Youth Voice: Positive Stories March 2015 Central Bedfordshire Manifesto Launch Youth Voice: Positive Stories A report by youth representatives and the workers that support them March 2015 Welcome to the March 2015 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: [email protected] 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/uk- work/youth-voice The British Youth Council would like to thank all the workers and young people who took the time to promote and complete October survey and we look forward to hearing more from everyone over the coming months. 2 Contents Young People’s Stories East Midlands 4 East of England 8 London 15 North East 19 North West 21 South East 27 South West 32 West Midlands 54 Yorkshire and Humber 60 Northern Ireland 66 Support Worker Stories East Midlands 77 East of England 79 London 81 North East 83 North West 86 South East 88 South West 89 West Midlands 92 Yorkshire and Humber 93 3 Young People’s Stories East Midlands Derbyshire Adam Hoyes, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The Derbyshire Youth Council had a successful conference on 14th March to continue work on our target campaign areas. Members reviewed their first year in office and looked ahead to the second half of their term and what they would like to achieve in this time. Four campaign areas were also looked into, with Living Wage, Work Experience, Mental Health and E-Safety all being identified as key areas to work on in the next year. Groups created plans to achieve their goals for each topic, building on progress already made in certain areas such as Living Wage and Work Experience. These campaigns will form the Derbyshire Youth Council manifesto for the next year. Asha Lawson Haynes, 12, Member of Youth Parliament On Saturday the 14th of March I was elected to be an MYP. I was already a DMYP after being elected previously. However when two MPY'S sadly could not fulfil the role any longer, we had a re-election. All DMYP's had the opportunity to run for the role. There were two other candidates and after performing a speech our council had a vote. The two elected members are me (Asha Lawson-Haynes ) and Mitchell. Sadly only two spots were available so one person could not get it but it was a close call. Lucy Boardman, 15, Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councilor Recently I have been enjoying getting publicity for the UK Youth Parliaments Living Wage campaign by speaking to my local MP, Andrew Bingham, regarding his opinions and how to further the campaign with the UK Youth Parliament. My meeting with him was extremely informative and it was wonderful meeting an amazing representative. I have since had an article published in the Buxton Advertiser and The Glossop Chronicle, allowing me to publicise the Living Wage campaign and my meeting with my MP. In have also attended my Youth Council Conference where we discussed how to fully support both the Living Wage campaign and the Mental Health campaign. We have written to several businesses in 4 Derbyshire and also the local council to make sure that they are Living Wage employers and if they are not we are suggesting how supporting our campaign would benefit them. We have also begun to plan our Mental Health campaign by proposing a series of media videos that give information about Mental Health, we hope to show these films in local schools to be able to educate youths in the near future. As part of the UKYP campaign on the Living Wage I had two extremely successful meetings with both my local councillor and my local MP, which I wrote about in my last positive story. It was a pleasure to meet my local MP, and we not only discussed the UKYP's national day of action, the Living Wage campaign and his support for this campaign, but also what his life as an MP was like, what his job entailed and what work he has done specifically for his constituency as an MP. It was extremely interesting to learn about his local community projects and his ideas and thoughts regarding the Living Wage campaign, and how I could help promote this campaign in my school and community as part of my role as an MYP. This month I was pleased to have had articles in my local newspapers, both the Buxton Advertiser and the Glossop Chronicle, regarding my meeting with my local MP, Andrew Bingham, and my work as an MYP. It was excellent to know that the work I have been doing and the UKYP's campaign has been getting media attention in my local community. Rachel Wibberley, 16, PG Representative In March I have met up with my local area youth council twice in order to work in the national campaigns and local campaigns. I split off into a group specifically focusing on mental health, and we brainstormed ideas on how to begin the campaign. We decided we are going to produce a series of personal yet factual YouTube videos to educate people on mental health issues and to help those with mental health issues. We confirmed that we would circulate these in local schools & feature them in the council website. In Derbyshire was also suggested an idea of an 'agony aunt' service for people with mental health problems, as well as a training service for you people in order to train them how to spot and deal with mental illness. I came up with a strap line for our campaign which is "be curious not judgemental." Elections took place in Derbyshire to fill my position now that I am PG. I voted in this election and the new MYP for my position is Asha Lawson Haynes as well as Mitchell Duggins. Mitchell Duggins, 14, Member of Youth Parliament In the last Derbyshire youth council I had the opportunity to go for the role of being a MYP, before I was elected for a MYP I was a DMYP. I got elected because I was previously a MYP and I got 623 votes on the Make Your Mark campaign which is over 50% of the school so that was a big achievement for me personally and the total sum of votes in South Derbyshire. I hope to do more in the future as a MYP and to continue improving Derbyshire as a whole. Leicestershire Daria Eckert 5 My survey about new school transitions has come a long way; I now have about 297 responses which are currently being working into diagrams etc. I will then write up a feedback pack which I will send to all the schools, the county and borough council as well as our MP, Sir Edward. I hope my work on the survey has and will help the voices of my constituents to be heard. I met with my MP earlier in February since I last wrote a positive story. I talked about the campaigns we are doing and he agrees that Mental Health is an excellent campaign. However he doesn’t want to support us with the Living wage campaign because he believes that there are too many things to consider and didn’t want to make a rash decision. In CYCLE (Leicestershire Youth Council) we are working on making a survey for young people to find out what their experiences with mental health are, to see what it is that needs improving. Hopefully at our unheard voices event (June) a mental health app will be launched soon by a voluntary sector project who have been working on developing it. On Tuesday 17th February 2015 I went to Cambridge to meet Alexander Komashie to talk about our mental health campaign. Alexander is a researcher in the patient safety theme of a 5 year long project DoH sponsored project – Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC), East of England. He is a systems engineer so he has interest in understanding the design of services and their performance and also the links between services for example issues regarding information loss as patients go from one service system to another. He believes at the heart of the challenge to healthcare in general and mental health in particular are the very important links between Quality, time and cost. If one is changed it will have an effect on the others. The CLAHRC team is multi-disciplinary, involving the Engineering Design Centre, the Judge Business School, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Public Health in the University of Cambridge and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.