In 2012/13 this Committee had requested an annual presentation from the Youth Council giving an update on the developing Youth Council programme.
Members of the Youth Council will attend the meeting to outline:
(i) achievements from the last year;
(ii) the plans for the Youth Council for the coming year; and
(iii) new youth engagement and volunteer initiatives for 2015-16.
Minutes:
The Committee received a presentation from six members of the Youth Council, Doncho Atanassov, Matthew Tinker, Olivia Storey, Joseph Pascoe, Jaymey McIvor and Leonora Troshupa. They were joined by thirteen other Youth Council members.
They were there to give an overview of what the Epping Forest Youth Council has been up to over the past year. This was their first year in office of the two they were elected for.
The Committee noted that:
· There had been 45 candidates standing for just 21 seats, all aged between 13 and 17;
· 2488 votes were cast;
· Their aim was to ensure that all their peers and their schools became involved in their work and to continue to be a link between school Councils, the wider youth of the district and the District Council.
By far their highest profile event last year was the Youth conference held in the Council officers on 14 October 2014. 90 pupils from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 representing ten secondary schools from the District attended. They were consulted about issues affecting the lives of local young people; gathering their views on possible solutions and gather ideas on how to improve the local community. They were also keen to promote local democracy.
Three main concerns were highlighted. They were alcohol misuse, bullying and stress. Other issues raised were around skills and jobs and the need for more volunteering opportunities, the misuse of drugs particularly ‘legal highs’.
They asked the Council Members to consider how they could help them lobby for these issues to be addressed. Their findings were shared with the Local Strategic Partnership and the Epping Forest Youth Strategy Group.
The Youth Council launched a campaign called ‘#URNotAlone’ during national Bullying Awareness week in November; highlighting services and support groups for victims of bullying and their parents and also gave presentations to all year 9 pupils in the district. To complement this presentation they designed a USB memory stick wrist band that promoted the #URNotAlone Bullying Awareness campaign. It included a link to the EFYC web page which had the fact sheet promoting phone numbers and support groups. The project was deemed a great success by pupils, parents and teaching staff and the Youth Council were really proud of this piece of work.
Social Media was also an important part of their work as it promoted their work and raised the profile of young people in the district. They had 458 followers on Twitter and 185 ‘likes’ on Facebook. Recently they had over 7200 views on Twitter and 42 new followers and by last week this had doubled.
They had been asked to contribute to 10 consultations this year and were pleased to have representations on the Epping Forest Youth Strategy Group.
Youth volunteering was a big theme for them and as young volunteers they were passionate about encouraging other young people to volunteer. The Council’s Youth Volunteer Programme was now being taken up by all secondary schools in the district. They had tried out one of the youth volunteer days back in August when they were supported by staff from the City of London to help clear an area of woodland.
They have also noted that there was a need to break down barriers between the older residents and the young people in the district. The previous youth councillors developed the inter-generational project which had been well received by the residents from Jubilee Court in Waltham Abbey and Leonard Davis House in North Weald. They were aiming to organise two events in different areas over the forthcoming year. One of these events would be held at Buckhurst Court in Buckhurst Hill in partnership with the Voluntary Action Epping Forest Carers Group and the Sheltered Housing Team.
Another event they have been involved in was a project developed by Community Services called Rural Roots. A large scale community fun day was organised in the village of Fyfield in the summer and they were pleased to support this in a number of ways. In advance of the event they spoke to businessmen and collected donations to the value of £400 and manned stalls on the day and raised a further £120 for the Help the Heroes charity, a total of £520.
They had secured external funding of £1200 from the Jack Petchey Foundation, £900 from Think Big O2 for their project work and a further £750 from the Jack Petchey Small Grants awards. That made a total of £2850 that the Youth Council had brought into the district over the last 9 months.
A further notable achievement was youth councillor Evangeline Foster, who was selected as an Ambassador for the prestigious ‘Step Up to Serve’ campaign for her community and volunteering work. She also sat on the Essex Police and Crime Commissioner Youth Forum and had taken part in County consultations to address the issues raised by young people.
They had hoped that they had shown that the 21 Youth Councillors have developed strong links with schools and youth groups and had connected with many thousands of their peers on behalf of the council.
They thanked the Committee for letting them give this presentation and invited members to come and attend any of the monthly Youth Council meetings that they hold to see what they did.
The meeting was then opened out to questions from the members present to the Youth Council.
Councillor Murray complimented the Youth Council on the good quality of their presentation. He would like more details on how they fed back to schools and the communities and how they received information back in return. He was told that they were all members of their School Council and they informed them of the projects taking place. There was also a variety of ways that they could inform the various groups including Twitter and Facebook which had recently doubled their following. They also used school assemblies and received feedback partly through meetings and through the school suggestion boxes that could be used for anonymous comments and suggestions.
Councillor Sartin was also impressed with the quality of the presentation and wondered what other areas, apart from the youth voluntary programme, were to be covered in the coming year. She was told that their manifesto showed what their main areas of interest were. They would tailor events and projects based on this.
Councillor Surtees said that there was good interaction between the Youth Council and the Ongar Youth Plus Group. How did they address the equalities issues, especially in groups that miss out on normal elections processes and means of contact? He was told that the Youth Council would get further involved in this type involvement in the future. At present they engaged with young people not in main stream education and also had youth councillor on their council who was home schooled. They also undertook visits to various youth projects.
Councillor Chambers said that he had gained a lot from their presentation and asked if they would consider going into primary schools to give them talks and presentations. He was told that was a good idea, they had not been as yet but they would like to do so in the future.
Councillor Murray said that he now had a more positive image of young people and he would like the minutes to reflect that:
· The Committee would like to thank the Youth Council for their presentation and the work they have done so far;
· The Committee were impressed with the depth of work they were carrying out; and
· The importance that the Committee attaches to the Youth Council.
The Chairman thanked the Youth Council for their impressive presentation and also thanked Gill Wallis and Diane Butler for the work they had done with the Youth Council.