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.
Minutes:
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.
Supporting documents: