YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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 YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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 Meldrum Academy. 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 – Fettercairn 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– Banff Academy • Ross Duthie and Jordon – Fraserburgh Academy • Alford Film Group – Alford Academy • Ellon Youth Forum – Ellon Academy • Leah Findlay – Mintlaw Academy (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. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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 Banchory Academy for supporting the trip and allowing an authorised absence from school. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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. YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE 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.