YOUTH VOICE MATTERS

Aberdeenshire’s Youth Participation Update January to March 2019

This newsletter aims to keep you up to date with youth engagement, action and representation in Aberdeenshire. Updates are provided by youth practitioners and our members of the Scottish Youth Parliament, Year of Young People (YoYP18) Ambassadors, Aberdeenshire Youth Council, Community Youth Platforms and Specific Youth Issue/Interest Groups.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Contents include updates from

The YOYP2018 Celebration Legacy Event

Aberdeenshire MSYPs & MSYP Elects

Pupil participation Forum

Specific Interest Groups • Banchory Skatepark Crew • Kemnay High Hopes

The Young People’s Organising and Campaigning (YPOC) Group

LGBTQ+ Groups

Community Youth Platforms (CYPs) North Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

• Peterhead Youth Platform • Insch Youth Platform • Huntly Youth Platform Banff Youth Platform • Mintlaw Youth Platform • Banff Youth Platform • Turriff Youth Platform and TDJ Youth Platform

Central Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

• Ellon Youth Platform • Inverurie Youth Platform • Kemnay Youth Platform • Alford Youth Platform • Meldrum Youth Platform • Westhill Youth Platform

South Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

• Stonehaven Youth Platform • Banchory Youth Platform • Aboyne Youth Platform • Mearns Youth Platform • Portlethen Youth Platform

Aberdeenshire Youth Council

Aberdeenshire Youth Bank

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The #yoyp2018 Celebration Legacy Event

On Friday night the 22nd of February 2019 the #yoyp2018 ambassadors and young people from Aberdeenshire Youth Forum with support from the CLD Work With Young People Team hosted the #yoyp2018 legacy event at . Over 200 young people, adults including councillors and MSPs attended the event.

The event was in two parts: • 6.30-7.30 – An exhibition of #yoyp2018 • 7.30-9.00 - #18 legacy event

The exhibition consisted of 5 spaces to showcase: • #YOYP2018 Event Films • 52 Youth Voices Clips • #yoyp2018 Competition Entries • Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms/Specific Interest Groups • Partners and Organisation There was also entertainment from Stuart Vetch, Archie Petrie (both guitar and vocals) and Callum Geddes (piano and vocals)

The #18legacy event consisted of: • #yoyp2018 Competition Winners • Performances by Ellie Clark • The #yoyp2018 in summary film • The journey for Aberdeenshire #yoyp2018 ambassadors: Ava, Taryn, Sasha and #humanrightsdefender Clara Gray

We were delighted that we painted Aberdeenshire purple on the night for #PurpleMap #PurpleFriday for LGBT Youth Scotland and LGBT History month.

The Aberdeenshire Council tweet with Taryn Fletcher presenting was also a top UKGOVTtweet (ranked 14th in the UK)– so it’s great that our young people are making such an impact. The event was covered in the Evening Express and the Press and Journal. Thank you all and your young people for supporting the event on the evening. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

#YoYP2018 Competition Primary Aged Category Winners • Sophie Cooper – Torphins Primary School • Niamh Evans– Ordiquhill Primary School • Eve Whitehead – Primary School • Keo Black- Kinellar Primary School • P6 and P7 pupils -Dunnottar Primary School (Overall Winner) #YoYP2018 Competition Secondary School Aged Category Winners • Jenny Duncan & Beth Mackay– • Ross Duthie and Jordon – Academy • Alford Film Group – • Ellon Youth Forum – • Leah Findlay – (Overall Winner) #YoYP2018 Competition 18+ years category • David Donaldson – Aberdeen University (Overall Winner)

Winning film entries are highlighted in BLUE, Ctrl & Click to watch.

The Key messages from the OVERALL WINNING entries were: • Choose Kind – Dunottar Primary School – P6/7s • Listen (to young people) – Leah Findlay – Mintlaw Academy • End discrimination towards Scottish Gypsy Travellers – David Donaldson

Cllr Gillian Owen, Chairperson of the Education and Children’s Services committee presented certificates to the winners who were present.

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Aberdeenshire’s MSYPs

The Aberdeenshire MSYP’s attended the 68th SYP sitting in Midlothian. During the sitting both Josh Macrae and Sasha Brydon led a committee in partnership with the Aberdeenshire Alcohol & Drugs Partnership. The discussion was around concessionary travel for people in recovery, this was supported by members of the SYP.

Sasha also deliver a key note motion on behalf of the social security committee. This was in connection with public ownership of housing to tackle homelessness.

On the Saturday evening the SYP held their Awards event which is is an annual celebration, held at the March National Sitting, which recognises the amazing work that MSYPs and their Support Workers do to represent Scotland’s young people.

Sasha attended the British Youth Council conference where the discussion revolved around the age of voting and how to support other parts of the UK to lower the age to vote.

As March 2019 was the last sitting of the current MSYP’s we would like to say a big thankyou to them all for all their hard work over the last two years.

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MSYP elects

During March 15 young people stood for MSYP 2019 – 21. Aberdeenshire filled its seven seats during a twoweek voting period. Two returning MSYP’s were successful who will be joined by 5 new MSYP’s. Welcome to Ross Gibb, Chloe-Louise Henderson , Kaylah Miller, Josh MacRae, Shona Stuart, Sasha Brydon, Isla Young.

The MSYP elects have already attended a training session at the Scottish Parliament looking at subject committees and members’ motion and campaigning skills. We look forward to working with them all in the near future.

Pupil Participation Forum have spent the last two meetings working on the following: They have amended the Health and Wellbeing Young Leader programme. This is a programme where young people in school identify a health and wellbeing issue in their local school/community and work with their public health co-ordinator on actions to address this issue. This programme was led by officers in Aberdeenshire Council but the Pupil Participation Forum have been approached to run it instead. They now have the launch event and the showcase event organised and have simplified the criteria. This will be promoted in schools from mid-June 2019. We have also continued to work on our wellbeing resource. We have narrowed down the areas we will be working on to the following: time management, resilience, self-esteem/self-confidence, social media and coping with stress. These were considered to be areas that young people can advise other young people on from experience. We have brainstormed the content of each of these five areas and will now consult with the Aberdeenshire Youth Forum on what we have done so far.

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Banchory Skatepark Crew had a very successful trip to Edinburgh which included a visit to the Scottish Parliament and sessions in 3 different skateparks. After a very early departure from Banchory, having loaded up our minibus with the skatepark crew and our volunteers and a van with bikes, scooters and boards, we arrived in Edinburgh in good time for our meeting with our local MSP Alexander Burnett and a tour of the parliament.

We then attended First Minister’s Questions, which we had prepared for by watching it live the previous Thursday, so we knew what to expect. Having checked into our apartments at Leith we had a fast food lunch and then made our way to Saughton outdoor skatepark where a great time was had by all. In the evening we visited Transgression indoor park in Leith and after a restful night we set off for East Kilbride on Friday and had a superb day in Zone 74.

Some of the funding for the trip was from our own Tesco Bag Pack, but a substantial amount was from Aberdeenshire Youthbank and we had a top up from South Marr Community Safety Group so many thanks to both of those organisations for making the trip possible. Thanks also to our volunteers, Russ and Debbie Crichton, Derry and Megan Douglas, our wonderful volunteer minibus driver Graeme Hansley and also to for supporting the trip and allowing an authorised absence from school.

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Kemnay High Hopes have been working hard planning and promoting this opportunity for other young people to get involve. The opening night took place on Wednesday the 13th of March from 6:00pm to 8:00pm however all are welcome to come to the weekly meetings every Wednesday night at Kemnay Community Hub from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Looking forward to welcoming you!

The Young People’s Organising and Campaigning (YPOC) Group Getting it right for looked after children We have had a busy few months. We are still working on a DVD to go along with our latest Guide on “Coming into care and moving placements – Getting it right”. We are meeting with Paul from the media unit soon to talk about how we can present it visually. New champion We have also interviewed and appointed a new Champion for Looked after children and care leavers, Councillor Anouk Kloppert. Anouk will work with Councillor Anne Stirling and the YPOC Group to support looked after children and care leavers and to promote children’s rights and corporate parenting within the council and its partners. We are really happy to welcome Anouk to the role. Twilight session We had a session in February where we welcomed the members of the corporate parenting group to our YPOC meeting. They told us how they were getting on with the pledges they had made about how they could support us and we told them about our campaign. We had a fun acidity to start which was great fun. It was a good event. YOYP Legacy event We also had a stall at the YOYP Legacy event which was very successful. Here we are with the Acting Head of children’s services, Leigh Jolly. We’ve been asked to do other training for people who are our corporate parents so it looks like we will be busy for some time to come.

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LGBTQ+ Groups

Meldrum LGBT raised the flag for the end of LGBT month and promoted purple Friday at the YOYP Legacy Event and helped at a stall asking young people to sign the flag in support.

The Mearns LGBT group have had a quiet term mainly focusing on advertising their ‘Safe Space’ and updating their main notice board. They organised a ‘Purple Friday’ event within where everyone wore purple and handed out free #CATALYST badges. The film ‘Love Simon’ was promoted to guidance teachers and was shown and discussed in all S1 PSE lessons. The group are now looking to show this through the Mearns Community Cinema and Mearns Library, as a free event possibly through the months of June/July, so that members of the public and other year groups can have the opportunity to see this film too.

They have been asked to come along and do a short presentation at Woodhill House to support IDAHOBIT on Friday, May 17th 2019 where they will be reading out a short poem, sharing their Artwork and speaking about an influential person who has made a difference to the LGBT community through the work/actions they do.

They are looking at possibilities of attending ‘Grampian Pride’ at the end of May and would like to see about getting some guest speakers from ‘four Pillers’ and an ex Mearns Academy pupil who transgendered through their time as a Mearns Academy Pupil and is now a part time model.

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Community Youth Platforms North Aberdeenshire Youth Platform Peterhead Youth Platform Pupils have spent the last two terms promoting LGBT awareness in their school. They applied for funding from Youth bank to help with their project and were successful.

They have run a lunch time group “EMBRACE” on a Monday and have gathered the thoughts of many pupils by attending PSE classes. Recently they planned and organised a LGBT awareness conversation café, providing lunch and selling LGBT Merchandise.

Conversations at this event would suggest the group achieved their outcome of LGBT awareness in the school. Pupils spoke openly about their opinions and would like to see more from S1 upwards and have more groups.

Monies raised will be used for future projects.

Youth Voice Peterhead – Peterhead WWYP team have been visiting some of the primary school pupil council sessions. Some schools have representation from all classes and other’s P4 – P7’s. Sessions vary from weekly to monthly, pupils are elected, and sessions are very well attended, they cover many topics and encourage fundraising to buy new items that pupils want in the playground. One pupil council successfully liaised with Aberdeenshire Council to get signs created and erected to stop dog fouling in the school playground. We will continue to meet with these groups and link with pupils as they move to the academy.

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Insch Youth Platform have been working on producing a powerpoint around young people and mental health from a local perspective , as well as recruiting more members , having fun and looking at the local and wider issues that affect them and what they can do . They have also attended some Aberdeenshire Youth Events.

Youth Voice Huntly - DAVE

Over the last term the group has explored a diverse range of subjects which have been raised either through their own direct experiences (home and school) or responding to current news stories. This has involved participation and debate, voicing their own thoughts and feelings, listening to others and being respectful of different viewpoints etc. During this time, they have worked with art interns from Deveron Projects at various methods of raising awareness for campaigns eg. zines, printed posters and badges, one session was supported by Grays School of Art.

The group is developing an increased awareness and understanding on how political decisions affect their lives and some have already become active citizens in the community (local climate action group).

Work has commenced to develop an understanding of how communities change and develop by interviewing residents at Scott’s hospital about their experience of the town when they were teenagers.

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Mintlaw Youth Voice Some of the group attended an AYF Meeting in Inverurie where they heard input from other groups in the county, and they also took part in various workshops. The highlight of the day for them was the Ceilidh in the evening! In school, the group have highlighted the issue of queue-jumping in the canteen and social area at break and lunch-time, citing occasions when no food was available when they were eventually served despite having queued for a while. Prefects who are meant to monitor the situation were not doing so. The group contacted the Head Teacher and arranged a meeting with her and members of the Senior Pupil Senate, where they spoke of the problem and made suggestions as to how it could be resolved. The Head Teacher took all this on board and promised to include the monitoring in the training of new Prefects after the summer. Two group members are running a weekly activity as part of the P7 Transition programme. This takes the form of a discussion group where the good and bad areas of a designated subject are discussed, and it is hoped some of the young people will come to the weekly Youth Voice meetings when they go up to the Academy. Next week the group is presenting their take on Body Image as part of Mental Health Awareness week by acting out how social media can affect young people via photos and text messages, and how it can be dealt with. They are having an open meeting with healthy drinks and snacks and hope others will join them at this event.

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Banff Youth Platforms Banff Youth Platform are now meeting on a Thursday evening from 6pm - 8pm in the Deveron Centre.

We have joined forces with the Deveron Gamers and have now met twice as a big group. Last week young people were deciding what to call themselves and did an exercise designed to get them thinking about what a Youth Platform could be. Some our members are going on the Aberdeenshire Youth Forum residential this weekend so I'm sure they will come back to the group fired up with lots of new ideas.

Turriff Youth Platform are currently working on a recruitment drive for next session and are going to be holding a door open afternoon on May 21st at . In addition, are planning an event before the summer holidays. The group have worked on an anti-bullying campaign within the Turriff area to raise awareness. In a wider capacity, the Youth Platform continue to attend Aberdeenshire Youth Forum Events and supported the YOYP Celebration.

TDJ Youth Platform continue to meet regularly and participated in one event last term at Monquhitter Primary School. The group have several events upcoming in the Summer term which they are looking forward to. Each event has enabled young people in the group to develop their leadership and teamwork skills.

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Central Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms Ellon Youth Forum Ellon Youth Forum (EYF) attend the Year of the Young People legacy event where their Anti-Bullying Video was showcased in the Secondary School Aged Category Winners. The young people brought their parents to the event and everyone enjoyed the evening, it was great to see the achievements made by young people throughout the year.

The Forum have been working together on a project with the school garden project on campus to create a memorial structure for the memorial garden They have been working with a local company to access funding to purchase the materials to build the structure. (for more information check out the school blog at www.eagerbunch.blogspot.com)

EYF planned and organised a team building trip to Haddo House and Country Park where they enjoyed a walk and talk activity with the Visitor Services Officer, this was followed by a picnic lunch at the Pheasantry building and an afternoon of team building activities. We were lucky to enjoy beautiful weather which meant all our activities were outdoors.

Inverurie Youth Platform The youth forum attended the legacy event where members Josh and Kyle were comparing the evening. The youth forum helped with the MSYP elections and manned the paper ballots during break and lunch and encouraged others to vote. The young people attended Aberdeenshire youth forum meetings.

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Kemnay Youth Platform The big push for KYVM this term has been to promote the group and encourage new members to join. We decided to host an open night in the CLD huts and encourage young people to come along and find out more about the group and what we do. With help from our workers we planned a fun session of activities and informal discussions so that we could get to know each other and share our experiences of being a young person in Aberdeenshire. We used some of our Youth Bank funding to order pizza's and snacks for the night. One of our workers went to the school assemblies to promote the evening and we designed a poster to go out on social media in the local area. On the night 5 P7s came along from the new S1's and we had a good laugh and enjoyed a feast of pizza! Several young people said they wanted to come back and get involved. Three signed up for our team building Break Out Games session on the 28th April and are now attending the group regularly, which is great news. The group has lots of plans for the next few months leading up to the summer holidays....so watch this space 

Alford Youth platform is being refocused. Following a campaign to look for new members we have a number of interested young people. We have come together but have not yet decided on a priority. 88 young people completed the Aberdeenshire Youth Forum questionnaire in the Alford network. The new forming Youth platform will use the results as a basis for identifying the area’s priority. The original Alford Platform members successfully engaged with the Alford Academy Health and Wellbeing event in February. They applied their learning confidently by displaying the health and wellbeing resource boxes they produced.

Some of the Health and Wellbeing Resources

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All 9 members of the Meldrum Youth Forum helped to organise and facilitate the end of the YOYP 2018 Legacy event at Meldrum Academy. The members played a pivotal role by greeted friends, family and visitors to the event and escorted them around the school to various workshops and demonstrations. They also helped to tidy up the event at the end of the night.

They are now in the process of making a short film to be shown to the 2nds year pupils and the new first years when they come to the school in order to keep the membership active at the forum and have a youth voice within the school.

Members of the Forum travelled to Stirling to receive their certificates for their work over the last few months on the Education Learners Panel .Meldrum Youth Forum

Westhill Youth Platform Unfortunately, no one has been attending, and staff are looking at alternative ways to re-launch the platform next term.

Meetings 12noon - 1pm at Westhill Community centre.

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South Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms Stonehaven Youth Platform One of the members stood as a candidate in the Youth Parliament elections for the constituency of North Angus & Mearns. She was unsuccessful on this occasion but remains committed to equalities and promoting positive mental health. Others in the group identified exam stress as being an issue. They researched the benefits of spending time with animals to reduce anxiety and found out about the use of Therapets. After contacting Canine Concern, pupils experiencing heightened exam stress will have the opportunity to spend time with a Therapets dog during the exam period. The group plan to run this as a wellbeing session offering healthy drinks, mindfulness colouring and a place to talk. Banchory Youth Forum has recently been formed and are expressing their voice and demonstrating social commitment by agreeing on how to address their priority of an anti-bullying awareness campaign. Aberdeenshire Youth Forum youth survey showed that 86 young people of the 174 respondents living in the Banchory area highlighted bullying as an issue. The Forum have involved Banchory Achieve Group who have kick started the campaign by designing, creating and displaying anti- bullying posters. The Forum have created their own youth questionnaire to find out more information from young people on bullying, its effects and access to support. They will carry out their survey at the beginning on next term.

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Aboyne Youth Platform has been busy as always this term members and have been taking part in two Aberdeenshire Youth Forum meetings. Two young people took roles as speakers at the legacy event of YOYP18 in February, one member attended as one of the representatives for Aberdeenshire the North Sea Conference in March, as well as promoting their opening afternoon to recruit members for Aboyne Youth Platform with two new members coming to the initial meeting.

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Mearns Youth Forum have been working on their Drug and Alcohol awareness campaign and have developed a questionnaire around Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking. These will be handed out to Mearns Academy pupils over the coming months to gather the thoughts of Mearns young people and to ascertain what would be the best way to go forward with an awareness campaign that’s fits the needs of the Mearns young people. They have also been putting final organisation into their “food for thought” campaign which aims to help with exam stress and will run throughout the duration of the exam period in May. They have organised the free water, fruit pots and cakes for those sitting exams and bringing the relevant resources together for their information display table. They are currently also developing a recruitment drive to gain new members for after the exam period in May.

Four members of the youth Forum attended the #YoYP 18 Legacy event in February, where they shared the work the Mearns Youth forum had done over the previous year and their contribution to #YoYP18. They put together an information display board and a short show reel to show members of the public their work. One member helped to distribute the wrist bands whilst another supported a group going around the display areas. They also took turns to stand by their display and speak to members of the public. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

The chair person, Isla Young, has attended AYLT and AYF meetings and contributed to the future planning of these groups for the upcoming year, as well as planning and developing the #YoYP Legacy event. Through being a member of the AYLT, Isla applied for and was successfully chosen to be one of the youth representatives from Aberdeenshire, at the recent North Sea Commission – Youth has a Voice Conference. This event was held In Norway and was for young people to come together to discuss how youth participation can be a part North Sea Commissions decision making processes in the future. Isla also put her name forward for the SYP elections which were held in March. Isla created her election campaign, posters and election information. She ran a very successful campaign, speaking with young people of voting age in both and Mearns academy. Isla won the election and was voted in as the new MSYP for North Angus and Mearns for the 2019-21 term with SYP, taking over from her predecessor, Lauren McGill. During the Exam periods next term, the Mearns Youth Forum will not be meeting to concentrate on their exams.

Due to a reduction in numbers, Portlethen Youth Platform decided to relaunch themselves. Invitations were sent to various schools, committees and community groups, looking for representation. Twelve new members were enlisted, representing primaries, the local church and LGBT groups. The group are looking to develop actions in response to the recent AYF youth survey. Meetings days and times have been changed and are now every second Tuesday 4pm - 5pm at Portlethen Community Centre

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Aberdeenshire Youth Council (AYC) (Formerly the Shadow Youth Management Team)

Aberdeenshire Youth Council (AYC) met on the 30th January and the 14th February. At the meeting in January the group discussed • Membership/Residential/Purpose/Roles/Expectations/etc • Recent Requests for Youth Representation • Selection of Winners for the #yoyp2018 competition • #yoyp2018 Legacy event programme • Comperes/MCs at the event • Entertainment • Leaflets – Info on CYPs/AYF info sheet/SYMT Info Sheet • Update on Norway Opportunity • #YOYP2018 Participation Certificates

February Meeting

The group met at Meldrum Academy on the 14th February from 5.30-7.30pm to see the venue for the end of #yoyp2018 legacy event. The Meldrum Youth Forum supported the group and discussed the plans for the event.

Members of the group were key to the success of the event with members of AYC compering the event, entertaining, delivering inputs and displaying information on the group and supporting #LGBT history month, #PurpleFriday and #purplemap.

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Aberdeenshire Youth Bank

Aberdeenshire Youth Bank members and staff met in January 24th 2019 to evaluate together their experience with young people reporting an increase in feeling confident and empowered to make decisions also to make an impact in their communities. Young people have made great suggestions to improve Aberdeenshire Youth Bank 2019-2020. Three members represented Aberdeenshire Youth Bank in Glasgow at Youth Bank Networking day on the 26th of January 2019 where young people had the opportunity to share their experiences and knowledge with other peers at a national level.

Acknowledgements Youth Voice Matters Aberdeenshire would like to thank all those individuals who have shown support to Aberdeenshire’ s youth representatives and #yoyp2018 ambassadors over the period, by coming along and getting involved or contributing to the newsletter.