included) thought of deprivation of food, water, education etc. Then we were shown a table with 10 areas of high poverty around Wiltshire and discussed why these areas might be so badly affected. That concluded the meeting.

Ben Blackburn, 12, Youth Councillor Hi I'm Ben and I'm a youth representatives for East Wiltshire.

On Monday the 16th June 2013 I attended a Wiltshire Assembly of Youth (WAY) meeting at the Potterne Wick Scout centre. Firstly the members updated each other on meetings and events that they attended since the last WAY meeting. Then we debated and looked at health issues and what a model answer should be for health services. After that we corrected the Agenda for Action wording ready to go to print and then Christina presented the child poverty strategy. We then went home.

Charles McGrath, 18, Youth Councillor This month, I and other members of the Salisbury Student Union met with Salisbury MP John Glen to discuss the 'Change in Our Hands' public transport campaign. John Glen advised the group on methods we could use to strengthen our case for a more accessible bus service in Wiltshire, highlighting Salisbury's unique nature as the location of two grammar schools with large catchment areas and thus have many young people living further away from school, often in rural communities, and as a result are dependent on the bus service to travel to and from school.

The SSU are due to meet with the Portfolio Holder for Transport from Wiltshire Council, Horace Prickett, in the near future to discuss our concerns and hopefully come to a viable solution to the

Youth Voice: Positive Stories issue of public transport for young people in Salisbury and the surrounding area. Also, the SSU has begun working with the local Youth Advisory Group (or YAG) to organise a Music Festival open to all young people in Salisbury.

The event will take place on Friday 22nd August at the Salisbury Youth Centre, and will hopefully encourage the young people of the area to take part in a productive and enjoyable activity, celebrating the talent and creativity that young people have to offer. The SSU will use some of the revenue from the event in order to fund further events in the future, while money raised from refreshment sales will be donated to the Teenage Cancer Trust as chosen by members of the SSU. In regards to the YAG, I alongside another member from the group attended an Area Board Meeting in May to update local councillors on our meeting with local Sea and Air Cadets while also raising our concerns about the new campus to be built near the Five Rivers Leisure Centre and the need for sufficient transport to and from the facility, a particular issue for those young people who regularly attend services currently provided by the Council's youth centres, including the Bridging Project. We will be discussing this issue further at our next YAG meeting at the end of June.

Chloe Lintern, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor I'm Chloe and this month me and Kieran (MYP for North Wiltshire) have been working hard to get youth groups and schools on board for Make your Mark ahead of September.

I am currently in the process so running assemblies ahead of September in one Secondary school.

So far we have 3 schools involved and many youth groups. On the 29th May I attended a UKYP convention and we participated in a number of activities including a consultation on travel and tourism and a workshop from bite the ballot about how to get more young people onto the electoral roll. Me and Lee (DMYP for West Wiltshire) also presented #breakthecycle to the group to try and get it more out there and into schools across the South West.

On the 5th June I attended an Area board where I spoke about the work I have been doing as a youth represetivite and we also heard from a number of parish councils as to what has been happening within their parish over the last month. A number of people applied for grants to help benefit the community of Corsham and surrounding villages.

Then on the 10th June, 4 of Wiltshires young commissioners (including myself) came together to look at three tender applications for a new drug and alcohol service which will replace the exsiting service but will still be called the same thing. All three applications were really good applications and our scores and comments were put together with directors scores and comments to find the best application. Hopefully we'll know who is successful soon.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories On the 16th June, Wiltshire Assembly of Youth representivies came together to look at a child poverty strategy however we didn't have chance to finish it however we managed to complete the wording for our agenda for action which is hopefully being launched in the upcoming months which includes what we will be campaigning on. We also looked at healthwatch and what good answers should include for new tender applications for a new overall service Also we all wrote a positive story each as well as sharing what we have done over the last few weeks.

Overall its been a really busy month but hopefully a few more schools should sign up to Make your Mark so that we can reach our target! That is my challenge for the next month!

Courtney Pickering, 15, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have working hard as a Member of the UK Youth Parliament. I have recently attended a monthly Wiltshire Assembly of Youth meeting where we spoke about our views and knowledge of Children in poverty and we also worked on our local manifesto, finishing it so we can begin working on it.

This month I have been in the process of emailing regarding the Teenage Market in Salisbury, we hopefully will have a stall on this and are going to be giving examples of old Make Your Mark style ballots and letting young people about what we do with UK Youth Parliament. This will get more young people involved in helping make a change.

Also I have been emailing more secondary schools about Make Your Mark and hopefully we will get some more signed up and I will be contacting local groups soon.

Emily Eason, 17, Youth Councillor Hi I'm Emily and I'm from North Wiltshire. During the last month I have done many things with young people as well as supporting young people. On May 22nd I attended a Wiltshire Safeguarding children's meeting as a youth representatives. This helps the board get the views and opinions of young people.

On the 13th June I led a presentation with another young person called at the Beyond ZeeTee conference. WE spoke about the effects ZT has had on the lives of young people. We also introduced LGBT young people who told their own stories and experiences. I have been involved with telling my experience for the health watch conference. I am also the LGBT Representative for WAY and attended an LGBT youth forum in my local area where I took back what we had spoken about.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

James Davies, 17, Youth Councillor Hi I'm James Davies from Bradford on Avon. Recently I attended a Youth Advisory Group (YAG) meeting and we spoke about the campus in Bradford on Avon and many people attended this meeting. Also many people loved the idea of creating road signs that rebel proper road signs which can be lent out from the library.

Today, 16th June 2014, at a Wiltshire Assembly of Youth Meeting we are talking about how our YAGS impact our lives as well updating each other on what has been happening up and down the county. Also we looked at health watch and elected a new health watch champion. The thought of a community having a voice is awesome! :) Jordan Green, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor Hi I'm Jordan Green MYP for West Wiltshire. Recently I attended a UKYP meeting on the 29th May where we spoke about bite the ballot and how we can promote this to schools, also we spoke about Make Your Mark voting and how we can get schools from Wiltshire involved. We have a target of 10,000 votes and we have contacted 10 schools.

So far and so hopefully we can get something out of that. We are currently having a WAY meeting where so far we have spoken about our Agenda for action by agreeing the wording and action points ready for a new agenda and that Wiltshire can follow and campaign for. In our residential for UKYP we had a meeting with a Fixers project and on the 16th we spoke to the other Wiltshire Assembly reps about the project and how they can help with promoting and supporting it. Overall been a busy month and I'm on top of everything!

Kieran Mulvaney, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month myself and the deputy for North Wiltshire have been doing lots of work on Make Your Mark. We have emailed all of the secondary schools in our area as well as youth groups and sports groups. I have already been into Chippenham rangers and Chippenham scout group whilst my deputy has done Assemblies in Corsham School. I already have dates to go into youth groups next month.

The campaign that myself and the MYP for East Wiltshire are running has continued to gain followers and likes on Facebook, we will hopefully be doing more things to raise awareness soon. on the 16th I attended a WAY meeting, here we looked at all of the things people had done in their area and updates on what meetings we had attended.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories We also looked at Wiltshire’s new health services and gave our opinions on what we thought. as well as all of this I have worked closely with local decision makers and telling them about what I have been up to. I will be working closely with members of WAY and UKYP Wiltshire to ensure we give our young people a say on topics they think are important to them. I will also be trying to ensure our young people’s views get heard at the annual sitting and House of Commons.

Sam Gallacher, Youth Councillor Hello, my name is Sam and I am one of the WAY representatives for South Wiltshire. I also represent young people in Wiltshire on Wiltshire Safeguarding Children's Board.

A little while ago, I attended the Wiltshire Safeguarding Children's Board meeting. We discussed things such as the CSE (child sexual exploitation) strategy which is a draft publication on how Wiltshire Safeguarding Children's Board is planning to deal with the issue of CSE, and also information on the different areas of CSE. I also recently attended a cabinet meeting which was about deciding the fate of Youth Services in Wiltshire. Many young people attended from different areas of the county. The final decision was to go with a community led model which involves closing Wiltshire Youth Centres and employing Community Service Officers who will take care of organising things in an area.

At the last WAY Meeting I became a member of the Agenda 4 Action Steering Group with four other people, we will be agreeing on the final policies, etc. The next Wiltshire Safeguarding Children's Board is in July, which is a training session Lee Gunton, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament As a Wiltshire Young Commissioner, on Tuesday 10th June I attended a meeting to assess three tender applications for the drugs and alcohol service, ‘Motiv8’. Wiltshire council decided to put the tender up for renewal as they wanted more to be done and more accessible support to be offered.

Here, I had to rate the different applications in terms of their strengths and those scores would go into an overall total to find the successful application who would take over the ‘Motiv8’ service. The new service should be in place in early September.

On Friday the 13th June, I attended a conference at Trowbridge’s Civic Centre. Here, I took part in a ‘Challenging Homophobia’ activity. This was beneficial to my role as a DMYP as I was able to learn ways of tackling homophobia, making West Wiltshire a more inclusive place for all Young People as they can be themselves.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I will take what I learnt from this session into schools and challenge any homophobic bullying that I come across. This should not be tolerated. We are in the 21st century where equality should not have to be fought for.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

West Midlands Birmingham Ciara O'Donoghue, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The first BYC Convention of our term I have honestly never laughed and smiled so much in one day!

Anyone that knows me knows my face is permanently up and smiling and when I came home after the BYC Convention my face ached. It was definitely an unforgettable day where I learnt so much from the workshops but more importantly met up with the Midlands division of UKYP and despite it being almost two months on it felt like it had only been a day. Being one of the last to turn up I was met by the amazing Birmingham where we all helped ourselves to the wide array of refreshments that were on offer there.

The day started off with house rules and an introduction to the day ahead by Anna, Ashleigh and our very own PG for the West Midlands Lukas who warmly welcomed us to Austin Court. After this all of Birmingham went to the Annual sit in meeting where we found out more about what the day entailed and what the voting process was. The meeting was informative and I can’t wait till July, it promises to be a great weekend.

The second activity that I along with 4 other Birmingham members and our adopted member went to was the Reporters master class where we met some of the members who write a section to combat the negative portrayal of the youth in the Grimsby Telegraph.

We discussed how to set up our own column and what to put in it before we were split into two groups where we read over drafts and discussed the topic of the impact social media had on our everyday lives and the relationships we form which really opened my eyes to how much of an impact our virtual life can have when we actually go out and meet people face to face and I will certainly be limiting my use of electronic devices for communication due to this. After this was one of the highlights of my day- lunch. The food laid on by Austin Court and BYC was both healthy and adventurous and went very quickly due to its popularity. Lunch went by extremely quickly and in no time at all lunch had finished and all with me a few pounds heavier to say the least!

After lunch both myself, Sarah and Vikram attended a session on Health and the NHS where we all discussed our experiences of the NHS along with what we felt were key concerns that needed

Youth Voice: Positive Stories to be addressed like time keeping and patient care. It was a fun and popular session were I learnt that UKYP attracts a lot of people who cracked their head open as a child- who would have known.

The next session was also amazing and was about BYC internationally which I didn’t even realised existed so was clearly a good use of my time and by then the day was almost over and we were back where we started in the theatre where for the duration of the talk we all sat contently, listening fully to what was said. It was really imaginative and with the help of videos and some added humour was really enjoyable to watch and listen to.

The day was then done and over seven hours were over yet it had only felt like 3 max. We all said goodbye, gave hugs and were off and into the rain yet again. The day had ended just like it had started just with everyone with a little bit of a bigger head than before due to all the knowledge they had crammed into us in the short space of time. It was a great and fulfilling day and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world and I am sure that the Annual Sit in can only get better!

Dudley Jules Singh, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Recently I was given the role of Media Representative for my Youth Council and one of the ways I'm attempting to promote it is via the ever growing YouTube. I "vlogged" my first BYC Convention and in my opinion it went extremely well. In the future I hope to make more videos promoting the work we do as Youth voice reps and maybe even make a few funny videos to make us all laugh. Check out my channel @ Youtube.com/politicallycorrect27

Staffordshire Megan Collins, 15, Member of Youth Parliament Young people at Young People of Today youth forum ran an Emotional Wellbeing event for their campaign 'Love Your Mind' which addresses the importance of mental health in young people.

The event consisted of relaxation techniques, yoga and a workshop on body image and self esteem. Since their campaign on Mental Wellbeing began last year, along with wrist bands and a social media campaign, the forum joined with the local NCS group who were also focusing on the issue. Chloe, who attended the evening said, 'It was really helpful to learn how to manage stress and I feel my self esteem has been improved by talking to others who feel the same way as me - I really hope there will be more of these sessions to come'

Youth Voice: Positive Stories On Saturday 14th of June, hundreds of young people and families in Burntwood, Staffordshire attended the 'Thumbs Up For Stephen' mini festival to raise money for the charity Stephen Sutton supported, the Teenage Cancer Trust.

The event, organised by Amanda Mayling and friends with support from Stephens mother and the Teenage Cancer Trust, featured stalls and live music from local people with 100% of profits going to the charity. The target was to raise £30,000 and already by only a third of the way through the day, £10,000 had been raised and is still going up! Olivia, 15 who attended the event said 'It was so fantastic seeing so many people come to support the charity - it's lovely for everything in the community to join together and support such a huge inspiration to us all'.

Remember everyone, you can still give anything you can to the Teenage Cancer Trust and add to the incredible £4.2 million raised so far.

James Cain, 17, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor Staffordshire 100 event: On June the 9th, Fern Jobling (Chair of Staffordshire's Youth Action Kouncil/ YAK) and James Cain (Vice Chair of YAK) attended a Staffordshire 100 meeting at Keele University, Newcastle-underLyme.

The Staffordshire 100 meetings are designed to bring together key stakeholders and representatives to find solutions to particular problems. The meeting on the 9th of June focused on Skills, Education and Training. There was a number of speakers including County Cllr Ben Adams, and the Managing Director of Jaguar Land Rover.

Jaguar Land Rover have recently made a big investment in the county by having one of their main manufacturing centres in Tamworth. The Managing Director explained about the business's aims and how he felt local educational establishments could better prepare young people for work.

Jaguar Land Rover are also offering a wide range of apprenticeship schemes as they feel this is the best way to gain the necessary knowledge to work in the automobile engineering and manufacturing sector.

Fern Jobling raised the point, during the panel discussion that YAK had in the past run a 'TeenTech' event which was hugely successful. This event engaged with year 8 pupils, with the aim of getting them interested in a career in STEM areas. Many people present expressed an interest in coming to the next 'TeenTech' event to run stalls or workshops to show young people what their businesses did.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories James Cain said: "It was really good to be able to represent the views of young people across the county, to those high up in big businesses. It was especially interesting to learn about the future style of education which will focus much more on skills for working life."

Warwickshire Agatha Hunt, 17, Member of Youth Parliament As a part of the Midlands Convention 1, MYPs, DMYPs and Youth Councillors attended 'spheres of influence' workshops. One of these was with a Birmingham City Councillor and Richard Burden MP. In the first session there were only 3 young people so it was lovely because it was so focused and we could ask about what we wanted.

I wanted to share this experience because these people in power were very supportive of our campaigns for Votes at 16 and Curriculum for Life in order to prepare young people and empower them. Hopefully, these feeling spreads across other people in power and our message is put across!! The East and West Midlands Convention 1 was a fabulous day!! I'm very much looking forward to Annual Sitting and then the next Midlands Convention.

On Tuesday 3rd June, MYPs, DMYPs, Youth Council Forum (VOX) members and members of the local children in care council (CICC) from Warwickshire held a question time with Council Members. The panel was very varied with deputy police and crime commissioner Eric Woods, head of the council, portfolio holder for Children, and head of targeted support for young people among others.

Firstly the elected members were asked to introduce themselves and give some detail about what discussions they had had with young people in the past.

Topics covered over the feisty and heated question time included support for children in care, pupil premium, and political activism, disillusionment with politicians (this one really exploded), UKIP and education for young people in terms of a curriculum for life!!! It was an immense event and Warwickshire Voice 4 Youth hopes to hold them again.

Kashmire Hawker, 16, Member of Youth Parliament My June has been an extremely busy one; the main reason being the shocking Youth Service Cuts that have taken affect here in Wolverhampton.

Of course however not forgetting Convention 1 & winning an award! The cuts that took affect on May 30th saw all but 1 Youth Club closed in the city so therefore I went out & put my views

Youth Voice: Positive Stories within the media 4 times! It began with an Express & Star Article with myself describing the situation as ''An absolute shame.'' which is the truth. Then on June 3rd, I appeared on BBC WM on Adrian Goldberg's programme in a pre-recorded interview in which I feared that crime would increase as a result of the cuts, a view echoed by many fellow peers.

See the link below for the E&S story: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/localnews/2014/05/31/wolverhampton-youth-clubs-axed-as-cuts-come-into-force/ Following that, I again was on WM on June 7th but this time completely LIVE! During lunch at the Convention (More on that in a mo), the presenter agreed with myself that the situation is sad which is totally correct in many ways. She also discribed the work UKYP & BYC do as 'Insperational'!

Staying with June 7th & Convention 1 had finally arrived. The major change was that it took place at Austin Court which serves as a great venue for these events. 1st up, the regional UKYP Workshop which we had updates on the Votes At 16 campiagn & got plenty of info on next month's Annual Sitting.

Following that, Workshop 2 provided us delegates with a brilliant insight of what you can do using a campaign. A guy called Al Pagan asked to upload photo's on to the bycBook (A fake social media site for the conventions) by showing the use of 1 of the 2 UKYP campaigns for 2014 which are of course Votes At 16 & A Curricium for Life. Following Lunch (Which was Not to bad!) & my interview already mentioned, the Circles of Influence took a hold. I managed to see Bob Jones, West Mids PCC & someone from the Birmingham Mail who replied to questions that we asked & gave good advice.

All in all, it was a good day & I can't already wait til October 11th where my plan to become House of Commons Debate Lead should work along with hopefullly the West Mids claiming the Make Your Mark crown, AGAIN!!

Once my final exams were over (Yay!), another interview occured on June 14th for a local radio station which I again spoke about the Cuts to the Youth Service & also what happens at Youth Council, how to get involved & the Youth elections that took place in March.

Now, what about the Award I've won? I was given a Young Achiever award from BOFCAN (Bushbury Oxley Fordhouses Community Action Network) which I was nominated for by local Councillor Jas Dehar. Only reciving the call at 3:10pm on the day (Thursday 19th) was a huge surprise & I'm very greateful that I had won the award. At least I missed almost all the horrors of England- Uraguay...

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Finally, us as a Youth Council are still trying to find another office due to the cuts. We again met with Cllr Val Gibson, the Council's Cabinet Member for Children & Families & a fellow Little Mix fan (like myself!) Emma Benett who works within Cllr Gibson's department on Tuesday 24th at what will hopefully be our new home. We will of course keep you updated. June in the bag means it's the Annual Sitting next time out! Roll on all the thrills & spells of Lancaster.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Yorkshire and Humber Barnsley Anton Dobson, 13, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor Hi guys I'm from the Barnsley youth council as you may know. know we've been getting up to some good stuff recently. So I thought I like to tell you, so here it goes: from going to taking part in the mayors parade and having fun all day, dressed up with flowers, based on the theme can you guess...tour de France, we went there to show people what our team does but unfortunately did not win anything.

Then going backwards to convection one. How amazing. Learning about things I new to next learning a new thing every 30 minutes for example: speech and debating work shop incredible edible etc.. thanks guys for letting me each that plant what taste like aniseed. Then having lunch, I enjoyed it but the food wasn't that great but that didn't spoil my day. now going back to last Monday I had a meeting with the youth council, discussing the debate leads and we had some visitors, from public health and the library person penny green wood which will be passed on to a member of the youth council to help make Barnsley and library a better place. and we also helped make the public health scheme better. Sorry for the long story but thanks for reading Thomas Yems, 18, Youth Councillor I presented a ‘Votes at 16’ motion to Barnsley Council, which they whole heartedly supported.

You can watch the proceedings here: http://goo.gl/voOnlh.

In addition I attended the ceremony to introduce the new Mayor of Barnsley, it was a wonderful evening, and I met Michael Dugher and Dan Jarvis. On the invitation of Dan Jarvis, the Chair of Barnsley’s Care for Us Council and I met with Ed Miliband to discuss issues that young people face.

I also attended the regional Yorkshire and Humber convention in York, where I helped to lead an informative workshop on debating and speech making, and took part in an amazing session with Bite the Ballot. Barnsley Youth Council also had its monthly meeting where we helped Public Health Barnsley analyse the data around the health issues that young people face in different areas of Barnsley.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Doncaster Andrew McAteer, 16, Youth Representative Attended the Diana Award 'Celebrating Young Heroes' Launch with the McAuley Catholic High School. This awarded various young people from the school with The Diana Award for AntiBullying. The McAuley Buddies, which is the anti-bullying scheme run in the school, has been awarded the Diana Award for being 'anti-bullying champions'. The Diana Award recognises young people for all of the hard work that they put in to make their community a better place.

Leeds Charlotte Williams, Young Mayor June has been reasonably quiet. I was asked to contribute to the forward for the Leeds Children’s Mayor 2014-2015 pack which is soon to be sent out to schools. The pack gives an insight into the role of the Children’s Mayor as well as tips and guidelines on the competition. I can’t believe that last September it was me writing my manifesto for the competition. Good luck to all the Leeds Year 6 pupils who take part and I look forward to meeting you in November to hand over the chains and the robes!

Last night I went to the launch of the Yorkshire Child of Courage Awards. The voting box was opened so you can now vote for nominees. I met the Chuckle Brothers and had the nicest brownies ever! And a mocktail!

I will be on the shortlisting panel and hopefully it won’t be too hard to choose the winning nominations. The Awards are going to be held on October 10th in Leeds.

Emily Radford, Youth Representative We recently met with a producer from Fixers to discuss our road safety video and plan for the production. The video is part of our campaign to help reduce road accidents amongst 15 to 19 year olds in Leeds.

We have agreed the content of the film, and will be filming in July with the hope the final video will be available in August.

This will be a positive thing for young people and will help promote road safety and reduce the number of deaths on the roads.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Francis Edwards, Youth Councillor During the last month I have been busy with exams, but now I have finished I have been focussing on the re-design and development of the Leeds Youth Council website which will give young people in Leeds information about the work we are doing.

To gather ideas for the website I have consulted with fellow LYC members about improvements, and will continue to ask their opinions.

The website is a slow but steady progress.

Visit the LYC website: www.tinyurl.com/leedsyc John Wadsworth, Youth Councillor Recently the Leeds Youth Council met with key figures in the city at the Children’s Trust Board. We made a number of vital contacts and head about a number of opportunities to extend youth voice as well as hold our representatives to account. We sought out a Youth Voice Champion who will challenge decisions that have failed to consult young people.

In addition, we have begun to consider a social media strategy and a programme of publicity activities over the summer in order to raise our profile.

Shamim Miah, Member of Youth Parliament In June, the Leeds Youth Parliament has undergone a tremendous amount of great work.

On June 3rd, myself and Nicole represented UK Youth Parliament at the Children’s Trust Board Meeting. The Children Trust Board (CTB) are a group of high level decision makers from across Leeds and consists of City Councillors, Police, Education, youth Service, Health, Schools, Businesses and Children’s Services. We introduced the UKYP and the other youth voice groups in Leeds, and then split into workshops to discuss our campaigns.

In the UKYP workshop we spoke about Make Your Mark and the two national campaigns. For Curriculum for Life we successfully got everyone to pledge their support for the campaign. Essentially our targets were to receive help and backing from the Children’s Trust Board. We received a range of offers of how the CTB could

Youth Voice: Positive Stories help us, ranging from public Speaking training to having a meeting arranged with all Head Teachers in Leeds to promote Make Your Mark and our campaigns.. Finally we awarded the “CTB champion”, which was an award for the individuals who represented themselves as the link between the CTB and all of the Leeds youth voice groups.

Also Leeds UKYP attended the first Yorkshire and Humber convention in York. This was my first time meeting other MYP’S, DMYP’s and youth councillors from the other constituencies. The convention was very fun and exciting; I attended with Nicole and John (Chair of Leeds Youth Council). There were a range of workshops; I attended Debating and Politics & Parliament.

Leeds UKYP is also in the planning a “Politics Awareness Day”; this is going to be a day when we invite the entire school council representative from the high schools in Leeds to learn about Political education. Included will be, how to vote, Votes at 16, Electoral Systems and the main party policies. At the end of the day the schools will each be given a ‘goody bag’, full of knowledge which they can then pass and educate to their peers in school. Hopefully this is the way for Leeds UKYP to interest the Youth into Politics and make them more confident in this field. The date we have set for this will be in 5th November.

Theo Bennett, Youth Councillor I have lead a project to raise the profile of the Leeds Youth Council which has gathered pace over the past few weeks. In my role as PR Officer for the LYC, I have been overseeing the social media output of our group. I’ve been pleased to see more council members producing work which has been shared online, and in the future many more young people will be posting things related to issues in Leeds on facebook and twitter.

Thea Smith, Youth Councillor During the last few months I have taken part in the call for evidence as a part of the Votes at 16 Youth Select Committee.

This has been challenge, as finding suitable people is quite difficult. However, this was an undoubtedly positive experience overall as it adequately developed my perseverance skills.

Furthermore, it helped me develop strong contacts for the future.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Tommy Schofield, Youth Councillor Over the past few months me and several other young people have organised and lead a Children’s Trust Board Meeting. We each took part in three planning meetings and ended up with a fabulous meeting with professionals.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended.

North Lincolnshire Alexandria Laurens, 16, Youth Councillor A Fun and Quirky Day Was Had By All Scunthorpe may be seen as a drab old place, but a group of vibrant youth councillors are aiming to change that dramatically. Recently, a quirky one-of-a-kind cafe has opened in Scunthorpe and has been an absolute hit with the youth of today. That place is called Cafe INDIEpendent. What makes this place different is that it hosts various fun and exciting opportunities and events for young people to get involved in.

A recent event that took place was the Young People’s Carnival Event aimed at ages 11-20. This was thought up by the wonderful minds of the North Lincolnshire Youth Council. The event hosted a number of impressive entertainment acts. These included live music from upcoming bands and other quirky carnival-themed surprises that were sure to impress. The event was a refreshing take on how to reach young people and get them involved whilst giving them a creative atmosphere in which to express themselves.

The carnival was not only an entertaining fun-filled day, but it also managed to spread awareness of activities taking place in Scunthorpe, such as the youth council. Various stands and stalls were set up to spread important messages and projects taking place within North Lincolnshire. These included the ‘Be Unique’ body image campaign, sexual health, drug awareness, the Samaritans and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) awareness. The event was all about celebrating difference and young people’s issues in creative and relaxed ways. Masses of people attended the event throughout the day, and there was a brilliant atmosphere. There was a real sense of positivity felt by everyone that walked in.

I found out about the event by getting involved within the youth council but saw the various advertisements placed around the area. I feel that this event took a big step in changing the way we approach youth issues. It was a brilliant way to bring people together and give them a relaxed

Youth Voice: Positive Stories and positive place to sit and enjoy themselves whilst at the same time getting involved. The youth council of North Lincolnshire is a thriving organisation that takes a fresh view on issues and this Carnival event was just one of the many fantastic things put together to really make a change. A creative, fun and quirky day was had by all.

Callum Joinson, 14, Youth Councillor P.A.T.H Planning Workshop Report 2014 On the 4th of June 2014 9 people from North Lincolnshire Youth Council consisting of Callum Joinson, Jordan Davison, Jordan Hammerton, Bethany Sisi, Paige Robinson, Azila Hussain, Indie Mancini, Julie Poole and Sarah Newton attended the North Lincolnshire Sexual Health P.A.T.H (Planning Alternative Tomorrow’s With Hope) planning workshop.

After we arrived the first thing the young people did was split into pairs Callum Joinson and Jordan Davison, Bethany Sisi and Jordan Hammerton, Paige Robinson and Azila Hussain, Indie Mancini stayed with Sarah Newton. Once we had split into pairs we then left and joined other tables with other people we did not know. Each table was assigned an adult who would feed back all that was discussed on that table to the rest of the group.

Our first task as a group was to plan a “North Star” which was a vision that of the sexual health service in an ideal futuristic world with no limits. The second task we did as a group was plan some ideas that could improve the sexual health service and could be implemented by 2017. The third task we did as a group was discuss in our tables what sexual health services are available at the minute and what are their positives and negatives of these services. The fourth task we did as a group was discuss what connections we each had, some of the connections we have made are the virgin care team formally known as choices and the named midwife for safeguarding and substance abuse.

I have also managed to cease the opportunity of some seats at the newly re-named S.H.O.W (Sexual Health Our Way) meeting, one seat for the Say Yes To Equality Co-Coordinator Connor Greenberg and two seats for me and Jordan Davison to develop the C4L idea more in North Lincolnshire and to make some new connections with other people in the sexual health industry in North Lincolnshire. The fifth task we did as a group was discuss bold steps these are the steps we can take to put our ideas for 2017 in to place. The sixth task we did as a group was plan the steps we can take over the next month to make some of these ideas. The last task we did was discussing the steps we are going to take over the next 24 hours to reflect on this event.

I would just like to say thank you to the other people that attended the event and contributed to shaping the future of the local sexual health service I enjoyed the event very much I feel that all

Youth Voice: Positive Stories the people there listened and appreciated what we had to say and they really felt that we made a large contribution to this event and I can’t wait to go to the next S.H.O.W meeting.

Indie Mancini, 17, Youth Councillor Be Unique Positive Story Working on the Be Unique campaign has elicited many positive stories for myself as well everyone else working on the project. It's been a collaborative task and I am proud to be a part of it, but the stories that make everything worth the effort are that of those who have been impacted by this campaign. The Carnival Event that the youth council held was a great opportunity to meet the people we designed this endeavour around and allowed us an insight into the effectiveness of Be Unique.

The feedback we received was substantial; it provided us with responses that we were doing the right thing as well showing us new paths to follow in order to improve. One young voice that has stuck with me is that of a teenage girl that I met when working on the campaign. She was, confident, outgoing and had some really amazing piercings. But she wasn't always like that, during her time at school she was bullied for the way she acted and looked because it was different.

This shattered her confidence but over time she came to accept and love who she is. This young woman's experiences through school and her overcoming her differences was a real inspiration and she felt the same way about the Be Unique campaign. She told me it was a great reminder that she is different and that she loved it. Her feedback that this campaign is what young people need and that it will help those it reaches was overwhelmingly gratifying. So I am truly thankful to be part of this project because it is allowing myself to grow as a person as well as the fact that I know others will benefit from it too.

Rotherham Ashley, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The highlight of June for myself was attending the Yorkshire & Humberside regional convention, held in the beautiful city of York. Myself, along with Bradley Sargeson, Thomas Wood & Rebecca Parkin all attended the convention - with myself leading the 'effective teamwork' workshop. The day was a busy and productive day, with many newly elected MYPs and Youth Councillors attending. I look forward to the next regional convention in October!

Regarding the work of UKYP in Rotherham, we continue to meet regularly to discuss the national campaigns, as well as ideas for a local campaign in our area. We have begun work on C4L, with

Youth Voice: Positive Stories one 'review your school' pack being completed and more on the way! Many members of the Rotherham Youth Cabinet are passionate believers in the Votes @ 16 campaign, therefore we plan to attend a merged sub-group between UKYP and the Youth Cabinet next week; to increase our productiveness and allowing everyone to have their voice heard. This will be held next week I personally look forward to attending!

Emilia Ashton, Youth Representative During April, a young person raised the issue of how the GCSEs are changing and this was raised at one of our meetings. It was an issue a lot of us felt passionate about as it affects some of us as we are at that stage of our lives. We took the decision to email Mr Gove about how the changes are affecting young people.

In May, I received an email for Elizabeth Truss who is the under secretary of state regarding the email I had sent. I was really pleased that I had got this email as it shows that they have read what I have to say and that I could be making a difference for young people.

My fellow youth cabinet member, Rebecca Parkin, also received an email for Elizabeth Truss regarding the email she sent on the same issue. It is great knowing that people of such importance are listening to young people.

Wakefield Adam Lofthouse, 16, Youth Councillor In Wakefield, we have done a number of interesting things. Firstly, we have been working closely with Kate Honeyman from Healthwatch to get prepared for our first enter and view visit to a local service. E.g. a Hospital or an A & E ward.

We are very close to going on our first visit, all that we need to do to be allowed to go, is for the young people (who are over 16) to get their DBS checks back so they can be granted access to go.

For the young people interested in Healthwatch who are under 16 (and are unable to go on the trips due to DBS checks being unavailable) we have discussed making them become mystery shoppers, where they go into a service and use it and then review what the place was like and how they were treated in there.

Also I and Alex Pennington (MYP) have been discussing attending the annual Normanton Gala, in September, and raising awareness of UKYP's National Campaign, Curriculum For Life. This may be done using a stand to attract people to us, using free gifts or free games for kids, and asking them to sign the petition to show their support for our campaign.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Alex Pennington, 12, Member of Youth Parliament I attended the regional convention earlier in the month, which was a fantastic experience, the workshops were very enjoyable (I was able to be part of the film making workshop) and the whole day was well planned. It also allowed me to catch up with other youth representatives I had not had the opportunity to see since the Hollowford residential earlier in the year. Overall, it was a fantastic day and I cannot wait for the next convention.

Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I have been very busy with the new government scheme called young healthwatch, Wakefield was the first area in which this scheme was successfully launched. As a young healthwatcher I took part in a commercial shoot which is then shown by the media. Also planning my local gala work and various other things.

Chloe Allen, 16, Member of Youth Parliament After absences due to exams the convention in York was a good way to start back. The workshops were beneficial; I now know how w to correctly apply for funding if I ever have to. The Bite the ballot session was interesting, lots of very different opinions from everyone :) Lewis Hart, 14, Youth Councillor This month I attended the first BYC Convention for my region in York. At the event I attended two workshops. One of them was on speech making and debating. I will use these skills tomorrow, when I for the first time will make my first ever speech at the weekly meeting on Google Apps, and how we can use it to make our meeting better and more efficient.

The other one taught me how to apply for funding to help with our local campaigns, and I found out how much support there is out there for projects like ours which can help the local community.

Morgan Lois Binnersley, 13, Youth Councillor I am Morgan Lois Binnersley. And this month I have been working on a newspaper that. I am setting up in my area it is called news for youTHS and we are currently holding a logo competition within the Wakefield district and hoping to get some visits into schools across the district at some point my aim is to bring this to all the UK youths. I have also been to convention one where I studied film and incredible schools and look at make your mark I have currently emailed all my local school to ask for them to vote and hand them back to me I have provided with all the dates and information they need so all they need now is the ballot papers. We are also working on galas in all the different areas some of the galas we are doing is Normanton Agbrigg and many

Youth Voice: Positive Stories more. I am also hoping to work on the youth centre at the side of Carleton community high school in Pontefract there is no youth centre or services as they opened the hut in Airedale and many parents won't let their child travel that far so as my manifesto I aim to refurbish the youth services and them hopefully reopen up.

One of our projects is Make your mark we have all been given schools and the schools that I am focusing on is Featherstone high school, Carleton Academy, Kings, St Wilfred's catholic high school and Sixth form and I have emailed Carleton and they have registered. I also emailed King but have had no reply. I have emailed St Wilfred's and it is trying to find its way to the correct department. I am ringing Featherstone High school and King if I get no reply by the end of the week and assembly is going to be organised in Carleton academy.

York Katie Ward, 18, Youth Representative Over the last month, I have been working with the NSPCC on an Internet Safety campaign in Y&H. The campaign is really taking off and I was lucky enough to be able to go into a Primary School in York and deliver the ChildLine Schools Service with them!

Also, I have been planning the regional meeting, which is happening on the 28th June. The idea of this meeting is to share good practice and see where we are at in the region with Curriculum For Life.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Northern Ireland Belfast East Beth McDale, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have held meetings with my constituents and MP in order to begin to work on my priority issue of Mental Health awareness in young people.

I also plan to link up with other MYPs with respect to this because I feel that we could best serve to similar interests by working together. So far not much has been achieved on this issue however I think that we will get a lot done this month.

Belfast North C贸nall Corr, Member of Youth Parliament I have been interacting with a wide variety of youth clubs this month, getting feedback on problems surrounding young people in the constituency. I have also met with an elected SDLP MLA in regards to my manifesto issue.

Belfast South Perrie MacKeever, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been meeting with the software engineer who is contracted with the Belfast City Council Digi- Dragons competition to develop my app further in the production stage to allow it to be easily used by young people suffering from a mental health illness and offer them support and help which goes hand in hand with my campaign of Increasing the help and support network given to those who suffer from a Mental Health illness by increasing the awareness. Other than that I have had an extremely busy month with GCSES but I am now eager to be fully committed to my campaign.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

East Londonderry Tiarnach Kelly, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have had another successful meeting with young people in the area, including those who volunteer with local youth groups and those who already partake in various schemes and activities to discuss specific ideas for workshops/events in the area. After this and gathering up the results from my survey I met with a local MLA to discuss her views and ideas on youth in the local area. I found this very beneficial as she pointed me in the right direction towards specific contacts and I hope to organise a first aid workshop very soon involving as many young people in the area as I can.

I am planning to direct people more towards my Facebook page if it's appropriate rather than Facebook chat so that other young people can view the issues that some people in the area feel strongly about, I think this will be beneficial for everyone as sometimes a lot of young people agree on the same issue.

Fermanagh & South Tyrone Hollie Morrison, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been a hectic month. I attended our meeting where we were given information on the 'Adopt A Lord Scheme' and we were each given out a Lord to write to. We also got information about the Annual Sitting which I'm really excited about!

On the 17th June, I travelled up to Stormont with pupils, staff and parents of Collegiate Grammar School to deliver a petition protesting the proposed amalgamation between two schools in the constituency. Over 7,000 people signed the petition and the constituents hope that this amalgamation does not go ahead. I also met with Arlene Foster to talk about the issues regarding the youth in my area and how best to address my manifesto issue.

Foyle Niamh Haughey, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been hectic school-wise, however I've still tried to keep on top of MYP work. I've met with a number of local MLAs who have been extremely supportive of my manifesto issue, and in the coming months I hope to pursue a project on more underage venues for young people.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North Atrium Christopher Harkin, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I've began trying to get my petition for integrated education round secondary schools that are integrated in Northern Ireland. I have had some success thus far, and I hope to get some of the schools to fill out their make your mark forms for me also. I have continued calling MLA's back to get answers on whether or not they are willing to sign my petition.

South Down Lauren Sloan, Member of Youth Parliament This month we had another meeting in which we discussed numerous things. We talked about the 'Adopt a Lord' scheme. I was given Baroness Blood and I look forward to sharing my views and making contact with her soon! We've also been informed on the Annual Sitting, and I'm very excited to meet with other MYPs across the country!

Upper Bann Neil Reilly, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Although June is exam season I've still been able to keep up a lot of work for Youth Parliament, mainly around the event I am planning for October to engage young people and first-time voters in politics. After the dismal turnout in the local and European elections, the need to do something became greater, and 'Taking Back the Ballot' has finally begun.

We have applied for funding to run the event in Stormont in either the first or second week in October and have been organising with schools how many pupils to bring, what structure the event will have and we've made a provisional list of party representatives we would like to appear at it. We are also facilitating a meeting with the Stormont Education Service to plan out the practicalities of the event in greater detail- including seating, venue, timings and lunch! I also received a workshop in PR skills for managing the media aspects of my work with the NI Youth Congress, but what I learnt can also be transferred and applied to my role on Youth Parliament.

As well as all of this, I've been talking to many young people about what exactly they would like included in the consultation that I will be putting together very soon, and this included valuation of the careers services in schools, subject choice, workload and assessment types. I also recently met with a delegation of young people from Bahrain who were very keen to hear about my experiences in being involved in organisations like UKYP and what value I think they add not just

Youth Voice: Positive Stories to the individual, but to the political culture in the long-term. All in all it's been a pretty busy month!

West Tyrone Michelle Hamilton, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Throughout this month, I have been doing multiple things in my role as the Member of Youth Parliament for West Tyrone. I have been working closely with my local Youth Council, in which I am a member of, and have been helping plan out our anti-bullying conference for later in the year. I am hoping to include this with my campaign work within the issue of Cyber-bullying.

I have also been emailing my assigned Lord in reference to the Votes at 16 campaigns, as well as receiving a letter from Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Scotland East Lothian Member of Scottish Youth Parliament We did a survey about transport lots of people said taxis are expensive and we should increase the price to 100 pounds per mile.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Wales Powys Jack Gillum, Youth Councillor and Member of the Youth Select Committee The Youth Select Committee which this year is focusing on votes at 16 has held their first evidence session on the 27th June. At the first oral evidence day we heard from academics, young people, think tanks and the association of citizenship education. Personally I feel that it was a great experience between the preparing for the witness to the actual oral evidence day, it involved a lot of hard work but it was worth it. I felt that in the first evidence session we received a fantastic amount of really useful evidence which we will use with all the written evidence submitted to write a report to government with recommendations. I am looking forward to the second evidence session where we will be hearing from more young people, academics and MP's!

Torfaen Beckii Parnham, Funky Dragon Representative Funky Dragon is and has always been an incredible experience for me. I have been a part of Funky Dragon for two years. I started quiet and unsure with little confidence. Yet, that didn't hinder my huge ideas.

Funky Dragon put me in an environment of so many different young people from so many backgrounds that I was automatically accepted. I was able to grow and suddenly they weren't just big ideas, they were opinions I had shared and were being feedback straight to the Welsh Government. I was being heard. As I got more involved, I began to gain more experiences not just ones that benefitted me but ones that I could see really helped my become more involved politically. I debated in the House of Commons and I went to Switzerland. Both were incredible experiences, both showed me how famous and how valued Funky Dragon was all over the world. This made me proud to be a part of such an organisation. As I entered my second year, I was elected co-chair for Health. So, no longer was I passing my views across to someone to share. I was listening to other people's views and making sure that when I sat with ministers and AMs those views were being put forward. Whilst my time on Funky is almost over, I am able to reflect on the incredibly experiences I have gained. Without funky dragon, I would not have any awareness of the political system, be confident enough to voice my opinion, be able to access my right to a voice as well as I have and finally, have such an array of experiences that I could spend hours talking about. I am proud to be a part of Funky Dragon!

Wrexham Trica Jones, Chair of Funky Dragon

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I have been a member of Funky Dragon for the last 4 years. I was elected in October 2010 to represent the young people of Wrexham on a national platform. Since being a member I have had the opportunity to do some amazing things. Just last month I attended a conference in Strasbourg to talk about the good practice of Funky Dragon and Wales. The conference gave me opportunities to meet other young people involved with participation in Europe. I have had an opportunity to represent Wales in the House of Commons sitting - UK Youth Parliament sitting.

How many young people can say that the age of 16 they sat in the House of Commons and debated young people issues. I have had the opportunity to meet a number of Welsh Government officials to discuss young people issues; these officials include the First Minister of Wales, The Education Minister for Wales and the Communities and Poverty Minister. During my time with Funky Dragon I have meet some amazing young people and made many friends. In 2012 I was elected to sit on Funky Dragons Trustee Board. In 2013 I was elected to be the Chair of the Charity. Being the Chair of a national charity has a number of challenges especially in these times of austerity but I am enjoying every minute of this journey. Funky Dragon has and always will be a big part of my life and the possibility that it may be lost and other young people won’t be able to have the experience I have had truly upset me.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Support Worker Stories

East of England Hertfordshire HertsUKYP A busy month in terms of revision, exams, organising for survey completion and roll out as well as managing their roles in local youth councils: balancing their time has been paramount.

Time has been well spent with MYPs agreeing and finalising the surveys enabling them to be in schools just after the half term allowing six weeks before they all need to be back again and the data collation can begin!

The Police & Crime Commissioner came to a meeting to introduce himself, talk about his role and then take a Q&A with the MYPs. MYPs were also visited by senior managers from HCC Transport to discuss further updates that have come from the 2012 Manifesto and well as a chance to feedback on a countywide consultation regarding travel subsidies.

Herts1125 Led by MYPs, surveys are now live re the five priorities voted for by young people in Hertfordshire earlier this year.

Preparing young people for work Young people’s skills gained through volunteering to lead to recognised outcomes or qualifications that can be used to develop a strong CV and to support job applications (3807 votes) Cheaper bus fares for young people during the school holidays Young people to have access to cheaper bus travel around the county during school holidays.

(3258)

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Improving mental health services and education for young people Young people to be consulted on how this is done, to have information on the causes and symptoms of mental health issues and to have access to services for support. (3249) Engaging young people to get their voices heard Young people to have opportunities that ensure their voices are heard in a wider political context, including improved communication with adult politicians. (3135) Tackling youth unemployment Young people to have better access to, and increase in, job opportunities during and post study, including apprenticeships and internships. (3050) In 2012, 600 young people took part in the first Herts1125 Consultation; in 2013 over 2500 young people took part; this year, again with support from the schools, youth projects and organisations across the county, the MYPs are hoping to double it ‌. fingers crossed for them.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

London Islington Raj Jalota, Support Worker Islington youth councillors led by Young Mayor Hiba Warsame and Deputy Young Mayor Shanaz Shaw shared their experience of being youth councillors and representing young people with a delegation of young people from Libya.

The delegation from Libya was on a 4 day visit to explore young people’s participation in local democracy and to identify methods to support young people’s voice and action in Libya.

Other youth councillors included Isaiah Fadeyi and Tanjina Uddin who attended the workshop and dinner at Lift on Tuesday 11 March.

The workshop provided an opportunity for the participants to: - Learn about the Libyan experience and the opportunities, challenges and plans for youth participation - Share examples, experience and lessons of inclusive and effective youth participation - Identify barriers to participation and ways to overcome them - Build relationships and identify networks to empower young people Following the workshop, Young Mayor Hiba presented gifts to the Libyan delegation on behalf of Islington Youth Council.

A real fusion of Arabic and western music provided the backdrop as participants enjoyed the food and shared their experiences.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South East Buckinghamshire Simon Billenness, Support Worker Buckinghamshire United Members of Youth Parliament Buckinghamshire Members of Youth Parliament and deputy members of youth parliament attended Convention 1 in Pimlico Academy, London 7th June 2014 to debate, discuss and learn about a range of campaigns.

Kavita (DMYP): I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop run by League of Young Voters. I learnt how to encourage young people to vote and now hope to use my newly acquired skills to increase the youth vote in Buckinghamshire on the run up to the general elections next year.

Meeting Joe Hayman Chief executive of the PSHE association has given me a useful contact to support and promote our Buckinghamshire PSHE campaign.

Saleem (MYP): I thought the discussions on youth unemployment was beneficial, this enabled me to gain skills in debating this topic. I gained a deeper knowledge about youth employment and how to campaign on this issue in Buckinghamshire.

Laura (DMYP): I really enjoyed meeting up with other young people to discuss important topics. The session on mental health was very informative and I learnt a lot. I am going to ask my school about mental health awareness and how I can help them to promote it to other young people as part of my campaign promoting disability awareness.

Evie (DMYP): The mental health workshop offered me a different perspective on an issue key to my campaign in Buckinghamshire. Young Minds delivered a fantastic presentation that inspired me to focus more on promoting mental health to other young people in Buckinghamshire. I feel that I have gained a valuable contact for me to use in my work in the future.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Buckinghamshire PSHE campaign After presenting to local councillors and lead officers the Youth Parliament sent their PSHE report to Rt. Hon. John Bercow MP to gain his support. Further to this Mr Bercow forwarded on the report of the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove MP for his consideration. Mr Gove has responded to the report commending the work done and informing us what measures the government is taking to address PSHE in schools.

Portsmouth Amanda Littlefield, Support Worker Portsmouth Youth Parliament June 2014 As part of the SEND reforms, the Dynamite group has been involved in shaping the “All About Me” profile which will be part of the new Education, Health and Care Plan which will be effective as of September 2014. Dynamite is a group in Portsmouth for young people aged between 11 and 25 with a special education need or disability.

Various groups of young people with a disability have been consulted around the city and we hope that the final decision will be made soon. “All about Me” is about the young person’s aspirations and wishes for their future and giving them a voice. Young people’s input has been invaluable and there have been some interesting debates! A version for younger children is also being published which was the main concern of young people as they wanted their document to reflect the fact that they are now young adults.

Dynamite has also been asked by Portsmouth City Council to have some input into developing the local offer. This will be a website containing a wide range of services within Portsmouth for children, young people and their families. In order to help the development of the website, Dynamite will be asking young people what their favourite website is and what attracts them to it. We will also be showing young people examples of current local offer websites and gathering their thoughts and opinions on them.

For those of you who are not aware of the SEND reforms, the key points are as follow: • Single Plan 0-25 - Currently statements cease when school finishes and new assessments are carried out - this will no longer be the case with an Education, Health and Care Plan.

• Co-Ordinated Assessment and Plan - Education, Health and Care - this should lead to a 'tell us once' approach.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories • Statutory review within Further Education and training - Legislation applies up to age 25 and covers education, apprenticeship and training.

• Person Centred Approach to Planning and Review - Young people will be central to discussions and decisions about their future and support.

• Lead Professional Post School - To ensure a young person's plan is delivered and they are progressing toward their stated outcomes.

• Personal Budget - Giving greater choice and control about how a young person's needs are met.

- Increased Support and Monitoring - Statutory powers to challenge support for young people in further education, apprenticeship and training.

If you would like more information, please go to http://us3.campaignarchive2.com/?u=a971b9907d0c2ded6ec26bdba&id=e043a4fb4f Or look up our Facebook page under Dynamite. Written by Pierre Portsmouth Youth Parliament

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North East North Tyneside Julia Bradwell, Support Worker The Young Mayor is continuing to work on his pledge to involve young people in sports and games. The Young Mayor’s Summer Games has been created to involve students from all of the high schools and special schools in the borough who have year 9s and 10 students.

The event will involve students who do not have the opportunity to take part in competitive sport within school. This could be for a number of reasons including non selection or lack of motivation.

The event will hopefully provide the young people with a fun experience that will encourage them to access sport and physical activity in North Tyneside.

Youth Councillor James Dutschak Kavanagh received a Youth Achievements Platinum award. He represented the ability to fulfil a leadership role, including completing a personal development plan, participating in training, planning, organising and leading a programme of activities for young people, evaluating the experience and giving a final presentation.

James is the first young person in the borough to receive a Youth Achievement Platinum Award The Young Mayor and some of his Youth Councillors attended the consultation for North Tyneside's Children and Young People’s Plan 2014 -2018.

They were pleased to be able to give their views about Children & Young People being Ready for school, Ready for work and life, and Children &Young People being safe, supported and cared for!

Its great that their contributions are valued when council officers are planning for their future.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Yorkshire and Humber Doncaster Linda Hardy, Support Worker Awards Presentation The Doncaster Volunteer Awards Presentation was held at the Mansion House on Tuesday 2 June 2014. The Awards are eligible for all young people aged between 13 – 25 years. They are presented in recognition of volunteering in Doncaster for the benefit of others and the wider community. There are 3 Awards in total and each build on from the other. The Bronze Award is for 50 hours, the Silver Award is for 100 hours and the Gold Award is for 200 hours of volunteering. The Mayor endorses the Doncaster Volunteer Awards and they are highly recognised by organisations and professionals across the borough.

Three young people spoke at the presentation Ceremony and explained how they had benefitted from volunteering and the skills they had gained.

A young person who achieved her Bronze Award spoke at the Ceremony Lauren (16yrs) stated: “I was asked if I wanted to take part in a Participation Review based on the Hear By Right Standards, I have gained so much in confidence and personal development. Through being involved and learning interview skills, I was asked if I wanted to be part of an interview panel for the Chief Executive Officer of the new Children’s Trust, here in Doncaster. This was scary but such a good experience! I have just been through the interview process myself; I have just got an Apprenticeship with the Fostering & Adoption Team. I feel I have really benefited from volunteering and would strongly recommend it to others”.

A number of volunteers in Doncaster have attributed securing paid employment to the volunteering they’ve done, with youth unemployment rising, there's a real need for young people to understand the link between volunteering and gaining employability skills.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories The Civic Mayor commented: “I am really impressed and pleased to hear that so many of our young people in Doncaster are achieving recognition and awards for their volunteering and participation in the community�...

Twenty five young people achieved the Bronze, Silver or Gold Award at the event and many of the young people who achieved their Gold Award are still actively involved and volunteering for the benefit of others.

The Assistant Director of Children and Families for DMBC also supported at this event and spoke passionately about the benefits of volunteering and how young people can gain valuable life skills through being involved. She expressed a warm heartfelt thank you to all the young people on behalf of the Local Authority.

It goes without saying there are many benefits of volunteering and being involved in awards for young people, organisations and the community as a whole. The Awards Presentation was a huge success and parents/guardians, placement providers and young people were pleased to be celebrating youth participation and their achievements.

The Active Involvement Team are incredibly impressed and would like to thank all who have been involved in supporting young people to achieve their Awards.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North Lincolnshire Sarah Newton, Support Worker Busy, Busy month for North Lincs proud to support our young people at a number of meetings and activities. Their enthusiasm for bringing about change is contagious. NLYC has been involved in developing sexual health plans for the future, promoting positive body image, raising awareness and addressing LGBT issues. They have given their time to attend Living Well Events and promote Young Voice to the public.

Today NLYC have organised themselves and attending Armed Forces Day ,a local popular event again to promote their projects and work. All this in what was for most a stressful month of exams. Proud of them all they make going to work a pleasure not a chore.

I attended the conference in my role as Participation Assistant with 7 members of Youth Council , Jordan Hammerton, Jordan Davison, Callum Joinson, Bethany Sisi, Azila Hussain, Paige Robinson & Indie Mancini. The young people behaved in an exceptionally professional manner and mixed confidently with professionals from across numerous agencies and services. In addressing the issues surrounding planning of sexual health services for the future they contributed fully to the confererence and their opinions were listened to and sought. They were given the opportunity to consult services such as Big Talk and make important links for the future regarding current campaigns YES NLYC LGBT Awareness and secure places on the Sexual Health Action Group (SHAG)for three young people.

I felt that the young people learnt many skills at the conference, especially social interaction with adults on a serious issue, planning techniques using the PATH analogy and visual tool that I feel they will apply to future projects and working groups.

Valuable links and awareness of different services and what they have to offer, which I feel sure that they will pass on to other young people. Insight into local government planning techniques and the processes that take place and the opportunity to influence those decisions. Contributing to the shaping of future sexual health services and committing to progressing towards the vision of the service in 2017 by enrolling and recognising that even a small personal task undertaken can help move towards a greater goal.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Rotherham Sarah Bellamy, Support Worker During April, a young person raised the issue of how the GCSEs are changing and this was raised at one of our meetings. It was an issue a lot of us felt passionate about as it affects some of us as we are at that stage of our lives. We took the decision to email Mr Gove about how the changes are effecting young people.

In May, I recieved an email for Elizabeth Truss who is the under secretary of state regarding the email I had sent. I was really pleased that I had got this email as it shows that they have read what I have to say and that I could be making a difference for young people. My fellow youth cabinet member, Rebecca Parkin, also received an email for Elizabeth Truss regarding the email she sent on the same issue. It is great knowing that people of such importance are listening to young people. Emilia Ashton Youth cabinet member Anti Bullying - Members of Rotherham Youth Cabinet are joining Rotherham LGBT Group to travel to Leicester for the Mini WE Day Event around Anti Bullying. Youth Cabinet Member Rebecca Parkin and DMYP Toni Paxford will both be speaking at the event.

Self Harm Manifesto Aim - Our report about barriers to young people gaining help and support for self harm went to Cabinet and was agreed. A response was presented back to the Council's Scrutiny Board which was very positive and showed that changes were being made following Rotherham youth Cabinet's recommendations. We will meet with Health professionals, RMBC Managers, Agencies and Elected Members in a few months time to find out what exactly has been implemented to make services and support better for young people in Rotherham who may be self harming or want advice on the issue.

Sheffield Chiwo Mukome, Support Worker North Youth Forum Recruitment and Training Day. On the 29th of May, the North Youth Forum were training up their new recruits. This year, we recruited seven fantastic new youth forum members. However, we still have unfilled seats.

The training day was led and delivered by young

Youth Voice: Positive Stories people thus creating a fun environment filled with anticipation.

The training day began with energetic teambuilding and get to know you activities. This got young people moving about and interacting with each other. In addition to this, the essence of the teambuilding games was to show the young people the importance communication and working together to accomplish a task.

The afternoon focused on working with young people to understand youth involvement. The young people were presented with 8 scenario cards that described different levels/methods of involving young people. Their task was to match the scenario cards to Hart’s Ladder of participation. The young people also looked at why youth involvement is important and how they can be actively involved in championing young people’s voices.

The highlight of the day was the young people’s presentations. The young people were tasked with a community mapping exercise. They had to deliver a presentation about their community which highlighted the issues in their area and identify possible solutions that would address these issues. The young people worked really hard and delivered immaculate presentations.

Over the next coming weeks the new recruits will meet the other members of the North Youth Forum were they start working on this year’s priorities. It looks like it will be a fruitful year for the Youth Forum.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

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 1st October 2014. To apply see more on: http://www.byc.org.uk/training-services/youth-on-board-awards.aspx