Agenda item

The Voice of the Child Coordinator will provide a presentation to the Board and the Support worker for the Member and Deputy Member of Youth Parliament for Middlesbrough will provide the Board with an update.

The Chair welcome the Beth Bradshaw, Voice of the Child Manager and Laurie Hunter, support officer for the Member of Youth Parliament  (MYP)f or Middlesbrough to the meeting.

 

The Support officer firstly shared an online blog which had been produced by the member of youth Parliament for Middlesbrough and Deputy Member of Youth Parliament. .

 

The Support officer read out the blog from the Deputy Member of Youth Parliament from Middlesbrough, which was as follows:

 

Hi everyone!

 

I'm Batool (the DMYP) and recently, alongside (the MYP) Muskaan and Middlesbrough Council, we have launched Middlesbrough's very own Youth Council!

We had the launch meeting on the 14th of January and had 22 wonderful attendees. During the launch we explained the aims of the Youth Council and got to know a bit about each other and how everyone would like the Youth Council to be ran. It's important for us to be flexible around other young people's timetables since we understand how hectic life can be. We also played a Kahoot quiz, which became slightly competitive but fun nonetheless!

Our agenda for the next session is to elucidate to everyone the components of a meeting, so the Chair, minute taker and Blogger and also collate what the Members' priorities are. This way, we can hopefully have a vote and decide what to campaign about/ focus on for the future. I can't wait!

 

 

At the meeting, Muskaan are the Chair and Batool was minute taker. The Support Worker shared some of the positive feedback the Youth Council from some of the participates. The Youth Council has made a big influence on young people's mental health and they are happy and excited to see its future.

 

The Chair asked the Support Officer to convey the Board thanks to the MYP, DMYP and Youth Council members and asked whether in the future whether members of the Board could be invited to one of the meetings.

 

The Voice of the Children Mananger went on to provide an update to the Board in relation to Participation. Her presentation was to update the Corporate Parenting Board on participation activity across Children's services.

 

The following areas were discussed:

 

1.     Middlesbrough Youth Council

 

22 Young people aged 11-18 attended the initial launch meeting – January 2021.

 

At the second meeting of the Youth Council, the group consulted on their key focus areas and agreed the following:

 

·         A Curriculum for Life

·         Tackle Child Poverty

·         Increase racial awareness in the curriculum

·         Free University

·         Take Action on the Climate Emergency

 

The group agreed that:

·         Meetings would take place every 3 weeks 

·         Young people will be allocated specific roles to support the group.

 

This will be decided by an election process.

 

The Coordinator also advised that they had been looking at wider participation through the children in care Council and have been engaging through social media as well as other communication paths.

 

The Cleveland Police Youth Commission held a number of workshops and invited Middlesbrough young people to attend, some of the themes were as follows:

 

·         Hate Crime and Online Crime focus group - This will allow young people to provide their experiences whilst helping to identify the forms of Hate and Online Crime. Young people can also suggest ways that Cleveland Police can help reduce Hate Crime and Online Crime.  

 

·         Drugs and Alcohol Issues- This survey explores addiction, helps to identify helplines whilst allowing young people to suggest ways to tackle this issue 

  

·         Exploring young people’s relationship with the Police- Exploring how the relationship between the police and young people can be mended, whilst looking at their stop and search rights.   

·         Youth Activities and Preventing Offending – A discussion about how youth activities can be implemented in Middlesbrough area to reduce offending or re-offending? What else do young people think can be done?

 

·         Mental Health Awareness - Especially in COVID, mental health issues are more prevalent as ever! What do young people think can be done by the Police to help this

 

Jo Russell, from Public Health has also organised a Sexual Health focus group – working with young people to help improve the Sexual Health services across Middlesbrough.

 

2.     Engagement Groups

 

·         Mini CICC

5 members - An internal email has gone out to all resource workers and social workers to encourage engagement of children and young people in this group. Sue Butcher has also encouraged staff to have conversations with young people about attending this group.

 

The young people that attend enjoy the group, as it gives them some 'away' time from school and allows them to be themselves.

 

·         Children in Care Council

The Coordinator advised that this has been the most difficult group to recruit too, however the Care Leavers are looking to facilitate session themselves and a virtual Children in Care Council virtual session ran by Care Leavers will take place in March 2021.

 

The Care Leavers are currently developing a recruitment video and which they hope will attract new members to the group.

 

·         Care Leavers forum

There are currently 6 active members of the group. They meet weekly and speak regularly via the Care Leavers forum Whatsapp group. A CAMHS worker attends every session to support any mental health needs.

 

Recent tasks for the groups have been:

 

·         The recruitment of the Participation Officer

·         Supporting the Bid for the Digital Resilience – Online safety funding

·         Identifying priorities for 2021

·         Supporting Care Leavers during COVID e.g. a hug in a mug.

 

3.     Wider children's services communications.

 

In terms of communication, the service ran Joyful January, where we asked staff to promote the success if our children looked after and care leavers.

 

4.     Participation team updates

 

·         The Participation Officer has been recruited. They will start in March 2021.

·         Communications and Engagement officer role will be interviewed February 2021. The successful candidate will support the Middlesbrough Children Matter vision, wider Children's services communications and the engagement groups in Middlesbrough.

·         The Voice of the Child Manager role will be up for recruitment in February 2021

 

The Coordinator advised that the Care Leavers forum, in terms of recruitment of staff, help write the job description and also sit on the young person's panel.

 

Work streams

 

·         The team will be working alongside the Practice Lead to embed the voice of children and young people on the front line.

·         The team will also be working in partnership with the Internal Communications team to ensure a joint up approach to communications to all Children’s Service staff and families.

·         A participation champion will be identified in the SEN service to lead on a work plan designed to increase the engagement of children and young people in their EHCP, SEN support and independence plans.

 

The Board congratulated the team and the young people with their progress and role.

 

The Chair also stated that the Voice of the Child Manager was to be leaving the Council and she extended her thanks and support for all her hard work during her time with Middlesbrough Council.

 

AGREED- That the update be noted.