Youth Voice: Positive Stories - October 2012

Youth Voice: Positive Stories October 2012

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Youth Voice: Positive Stories A report by youth representatives and the workers that support them October 2012 Throughout October 2012 we invited youth representatives, including Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs), Deputy Members of Youth Parliament (DMYPs), Youth Councillors, Young Mayors and Deputy Young Mayors, to share their stories of the positive activities they have been engaging in recently.

We also gave workers the opportunity to update us on the activities of the youth groups they work with and support. The British Youth Council will share this report regionally and nationally, with local councillors and MPs, 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 mail@byc.org.uk.

The online survey will now remain open and over the next year we will produce a report similar to this one, 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: 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 September’s survey and we look forward to hearing more from everyone over the coming months.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Contents East Midlands East of England London North East North West South East South West West Midlands Yorkshire and the Humber Northern Ireland Scotland

4 6 11 15 17 25 26 32 39 45 47

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

East Midlands Leicestershire Karishma Shah, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament The Leicestershire UK Youth Parliament representatives, Ambassadors and County Youth Council Leicestershire members went on a residential between the 19th and 21st of October, to Moira Youth Hostel in Derbyshire. This was to strengthen group work between the Young People and have various team building sessions to ensure the group is as 'tight' as can be and that work is done efficiently and well throughout the next two years.

Michael Meyerstein from Charnwood Youth Council said: "It was a good experience to meet new people and make new friends. I was pleased with the amount of work we got done and how well everyone got on."

Friday evening consisted of reviewing the constitution and making a CYCLe charter for UKYP and CYCLe members in Leicestershire. This is a guide to how voice work operates in Leicestershire.

On Saturday morning and through to the afternoon, we developed an e-learning module around consulting with young people. This module will be on the County Council's e-learning site and will be accessed by new members of staff, including elected members, to ensure that consultation with young people is done effectively and appropriately. We spent the remainder of Saturday's workshops developing a bidding process for a pot of funding that is being overseen by CYCLe and UKYP. This included developing the criteria for bidding, the application process and how the spending will be monitored. There were team building activities as well.

The final night was an evening filled with fun - we did a trip to Birmingham where we tried out our skills at crazy golf! This was then followed by an 'interesting' meal at Bella Italia! Our Sunday morning session was devoted to one big team building session where we had to work together to overcome obstacles and barriers and find the answers to a variety of problems. All in all, it was a great weekend with a massive amount of work achieved and a great deal of fun had by all!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Lincolnshire Matt Mortimer, 15 Member of Youth Parliament In October I had a South meeting with Lincolnshire Youth Cabinet and we discussed several topics from the House of Commons event on the 23rd of November to what Lincolnshire One Venues (LOV) had to say about young people taking control of 10 specific venues. In South Holland LOV is currently running a Acoustic Cafe which is Young people singing in South Holland's Civic Centre (Spalding) for a few hours and everything is set-up and put in action by Lincolnshire's own Young People and they get funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Myself and Eleanor Rudd (LOV's main Project worker for all 10 venues) have had a meeting discussing on what we both do and how LOV and Lincolnshire Youth Cabinet will be keeping in touch in the future to discuss about young people and what they would like seeing in the local areas where the venues are (which are below).

The LOV network consists of 10 venues, 8 performing arts and 2 visual arts across the county including: • • • • • • • • •

South Holland Centre in Spalding Stamford Arts Centre in Stamford Guildhall Arts Centre in Grantham The Riverhead Theatre in Louth Trinity Arts Centre in Gainsborough The National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford The Collection in Lincoln Lincoln Performing Arts Centre (LPAC) Lincoln Drill Hall and The Terry O’Toole Theatre in North Hykeham.

On October the 13th East Midlands and West Midlands came together to make a super region for a convention to discuss not only about how all Maps and Damps did on the Make Your Mark ballots which went great by the way as East Midlands got a stunning 20, 574 ballots filled in, So well done to all who took part - but we also discussed about the House of Commons event on the 23rd of November and had a mock debate which was fantastic and now I think all Maps and DMYPs are all prepared. I'm also pleased to announce the top 5 topics that won the Make Your Mark ballots which are: 1. A curriculum to prepare us for life 2. Marriage for all 3. Making public transport cheaper, better and accessible 4. National minimum wage for all 5. Getting ready for work

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

East of England Essex Michaella Philpot, 18, Member of Youth Parliament On the 13th of October I went to my Regional Convention with UKYP and put my self up for election to represent my region and young people across the country as debate lead at our House of Commons event. I got elected and I couldn't be happier. It’s such an amazing opportunity and lovely to think my region has put their faith in me and my ability.

The Make Your Mark topics where announced and I was happy to say that I will be speaking for the motion of ‘marriage for all’.

Then came the Create the debate week and so I got involved with that too. It was also so good to hear other people’s points of view and helped me plan my speech ready for the debate lead residential on the 26th. All of the debate leads headed to London for a full weekend. I can honestly say it was one the best residentials I have been on. Learnt so many skills, tips and tricks for my speech and defiantly improved my confidence when giving a speech. I got to meet some great people such as the Sergeant of Arms, the Senior Door Keeper, Liam Burns Chair of the NUS and the Children’s Commissioner. Not only that had a great tour of Parliament and got to get a feel for standing at the dispatch box. The residential has made all the debate leads like a family. We've all helped each other so much and will continue to do so right up until the big day! I still can’t believe that very soon I will be standing at the dispatch box representing the voice of young people.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Support worker On 18th October 2012, Members of the Young Essex Assembly organised their Local Democracy Week 2012 Youth Conference. The aims of the conference were: • • • •

To raise awareness and increase the understanding of local democracy amongst local young people.

To maintain and build on positive relationships developed between Essex County Council, the Young Essex Assembly and local secondary schools.

To continue to raise the profile of the Young Essex Assembly in schools and the wider community.

A practical understanding of issues in the wider world.

The event, held in the Council Chambers at County Hall in Chelmsford, was attended by 47 pupils, aged between 11 and 18, representing five secondary schools from around Essex. Pupils were accompanied by their teachers. Members of the Young Essex Assembly wanted to give their peers the opportunity to ask questions about their issues to decision makers; senior management and the elected Members for Essex County Council. The Members of the Young Essex Assembly also wanted to work more closely with schools and their pupils to highlight the importance of local democracy and to promote the Young Essex Assembly elections.

“It’s been fun because of the inspiration of working with other young people, to change our area.” – Cameron “It was nice to meet different people from other schools.” – Elle “It’s been nice to be in contact with other schools.” – Edward The Young Essex Assembly is the elected youth council for Essex. It is made up of 75 young people from around Essex who are aged between 11 and 19, who have been elected to represent the voice of all young people in the county and campaign to make a positive difference to their lives. As a member of the YEA, members will be listened to by the County Council, local councils and by other groups working with, or for, young people. The 75 members of the Young Essex Assembly are elected by young people for a period of two years. The last election was held at the end of 2010, with candidates for the new YEA applying to stand now – contact the Involvement Team on yea@essex.gov.uk if you wish to stand for election. Voting for the new Members will take place in December 2012.

At the moment the four subgroups are working on projects around: • Bullying, crime and feeling safe • Smoking, drugs and alcohol • Schools, education and exam stress • Negative images of young people 12 members of the YEA are also the Essex representatives on the UK Youth Parliament.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Hertfordshire Alex Ferguson, support worker Hustings at Bowes Lyon Centre Where to start, a busy month all round and some great achievements and new opportunities for Herts.

UKYP members. The first weekend of the month saw our second Hustings at Bowes Lyon Centre, Stevenage, with some great young people coming forward to stand in the elections. Their enthusiasm to change things for young people through their representation was something they should be proud of although it has to be said once some were in front of the camera it took a few takes for them to be happy with their performance!

Make Your Mark The first UKYP meeting of the month bought lots of paper in the form of Make Your Mark ballot papers and maths heads were on and teamwork key to make sure all were accounted for in the correct manner.

Over 2500 young people took part in the paper based ballot with the top issues from Herts. being Cheaper Transport, Marriage for All and a National Minimum Wage. Votes at 16 and a Curriculum to Prepare us for Life came in third and fourth place. The national Make Your Mark count is now over and Herts. young people voted for four of the five issues that will be debated in the House of Commons on 23rd November – surprisingly, Votes at 16 did not make it as one of the national issues for young people. Talking about the House of Commons, the second weekend in October saw us at the BYC Convention in Cambridge where, amongst other things including submission of our Make Your Mark votes, the East of England elected their representatives for the House of Commons debate leads and Procedures Group (PG) Representative. Ailish was successfully elected as one of two East of England Debate leads and will speak in the House of Commons next month and Alex was duly elected as the East of England PG Rep replacing our own Joe Reason in February 2013. Well done to both of them.

Police and Crime Commissioner The group are looking to work closely with the yet to be elected Police and Crime Commissioner and work is already happening in the background to see how we can make this happen. Young people have come forward with an interest in participating in this work and further information will be shared accordingly. The PCC Youth Charter has yet to be signed by any of the candidates in the county and again, this is something the group are keen to achieve. The third weekend on October saw the launch of the Herts1125 Hertfordshire Young People’s Manifesto 2012/13 at County Hall in the presence of invited guests and both new and existing Herts1125 members. An excellent day led by the MYPs who presented each of the top five priorities with confidence and when taking questions from the floor showed their knowledge about the issues young people were concerned about. As a worker, I was extremely proud of them both as a group and as individuals as well as their achievements in making Herts1125 a reality.

Armaan returned from the second National Scrutiny Group at Parliament last night and we have yet to hear how he got on and the discussions he was part of. We await his report with interest. Coming to the end of the month, a meeting with the newly elected chair of Healthwatch beckons as well as Ailish’s training for debate lead this weekend. For those of you who have got to the bottom of what seems like an essay, thank you for reading!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Southend-on-Sea Lucy Bissell, support worker On your bike: South end Youth Council’s ‘On Your Bike’ event took part on the 29th September in Priory Park. The initiative was organised jointly with Cycle South end to promote cycling for young people and highlight the importance of cycle safety. It was a huge success, with 60 people attending and more than 50 bikes being checked and tagged.

Looked After Children’s Council (LACC): The LACC was re-launched on the 2nd October. The meeting was very productive and gave the young people the opportunity to find out more about the group and make plans for the year ahead. Current plans include developing a health passport for young people, promoting the pledge and supporting with a participation survey for looked after children.

BYC Convention: 4 young people attended the Convention on the 13th October in Cambridge and took part in a number of workshops including public speaking, media and debating skills. Comments from the young people included, ‘I learnt about the general roles of MYPs and other representatives that were there & got to hear some accounts of what they had accomplished in their local area’.

Quiz Night: South end Youth Council arranged a quiz night in aid of Little Havens Hospice and raised £160.

Suffolk Sam Kenward, 15, Member of Youth Parliament • • • • • •

I have spoken with the head of Anglian Buses about issues raised by young people and they said they are working on it and I will continue to make sure they will.

I am meeting with transport providers on Thursday and I will be pitching to them about young people's issues with public transport.

We have got and are getting more funding for a community cinema to be set up in Beccles.

Local Democracy was a success! We had lots of stuff going on all around Waveney and 'Roary the Tiger' will return soon!

I am thinking more about how we can get young people to have their views heard and I'm thinking about interactive ways this could be done, so watch this space.

I am talking to candidates for Beccles South By-election about what they will do if elected.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Thurrock Pat Kielty, support worker As part of Democracy Week, on the 16th October, the Thurrock Youth Cabinet hosted 'Your Voice-Your Debate' - an event that featured debating, interactive voting and networking. 25 young people took part and were joined by 10 Thurrock Councillors for the debates. The 2 topics (should the Police be armed? and was the Olympics worth the money?) were selected by Thurrock Youth Cabinet members and opening speeches for and against were delivered by young people before the debates were opened up.

One of the Councillors who attended commented: "It was excellently attended, not just by the Youth Cabinet but by wider members of our young community. The event was very well run and myself and fellow members were very impressed".

Following this 4 young people who attended the evening have applied to join the Thurrock Youth Cabinet.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

London Bromley Andrew Spears, Youth Councillor The past two months have been quite busy for me: •

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At the beginning of September I had an interview with The Bromley Times newspaper about Bromley Youth Councils current bullying campaign. We discussed our plans and aims for bullying as well as touching upon our other campaigns. This has now been published.

On 11th September I attended Bromley Councils Education Policy, Development and Scrutiny (PDS) committees meeting and another sub committee about the budgeting of education on 25th September. Both of these were very informative.

Thursday 13th September was the day of Bromley Youth Councils monthly meeting, which is held in the civic centre. We had 3 guests attend this meeting for various reasons.

In both September/October we had a follow up meeting with one of our guests about health and well-being for young people in the borough. This was held in the central library and we talked about different issues regarding young people’s health in different areas.

At school I had an interview to be part of the school council and was successful. I am now in the running to become Chair/Vice Chair of the school council, we will find out the results at Novembers’ meeting. Throughout October the youth council have been filming with Chocolate box films and I have been in numerous interviews as both a chairman and a BYC member.

Finally, I am looking for ways in which to raise money for Children in Need 2012. I am going to walk 20miles from Biggin Hill TN16 to BBC London studios (White City) on Saturday 3rd of November.

Ealing Yasmin Rufo, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor The NSG’s second meeting was the 23rd & 24th October 2012. The National Scrutiny Group is a group that has been created to scrutinise government policy developments on behalf of all young people. I am the elected NSG representative for London and therefore I report back to all youth representatives in the region. In our 2nd Meeting we continued to look at the Bailey Review which is about the sexualisation of children, we discussed the progress being made on age rating music videos and talking to ISP’s to automatically block inappropriate content to young children.

Our next meeting was with three members from the Department of Education’s Youth Policy team on KS4 reforms. We scrutinised the document about the educational reforms and put our questions to the

Youth Voice: Positive Stories panel regarding the concerns that young people have about the radical changes from GCSE’s to English Baccalaureate Certificates (EBC), which will first be implemented in 2015.

We then met with Ed Timpson MP, who is the new Parliamentary Under Secretary of State of Education, the replacement to Tim Loughton. We talked to the minister about our previous work and the progress we have made since our first meeting. We also spoke to him about the number of questions we had for various government departments. The minister also reassured us that we had support from him in the future; making sure young people’s voices are heard in government policies that affect them. If you have any questions that you would like us to ask the education department or any other department, then we would love to hear from you.

Kingston upon Thames Francis Taylor, support worker The members of Kingston Youth Council requested that the LA provide more social opportunities for them. Following further consultation with the young people, a proposal was put together to open an invitation only youth club for members of Kingston Youth Council, Kingston Cared for and Fostered Council and YU Online magazine project. The proposal was successful and September saw the launch of 'Unity' Youth Club. After several tweets and Facebook posts about the club, a reporter from The Surrey Comet got in touch informing the group that she had seen some information on Twitter and would like to write an article about the club. On the 16th October, a photographer visited the centre and the following Friday a report was published in one of Kingston's biggest newspapers. The lead member for Children and Young People in Kingston, Patricia Bamford, was also present on the day and has offered her support to both of the youth councils. 'Unity' Youth Club will open on a monthly basis on the 3rd Tuesday of each month. It is based at The Fountain Youth Centre in New Malden.

Sutton Anna Mullaney, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament We are making progress on our Police campaign and have had representatives from the police attend our Youth Parliament meetings and attended the police station for tours. We will be having a Police representative at our next meeting to update us regarding the Community Engagement plan and Antisocial behaviour and fireworks patrols in Sutton. Members of Sutton Youth Parliament will be out on Anti-social behaviour and Stop and Search patrols in October half term with the Police and will provide Police with feedback on their interactions with young people.

Another development in our campaign has been the Independent Advisory Groups and we have registered our interest in being a part of this in Sutton to get young people's views on policing matters.

Next month we will provide updates on our 2013 MYP Elections and our Transport campaign!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Wandsworth Marc Dataro, 17, Youth Councillor

Wandsworth Youth Council Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Day The youth council is currently preparing for the much-awaited Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Day which is going to happen this November; with this, we are encouraging young people in our borough through the means of social media, school assemblies, etc… – to be shadowing the works of Chief Executive, Directors, Councillors, Heads of Services, and much more!

BYC Convention We have taken part at the recent London Youth Voice Convention that draws all youth councils in London. In this, we were able to talk to the police commissioner – which is very important for our work in Police Youth Think Tank. In addition, we were able to take part at the O2 Big Fund session to help us with our last round of Youth Opportunity Funding.

UK Youth Parliament’s Make Your Mark Ballots We are not part of UK Youth Parliament by choice – however, we have still managed to collect 2,600+ ballots from young people in Wandsworth. Special mentions to Marc (1102 ballots), Imaan, Dahlia, and Alex (our newest member) We are very excited to see how the debate goes on the 23rd of November 2012 – we will be streaming it live from the town hall as part of Takeover Day. Police Youth Think Tank At our last session, we attracted 38 young people to talk about stop and search; and were inspected by the Home Office who gave us very positive feedback. Within this month, we were able to discuss and deliver the importance of engaging young people with the police – as we attended the Wandsworth

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Consultative Committee where we presented our recent findings from young people about police and how we are trying to bridge the gap.

Young Inspectors We have been inspecting play services; who have had big budget cuts, we’ve been into a play centre interviewed both staff and young people. In addition, we have undertaken research of the play centres in terms of its sustainability and security for young people. We will be typing up a report to give to the director very soon and presenting with our recommendations.

Youth Leadership A very busy youth council in terms of governance and leadership – we have just finished our summarisation of our Youth Momentum report and ready to discuss it with young people in the borough. We are currently working on a presentation day at some schools in our borough to deliver our findings and also recruit brand new members for the Youth Council.

Youth Opportunity Fund We’ve been helping setup a new fund where young people and adults will sit at a panel together. At the same time, we have been awarding £130,000 to youth groups in Wandsworth that apply for funding.

Social Media

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North East Northumberland Andrew Elliott, support worker The Northumberland Youth Cabinet held a Film Making Competition where they asked young people across the County to submit short films focussing on issues that affect them in their area. A wide range of topics were submitted including being a teenage parent, transport, bullying, things to do and anti social behaviour. The competition came to its climax at the premiere and awards evening held in early October. All the groups that entered were invited to the FUSE Media Centre in Prudhoe to see their films on the cinema screen.

Members of the Youth Cabinet hosted the evening and proceeded on to announcing the winners of the competition. The winning entry came from the Northumberland Church of England Academy on the topic of bullying. The film captured the views of the victims of bullying, bullies and also staff at the academy. The two runners up had films on what it's like to be a teenage parent and transport.

Rachel Gibson, support worker Northumberland held its annual event to celebrate the achievements of looked after children, young people and care leavers. Nearly 150 young people were nominated and a large number of them attended the event to receive their award.

The event was planned by a steering group of young people supported by the Engagement and Development Team. Young people also presented the whole event and delivered both singing and dancing performances. A DVD about an Olympics project was shown as well as a slide show of photography by looked after young people. The guest speaker was ex world champion boxer Glenn McCrory who also had his photo taken with each nominee, along with an Olympic Torch brought along by a foster carer who was one of the official torch bearers.

North Tyneside Julia Bradwell, support worker •

Young mayor Jade Hope attended a final meeting of the Youth Select Committee on transport in London where the group reviewed the draft report and made amendments. The final report is expected to be completed by 5th November.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories •

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12 youth councillors attended North Tyneside’s state of the area event where they took part in various workshops. They all fed back that they found it very interesting and enjoyed making a contribution to the workshops.

Youth Councillors from South West Area are working with an Artist to create a seat to be situated near Wallsend High St there will be carvings on the seat which will commemorate the shipbuilding and other industries of the area.

9 Youth Councillors including the Young Mayor attended the second British Youth Council Convention in North Tyneside. The event was held at Tyne Met College in Wallsend and was attended by young people from across the North East. Around 70 young people attended. The young people took part in workshops around campaigning and the holocaust. There was a panel debate where councillors from North Tyneside, participation workers and young people answered questions from the audience. In the afternoon Eva Clarke, whose mother was a holocaust survivor talked to the young people about her mother’s experience.

North Tyneside’s UK Youth Parliament member, Scott Ideson collected 2136 ballots from schools and groups across North Tyneside. Top three issues were; Make public transport cheaper, better and accessible for all, An equal minimum wage for all, Getting ready for work Preliminary online elections have been concluded for the next Young Mayor of North Tyneside.

We had 34 nominations and 3000 votes were cast from young people aged 11 to 19. The 4 candidates with the most online votes will now go through to the next round of voting which will take place on the 19th to 21st of November.

Middlesbrough Ben Rowden, 15, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been focusing on preparing my 'Jobs for Youth Plan' with the aim of reforming our local economy to get more young people back in employment and providing new and meaningful apprenticeships to those who need them. In doing so I have met business and local political leaders to discuss over the plans. On top of this, my manifesto for the town will also be launched at the event held on the 26th October.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North West Bolton Support worker Political Speed Rating Event Youth Councillors have been working hard on planning our Annual Political Speed rating event. This year we are aiming for the biggest turnout of Councillors yet! Young people from a variety of groups in Bolton will have the opportunity to ask councillors questions and then at the end of the event vote for their best speed Rating Councillor. Democracy session in schools Youth Councillors and Youth MPs are going to several schools in Bolton to deliver fun active sessions around local Democracy, this is a great opportunity for the young people o further develop their skills and also enabling other young people in schools to understand the role of a Youth Councillor and Youth MPs in Bolton.

Mayor for a Day Youth Councillors and Youth MPs have been working with the Mayor of Bolton to offer and opportunity for two young people to take over the role of Mayor for the day for Children’s Commissioners National Take Over Day. This has been sent out to all schools and Colleges in Bolton and will be judged by elected members, Youth Councillors, Youth MPs, Head of Positive Activities and the Mayor of Bolton.

Make Your Mark and Youth Unemployment Youth Councillors and Youth MPs have been busy out and about encouraging young people to choose what the feel UK Youth Parliament should campaign on and to sign the Youth Unemployment petition.

Young people in Bolton have been really interested in this and feel privileged that they are being given the opportunity to be involved in this important decision.

Anti-bullying steering group Khansa and Zaviriya (Chair and Vice Chair of the Youth Council) have attended our newly formed AntiBullying steering group with professional throughout Bolton. Their first task is to contribute to the updating of the Anti-Bullying strategy that currently exists.

Supporting an opportunities event for young people with disabilities Lydia one of our Youth MPs have been working on one of her campaigns around promoting opportunities for Children and young people with disabilities. Lydia has been involved in a meeting with Firwood High School who are planning to hold an opportunities event for all young people in Bolton.

Meeting Julie Hilling – MP Bolton West Fahad one of our Youth MPs has had the opportunity to meet with Julie Hilling Bolton’s West MP at Fox Street Youth Centre with other young people. Julie has Given Fahad some very interesting and useful tips for his first live debate at the House of Commons in November.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories CICC plan Awards event Children in Care Council are currently planning their Awards event for all young people in Care; this is going to acknowledge achievements big and small that the young people, foster carers, social workers, learning mentors are all very proud off.

Youth MPs plan visits to schools and Youth Centres Youth MPs have been out and about visiting Youth Centres, Young people’s Centres and Schools, still thanking young people for voting in the elections and promoting the Make Your Mark campaign and Youth Unemployment petition.

Youth Councillors set for their final bronze duke of Edinburgh expedition Khansa, David, Nathan, Zaviriya and Laura (Youth Councillors) are set to complete their Bronze Final Duke of Edinburgh expedition this weekend.

Lancashire Jack Cooke, 15, Member of Youth Parliament Pendle has been planning a Citizenship Concert for Local Democracy Week. On the 17th October, Pendle's Youth Council shall host Citizenship Workshops, where young people can come and share ideas and questions and will have a go at creating their idea Prime Minister and MP. So it will be fun to see what people come up with. As well as the Citizen Workshops we will after them hold a Concert, and members of youth council are taking part in entertaining through the latest and greatest songs and dramas. So it should be a really good event and we have been working on this for the past month. The money raised on the night will go towards funding a trip to London for a handful of young people to visit the House of Commons and to have a good time within our busy capital.

Also I have been working on the LYC Campaigns Strategy Group. In Lancashire Youth Council Campaigns, Equality and Diversity we split into groups and mine was to work on the Community Cohesion Strategy created by Lancashire Council, with aims of reviving their policies and possibly rewriting them in an interesting, young person’s perspective.

Furthermore at our last meeting we can James McKenna a member of T.U.C who expressed his wish to work more with young people, to improve relations with Unions and to support more young people in the things they are up to. In November’s meeting we shall have a Lady from Pendle Parks team, where we hope to discuss ideas to improve parks and to see more about how Local Councils tackle environmental issues.

Lastly we have been working extremely hard to collect in Ballot Papers for the national Make your Mark campaign, which gives young people the opportunity to have their say in what campaigns are to be pushed into action for 2013. We try and get as many people voting by setting up Ballot Boxes in school and by opening Youth Centres and Polling Stations. We hope once they are all collected in to focus more on the Youthforia Job Opportunities Petition.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories It’s not always easy to please everyone and to represent so many young people. Some tasks are heard and near impossible and others are a delight to perform. Over all my activities, I find extremely important and take very seriously my role as an MYP. I only hope I live and work up to the high standards that every other MYP in Lancashire and England set.

Oldham Daisy Murphy, 15, Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor We have been working hard on developing an inspection process for young people, so that young people can be involved in assessing the quality of youth and sports provision in Oldham. We worked with youth workers to design a process that is from a young person’s perspective and that assesses provision under 5 key areas. These are: • • • •

Positive environment activities and opportunities Skills and qualities of staff Availability of information Equality and anti oppressive practice

To assess the provision we use observation, interview staff and young people and participate ourselves in the activities.

We Launched the Go Oldham Inspectors in October (called Go Oldham after Oldham’s one stop things to do and places to go scheme) we have piloted our new programme with 4 inspections this month - 2 youth centres and 2 sports sessions and we really enjoyed carrying these out. After each 'inspection visit' we write a report on our findings - detailing what we felt was positive about the sessions and any recommendations we feel are needed to further improve the sessions. We also take pictures of things we liked/thought needed improving to include in the report.

The programme means that young people are directly able to assess the quality of the youth offer in Oldham and to make recommendations to service providers on how to improve things to do and Places to go for young people. It also means we can review and promote the range of Great activities available to young people in Oldham.

Support worker As part of Local Democracy week this year we ran Workshops/consultation events across all 6 districts of Oldham as well as in the 6th form college and the Mahdlo Centre. Workshops were delivered in youth centrea and secondary schools across Oldham with 100's of young people participating. This year the workshops focussed on: • •

Feeding back on priorities that young people identified in the consultation activities from the previous year– a kind of you said, we did, what next approach Budgeting – How services are budgeted and what Young People feel should be the budget priorities for Oldham Council in light of the Savings required over the next 4 years

Youth Voice: Positive Stories •

How to encourage positive community/co-operative Behaviours – e.g. how do we reduce such behaviours as littering so that funding can be spent on better uses.

The findings from the events will be collated and a Local Democracy Week youth report that will be available from end of November. The report will give a big picture view of what Young People felt were budget priorities over all as well as district level information. as well as solutions identified by young people to enhance co-operative behaviour in Oldham.

Zoe Carter, 18, Youth Councillor As part of working with the Overview and Scrutiny Board, the Oldham Youth Council suggested a scrutiny review of the services in Oldham which provide support and treatment for young people experiencing mental health issues. At its meeting of the 3rd April 2012, the Overview and Scrutiny Board established a Task and Finish Group to look at this topic, and agreed to co-opt a number of Oldham Youth Councillors to the group. Kendra Clarke, Youth Councillor, chaired the Task and Finish Group. The task and finish group had 3 main aims: 1. To explore what mental health services are available to children and young people in Oldham.

2. To assess how mental health services for young people are promoted and made accessible for young people to use.

3. To make recommendations on how mental health services in Oldham can effectively promote their services and engage with children and young people.

We consulted with 125 young people. These young people completed a short questionnaire on mental health issues and what support they thought was available in Oldham. Of the 125 respondents, 112 felt that mental health was a big issue, but 68 said they did not know where to get help from. Only about a third of respondents could name a support service in Oldham for young people with mental health issues (and named Kooth, Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services), Positive Steps Oldham and Off the Record). Just over one third of respondents were unsure if they were suffering from, or had ever suffered from, mental health problems.

The results of the questionnaire have shown that awareness raising continues to be a crucial issue, as many young people were not aware of services that could help them, and tellingly one third of them did not know if they had an illness or issue. Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) produced a booklet and website called “Withuinmind – a young person’s handbook” which explained issues and what services were available for young people but still not all young people are aware of these services.

The Oldham Youth Council has recently produced a resource pack and lesson plans for citizenship classes in schools around mental health issues.

Mental health services has been a priority issue for the youth council over the past 2 years and the task and finish group gave us the opportunity to really progress with the work and look at services for young people and how they can be better promoted and accessed by all young people.

We have researched and interviewed experts and have come up with a number of recommendations that have been outlined in the report you have received.

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That there is better promotion (advertising) and awareness of all the services available to young people.

That, as a minimum requirement, young people should be involved in the joint strategic partnership for mental health services, and have input into and comment on the Oldham JSNA (Joint Strategic Needs Assessment).

That a one-off meeting of the Task and Finish Group be arranged in early 2013 to see how the self-referrals process was progressing at Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) and how existing services were coping.

That a programme of Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) drop-in sessions is carried out in all schools and colleges (especially those with Sixth Forms).

That multi-agency awareness training is available across all professionals working with young people around mental health AND emotional wellbeing – professionals in universal services like youth workers, social workers, teachers, youth offending service, as well as the “Street Angels”, voluntary and faith groups that have youth provision, the PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) and other police officers who work the town centre at weekends.

That, as recommended in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, a borough strategy for Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) is developed, but also with input from young people.

That there are better and stronger partnership between services providing mental health support – and these should link into existing meetings like the Oldham Partnership, District Partnerships, Youth Alliance, Children’s Centre Boards.

That as a minimum requirement, all services should have a shared charter for young people on what they can expect from services providing mental health support and treatment.

That there is re-investment in prevention works – this could lead to savings in terms of what is spent on in-patient beds.

We requested that the overview and scrutiny board supported our recommendations and refers the report to cabinet for further work on how these can be implemented. We are now working with the board on working out the real costs for all our recommendations and we will present this to Full council in the New Year. We work really closely with Overview and Scrutiny and we are also currently involved in an O and S task and finish group on the Alcohol strategy.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Salford Phoebe Gibson, 18, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Salford Celebrates Youth Day an article from Phoebe Gibson, 18, Salford Young Peoples Council Salford Youth Day on Tuesday 30 October was a day to celebrate Young People and their achievements. This involved everything from pumpkin carving, tea with older people and someone riding a bike. Daniel Beeby, 21, who attends the Beacon Centre, has only just learnt to ride a bike and did five laps of an outdoor netball court to raise awareness of Salford Disability Youth Group. This was only his second time on a bike and an amazing achievement, well done Daniel.

Throughout the day there were activities all throughout the eight youth centres and five detached teams. A detached team is made up of youth workers that speak to young people on the streets that don’t attend a Youth Centre, give them advice and encourage them to take part in the activities at a youth centre where they will be safer.

The day was a massive success, with more than 1,600 Youth Day wristbands handed out. Impressive. At Eccles Youth Centre both young and older people enjoyed having tea, cakes, nibbles, having fun and a good chat. This gave everyone a sense of community and brought everyone together.

A celebration event will take place on 17 December to showcase what took place during Youth Day. My personal view is that young people tend to get a bad reputation, but Youth Day helped to show that not all young People are bad. Instead this celebrated them, their achievements and helped give them a voice. It brought communities together as one. This meant everyone was equal. Young People are the future and it is our responsibility to make Salford a great place, full of love and laughter. Our Voice, Our Salford.

Support worker Salford Young People’s Council…a busy few months! Salford Young People’s Council has been very busy over the past few months leading a number of new initiatives across the City as well as supporting youth work locally in our neighbourhoods. After organising and coordinating a city wide election campaign, Joe Williams is now Salford’s UK Youth Parliament representative. Joe has been busy with a range of activities, including the annual weekend where Youth Parliament representatives from all over the country vote on their top priorities to discuss this year and he just appeared on BBC Newsround discussing the referendum going on in Scotland about votes for 16 and 17 year olds. Members of the Council have also been leading the way in the development of new Youth Information Zone. In response to a consultation with young people, Salford was successful in obtaining funding to develop digital and social media to involve more of the city’s youth, with a new website planned for early 2013.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

A project board, which includes the Deputy UK Youth Parliament representative Phoebe Williams, has described what they want and the group will be involved in selecting and commenting on ideas and designs.

Finally this autumn will launch Salford’s first Youth Day planned by young people across the city, celebrating the contribution of young people to their communities. Loads of exciting work is already going on in youth centres in preparation for the event which is to be held at the end of October.

South Ribble Jakob Tynan, 14, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor In South Ribble we have been focusing on planning an event with the £2000 given to us by the Children's Trust, so for the past couple weeks there has been plenty of mind-mapping, flipcharts and discussions!

We're hoping to give the young people of the district a fun and exciting day modelled on the success of a previous event, FreezeFest. Along with this, a number of funding bids have been looked at by the whole Youth Council, with all members contributing towards a final decision. All is going well!

Trafford Marike Ruther, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I helped organise school council elections, and joined several citizenship groups on at lunch. I'm also running as an anti-bullying ambassador. I'm collecting signatures for UKYP campaign: tackling youth unemployment.

I helped organise school council elections, and joined several citizenship groups on at lunch. I'm also running as an anti-bullying ambassador. I'm collecting signatures for UKYP campaign: tackling youth unemployment.

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Youth Cabinet Members attended Trafford's Children's Trust Board to ensure children and young people's views are represented at a strategic level in Trafford. A member attended 'Youthforia', the regional youth voice forum for the North West.

Members attended the young people's event 'Pandamonium@TheFuse' to publicise their work and get signatures on the Youthforia young people's employment petition.

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Members attended a meeting to discuss developing a project based around encouraging young people to use their local town centres.

Members attended a meeting of the Diverse Communities Board to discuss how young people's voices will be heard in the new board structures for Trafford.

Members met with workers from the new young people's substance misuse service in Trafford to find out what their service offers and to suggest a name for the new service.

Members discussed and fed back what kind of training they would need to take part in the new Healthwatch in Trafford.

Members met with the head of Trafford libraries to discuss the new eBook lending system and hear about the latest proposed changes to the library service.

Members worked with Dan Moxon from North West Regional Youth Work Unit to develop a national 'Charter for School Nurses'.

Members finalised and submitted the youth cabinet's views on the proposed changes to Trafford General Hospital.

Members began working on their response to the latest budget consultation from Trafford Council, focussing particularly on changes to the youth service.

Youth Advocacy (Children in Care Council) - Members met with workers from the new young people's substance misuse service in Trafford to find out what their service offers and to suggest a name for the new service. Members planned their residential coming up at the start of November.

Members planned their Children in Care Achievements awards event coming up in the middle of November.

Members worked on some 'frequently asked questions' from young people in care which they will put to senior managers in the Children in Care Service.

Members attended the Children's Rights Directors consultation event about fostering at Chester Zoo.

Warrington Steven Atkins, 15, Member of Youth Parliament During Local Democracy Week (15th - 21st October), I alongside the chair of our local Youth Council IMPACT, and Member of Youth Parliament for Warrington North, led a session in our Youth Café to around 40-60 Young People where we explained what our roles were and how they could get involved.

We also debated issues for example the image of Young People in the media, how the Police treat Young People and Youth provisions in the town. Afterwards, we had a surgery where any Young Person could come and speak to us about an issue they care about. Overall, it was a fun and informative event that let us meet with more Young People and certainly spread the message about what UK Youth Parliament is all about but it also let us connect with more Young People and give us an opportunity to listen to what they have to say.

Warrington managed to get over 1,000 Make Your Mark forms completed. Our top three issues were: Public Transport, Getting Young People into work and Marriage for all.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South East Medway Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor As a group we have been working towards annual conference. On the 23rd of October we successfully completed this event for the public.

Wokingham Sharon Holder, support worker •

A meeting was held to count the Make Your Mark ballots, just under 400 were collected.

Sumaiya and Josh collected the bulk from their schools, with Charlotte and the youth centres also adding to the total number of ballots. Preparation for the BYC Convention focused on deciding which sessions to attend, briefing Ellie (the additional youth council representative) and a transport-focused discussion.

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Four young people attended the BYC Convention in Reading, where Sumaiya was elected as Debate Lead for the South East. Sumaiya attended the Debate Lead residential in London, meeting with other leads from across the country to prepare for the debate in November.

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The CiCC held its monthly meeting at the Borough Council offices, where they reflected on the Awards Ceremony, the Corporate Parenting Board meeting and planned for care leavers’ week.

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The CiCC attended and hosted the Awards Ceremony, which was attended by 32 children in care and care leavers, held at Waingels College.

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Members of the CiCC set up a display stand to promote Care Leavers week and raise awareness of the issues they face. The stand was staffed by three CiCC members who were available to answer questions and provide more information over one afternoon.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South West Devon Lizz Williams, support worker This month, the UKYP Devon Team launched their Campaign Reports for Homophobic Bullying in School and Careers Advice. We now wait to hear feedback from Senior Managers & County Councillors regarding our recommendations for change.

The UKYP Devon Team also worked hard collecting ballot papers for the 'Make Your Mark' Ballot count in preparation for the House of Commons Event. We're really proud to have one of the highest returns in the UK, with one MYP having individually collected the most ballot papers in the whole UK, and one DMYP being the deputy who individually collected the most.

Finally, we have begun our election process for the 2013 Elections. At the beginning of the month we held and Information Day, at County Hall, for all young people interested in becoming a member of Youth Parliament. Members of the current team did an excellent job running workshops for interested young people and demonstrated what it meant to be a Member of Youth Parliament. The day was attended by 40 young people from across the whole County, as well as youth workers and Councillors Vanessa Newcombe and Brian Greenslade.

The next stage in the election process is a candidate day which will be held on 29 October 2012 where young people will be helped to put together their Candidate Profile ready to be distributed when the elections begin in Mid January 2013.

Dorset Lloyd Hatton, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Over the past month I've been pushing the Make Your Mark campaign throughout Southern Dorset, collecting over 1000 ballots. During the campaign a friend and I created a promotional video for the campaign, explaining how and why to vote, which proved very successful on both Facebook and YouTube. I also attended a regional British Youth Council Convention, in which I took part in the election for the House of Commons debate lead for the South-West, this coming November. I am looking forward to the debate next month, and am very pleased with the success of the 'Make Your Mark' both locally, and nationally!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Natasha Glendening, 16, Member of Youth Parliament One of my manifesto points that I was elected on, was 'getting young people involved in local decision making'. To achieve this, I have started help write a handbook for local councillors on how to involve young people. It is very nearly finished and will be sent to print very soon.

Additionally, I am a Youth Advisor on Sherborne Town Council and have been since January 2011. I sit in on meetings and help advise the councillors on a young peoples perspective on issues that affect the town. This month I attended a meeting alongside four other young people from schools in the town.

Furthermore this month I went to London with my fellow Dorset MYPs and Deputies and the Dorset Youth Council to go up to see Big Ben strike midday. Afterwards we all went to watch a debate in the House of Lords, which was incredible as they were debating child development, issues that the youth council had campaigned on previously.

For the Make your Mark campaign, Dorset was very successful and personally I managed to collect 418 ballot papers. The Dorset Youth Council also met to count all of Dorset's ballot papers and it was made into a big counting ceremony. I also attended the South West's BYC Convention in Taunton where we took park in a Red Cross exercise pretending to be displaced people from a village that comes under attack. It was a very eye-opening opportunity as I got to learn about immigration from the opposite point of you, many in the UK complain about immigration from war-torn countries and yet they have no choice but too escape the harsh conditions they face there. Therefore it was incredible chance to understand other people's perspectives, something that will stay with me and a skill I hope to use in my role as a Member of Youth Parliament.

East Dorset Moya Dunne, 15, Member of Youth Parliament We have had many opportunities and also meeting this month. On the 11th October myself and 4 other young people got the challenge to master the 334 step all the way to the top of Big Ben! Which was such a fantastic opportunity to be able to reach the top of Big Ben and stand next to the bell and hear Big Ben chime at 12! And to hear the history of the tower and the bell it's self! That week we also attended the make you mark regional meeting were we counted the mark your mark ballot papers and elected the debate lead in the House of Commons also the PG. I have emailed Conor Burns MP for his support and ideas to make my manifesto points as effective as possible. I also emailed schools about my petition to reduce the price of school meals which I will be soon doing an presentation at Ferndown middle school to promote it.

Dorset has also held its youth parliament information day to promote youth parliament to give an idea to people who are wanting to become candidates. Our training day will be held on the 10th November. on the 30th October , myself and the other members of youth parliament for Dorset will be going to Devon for a residential trip, to improve the way we run youth parliament and Dorset youth parliament.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Plymouth Sarah Heffernan, support worker Members of the Plymouth Youth Parliament joined the British Red Cross in exploring themes of humanitarian crisis during a war-zone simulation exercise at the base of 40 Commando, Taunton on 13th October. The exercise scenario focused on a fictional village that becomes the centre of an unprovoked assault by invaders looking to expand their territory. Members of the Youth Parliament played the roles of civilians caught up in the conflict, some sustaining injuries or becoming separated from family members; others being evacuated from their homeland to the limbo of no-mans-land or the safety of refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Claudia Marshall, 16, took part in the exercise. The Lipson Community College student said: “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the exercise was very realistic and everyone took it really seriously which made it seem like it was actually happening. Taking part in the exercise brought home some of the issues that people living in war-torn countries, or refugees forced from their homes, have to cope with. I learned much more today than I would have by just reading a newspaper article or watching the news.”

It’s also that time of year again when Plymouth City Council’s Youth Service looks for young people to put their names forward to become member of the UKYP to represent the views of local young people.

Emily Carter, 16, is an active member of the UKYP when she isn’t busy studying for her A Levels in music and art, psychology and sociology at Plymouth High School for Girls. She explains: “Being passionate is the most important quality you need to be a member. I wasn’t particularly confident and I definitely wasn’t experienced when I put my name forward, but I was interested in local issues and I care about people.”

Emily was elected last January on her manifesto pledge of raising the profile of young people’s mental health issues.

“I wanted to help reduce the stigma of young people with mental health problems and try to improve the services available to them in the city. I know we’ve already made a massive difference after the Over and Scrutiny Task and Finish group we prompted. Because of us, the way the waiting lists are organised has changed – they are now split into different categories and because we raised the issue, waiting times have been cut. That’s the kind of real difference we can make.”

A pot of £5,000 has been set aside to support UKYP members and an expert advisory group has been set up with Councillors Williams and Taylor on hand to give crucial advice and to act as advocates for UKYP members. A menu of services is also available for UKYP members to call upon including training courses, design and print services and web support. Candidates need to be aged between 11 and 18 years old and go to school or live in Plymouth. There is no cost involved and knowledge of politics is not necessary just a wish to make Plymouth a better place for young people to live and work. Finally, another group of Young Inspectors has been trained within the city. They will now be able to carry out objective

Youth Voice: Positive Stories assessments of local services and make recommendations for service improvements. They will be starting off with inspections of local youth clubs run by Plymouth City Council Youth Service as well as local parks and play rangers managed by Play Services. The training helped the group develop the key skills to undertake the assessments and feedback their findings as well as learning more about provision for young people in Plymouth.

Poole Jack Matthews, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I have been busy with a number of activities this month: •

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I organised the distribution of UKYP's 'Make Your Mark' ballot papers across Poole. This allowed young people to vote for their top youth priority, determining the issues to be discussed at the UKYP Annual Debate in November.

Attended the South West UKYP Regional meeting in Taunton. At this event, the 'Make Your Mark' ballot papers were counted, and I discovered that I had collected the 10th highest number of votes (2,666) in the UK. Poole's return of 20% placed it 6th highest Local Authority.

Also at the Regional meeting, I was lucky enough to be voted as the South West's Debate Lead at UKYP's Annual Debate. A couple of weeks later, I attended the Debate Leads' residential weekend in London to help with speech preparation.

Took part (via Skype) in a Sounds Positive Steering Group meeting.

I also took part in an anti-bullying alliance meeting at my school.

I had the privilege of opening Poole's Annual Youth Conference, which was attended by over 50 young people. We took part in interesting workshops and visited information stalls.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Somerset Sam Foulder-Hughes, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I've been quite busy this month, I was elected as the South West's PG representative for next year on 13th October and have been chatting with our current PG about what the role entails and what I've got to do. I've also been organising a "create the debate" in my sixth form within the debating society. This will be a really brilliant way of seeing what young people in my constituency are passionate about.

In addition to this our elections in Somerset are coming up in February so I've been chatting to some interested young people about why they should stand, and it's been really nice to see how enthusiastic they are.

I had a really good day a couple of weeks ago handing out make your mark ballot papers in Taunton, this was a very good way of reaching out to young people who would not necessarily get involved in Make your Mark or the political process. For me, Make your Mark wasn't as much about how many people I got to fill in a ballot, but reaching out to people and promoting the House of Commons to young people who might not know, or might think it's something that doesn't affect them.

We've had three local meetings this month, in our local meetings we discuss our campaign issues and how we can take them forward and consult for various bodies to give young people a say in policies which affect them.

I've also been elected as the South West's procedures group representative for 2013-14, this is something I'm really delighted to be doing and have started thinking of ideas to make my region and UKYP as a whole more effective and even more fun!

Torbay Erin Lynch, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I spent 4 days representing the UK in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe for the World Forum for Democracy: Youth Assembly. I debated with 160 16-25 year old leaders from around Europe and the world on issues important in the field of Democracy and how we can improve it, especially youth participation. I met some incredible people including MPs from around the UK and the world. I learnt an incredible amount about democracy and how to improve my personal skills and how to be more effective in my position as a member of Youth Parliament. Furthermore, the intensive course resulted in some concrete, potential resolutions, I for example was in the group for Democracy and inclusion of minorities and we conceived some potential schemes which I plan on perhaps introducing to my local area. I will take this experience and treasure it for life!

In our local group we have been busy working on getting as many Make Your Mark ballots back as possible! We have also been working on elections for next year and a local 窶郎our Bay Your Say' event we hold annually where local youth can get a say with us and important Councillors.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

West Wiltshire Frankie Haugh, 14, Member of Youth Parliament I attended the Wiltshire Assembly of Youth meeting were we found out about the Zero Tolerance to Homophobic Bullying Campaign. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the UKYP meeting, but I heard some very positive feedback.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

West Midlands Dudley Siobhan Lloyd, support worker October, young people within Dudley including Dudley Youth Council, the Youth Opportunities Fund Panel, UK Youth Parliament and area youth forums have been steadily busy actively engaging with, and trying to represent as many young people as possible, here’s some examples of what they have been up to: Dudley Youth Council: Met with Age UK to plan and run an intergenerational event as part of Full of Life campaign which took place on the 1st October where older people and younger people ran workshops and shared their skills with each other. Are planning and have launched the nominations for Dudley Youth Awards 2012 which the youth council run each year with Dudley Youth Service which recognises the positive achievements and contributions of young people in the borough. This is the 9th year that the awards have run.

Meeting with Children in Care Council: The Children in Care Council contacted the youth council to see how they could work more closely together and learn more about the youth council. The youth council have invited them to attend their next meeting in November. Youth Opportunities Fund: Young people have volunteered over 50 hours of their time to give out £27,000 of grants to develop young people’s ideas and to increase the positive activities that are available between August to October.

Get Vocal: Youth Participation Event: In October Half Term an event took place where young people from different area youth forums from around the Dudley Borough came together. Young people had the opportunity to take part in the planning of a celebration event for young people involved in Youth Voice work, gave their thoughts to go into a funding application which will increase the opportunity for young people to take part in the arts, music and creative opportunities in the borough and took part in workshops to increase their confidence and skills in getting vocal.

Arts in the Void: Dudley Youth Service in partnership with a local artist and the Arts Development Officer for the Borough applied and were successful in obtaining a grant through Arts Council England which would support young people to access creative opportunities with the Black Country and West Midlands in order to enable them to lead and develop their own arts installation within the borough which would be open to other young people and members of the public. 15 young people who are ‘Art in the Void’, through a process of critically engaging with a wide range of art practices, cultural institutions and creative events, are working together to ultimately plan, create and facilitate their own group installation; transforming

Youth Voice: Positive Stories an empty space into a group representation of their individual and collective journeys which will take place next month. For more information please visit: http://www.artinthevoid.co.uk Make Your Mark: All MYP’s as well as the youth council members worked hard on the campaign with 2,572 young people making their mark. The top two issues young people in Dudley felt should be debated in the House of Commons in November were firstly, making public transport cheaper, better & accessible for all and secondly, marriage for all. Jordan Brown, a youth councillor representing young people with autism managed to arrange to go into each form in his school to promote the campaign and really helped drive this campaign with the MYPs and DMYPs in Dudley.

Pooja Shorma, 15, Emma May Knowles, 15, and Ilham Adem, 15, from Dudley Central Area Youth Forum: The Dudley Central area youth forum are in the process of re-starting and developing our youth forum and we attended Get Vocal in October Half Term which is a day for young people who want to make a difference to get together and learn from each other. Within the group we already volunteer a lot of time – one of us is in a marching band which takes children who haven’t got a music background and teaches them to perform in competitions around the UK, one of us is a prefect and help out with break duties and we also have a school form rep who helps make the school better.

Nimra Khyal, 14, from Stourbridge Area Youth Forum: I am part of YP4S which means young people for Stourbridge. At the moment we have just received funding to organise an event called Remix 2.0 where live bands will play and a DJ along with a raffle and lots more and it took place in October Half Term. Just under 100 young people attended and it was a really good night. All proceeds made on the night will go towards good causes which we decided were Mary Stevens Hospice and Birmingham Children’s Hospital this time.

Abdullah Bakaili, 17, Dudley Youth Council & Wagdi Munassar, 16 from Haleswoen Area Youth Forum: We are representatives on Dudley Youth Council and Halesowen Area Youth Forum for the Yemeni Community. As part of the Yemeni Community, we have been involved in arranging a range of activities like swimming and this has been successful starting with only 9 young people and ending up with 50 + young people taking part. This helps to give young people positive things to do.

Jordan Washington, 17, from Dudley Youth Council: This month of October, I have been involved in a number of activities and events. To begin with I sat on the Safe and Sound Board in which we discussed crime, substance misuse, had an update about Youth Offending and working together within the borough in general. Another meeting I attended was at the council house with Dudley Youth Council in which we all discussed what is happening around the borough and how to build up on it.

I also attended an awards evening ran by Dudley Council for the Voluntary Sector to represent young people who volunteer including representatives from Dudley Youth Council, the Youth Opportunities Fund Panel and Young Inspectors which are all projects ran by the youth service which gives young people the opportunity to volunteer and make a difference. We collected certificates on their behalf.

Another event I attended was an event which Dudley Youth Council and the Older People’s Forum in Dudley organised with support of Age UK and the youth service. Along with other young people we shared life skills with the elderly people and started to build relationships. Councillor Melvyn Mottram,

Youth Voice: Positive Stories The Mayor of Dudley, attended with his wife and it was a really good event. I also attended Get Vocal a day where young people from around the borough come together and plan a celebration event for young people who take a lead in their local communities, youth centres and areas.

Sam and Simon Sefton, 18, from Dudley North Area Youth Forum In Dudley North the SRE Peer Education Group have been successfully teaching and inspiring the young people about healthy sexual relationships. In recognition to this, the group received an award from DCVS for their hard work and commitment.

Megan New, 16, Chloe New, 14, Gary Hadlington, 15, Jo Davies, 17 and Gina Billingsley, 13 from Nine Locks Youth Centre Brierley Hill James Stephens a musician who leads workshops came to our youth centre to work on a new project. We took part in a song writing workshop and played a game about word association. In the end we all helped to write a song about how smoking affects our lives. We recorded the song and are planning to make a video to go with it so that other young people can hear about how smoking affects lives. The money to do this project came from Kick Ash which we applied to so we could do this project.

Staffordshire Joe Porter, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Over the last three busy months, the UK Youth Parliament’s ‘Make Your Mark Ballot’ has allowed young people aged between 11 and 19 years old across the county, to participate in a nationwide ballot to decide which five issues should be debated in the House of Commons. Throughout the duration of the ballot, as your MYP I have committed a majority of my very busy schedule to making sure that as many young people as possible can speak up and have their voices heard through the ballot so they can feel as if their opinions matter. Some of the things that I have been doing to promote it have included producing videos, leading a series of assemblies in schools and generally giving out ballot papers in schools. Altogether, Staffordshire has had an outstanding success with this year’s Make Your Mark ballot, with an 11.3% turnout for the whole county; which equates to around 10,200 young people from across the county. Without the help of our area’s fantastic young people and outstandingly cooperative schools, we would not have achieved the historic total of around 4,000 for Staffordshire Moorlands and Newcastle, so thank you and we should all be proud of this achievement.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories On a personal note, I have achieved the highest ballot paper amount in the whole Midlands and possibly the whole country, which just shows that it really is worth committing yourself to something that you are passionate about because you will gain a great deal from the experience.

Now though, it is time to take our momentous Make Your Make Ballot results to the next level: to the UKYP’s annual debate in the House of Commons. The event will take place on the 23rd November from 11am until 4pm and will allow MYPs from across the whole country to debate the five issues which were chosen by the young people of the UK. It will be shown live on the BBC Parliament Channel and on the BBC Democracy Live Website. Ideally, it would be brilliant if as many people as possible could watch this to see how what you voted for is being put into real action through a debate in our government’s debate chambers. The whole ideal of the debate is to not only debate which issues are currently affecting young people the most, but to decide what the UK Youth Parliament’s priority should be for the next year; over the last twelve months it has been transport. Hopefully, many politicians will watch our debate and take issues which affect young people more seriously once they have seen how young people can prove themselves as passionate speakers. It would ultimately be even better if some of the issues discussed in the debate or giving more support to the UKYP could be brought up in Prime Minister’s Question Time, then they will surely take us more seriously.

If any young people have any enquires about my work or any issues that affect young people in our area then my email address is ukyp@staffordshire.gov.uk.

Paige Mountford, 16, Youth Councillor Staffordshire Hundred 2 members of Staffordshire’s Youth Action Kouncil (YAK), Alex Hylton from Stafford & Elliot Payne from Cannock, were invited to the prestigious Staffordshire Hundred event. These twice yearly events allow a range of strategic partners to meet and discuss how they can improve the way they work for the benefit of the people of Staffordshire. The main focus for Alex & Elliot was a debate around whether apprenticeships were the key to unlocking skills and job opportunities for young people. In preparation for the event they spoke to their peers to gather a range of views and opinions. Elliot commented ‘The event was a good opportunity to express the views of young people to key decision makers. Speaking in front of everyone was nerve racking, but it was exciting to discuss these issues with senior figures.’

Many of the adults present were surprised at how apprenticeships were viewed by some young people, and it is hoped that further discussions will take place with YAK members to look at ways to promote apprenticeships in a more positive light.

British Youth Council Regional Convention A large contingent from Staffordshire travelled to Birmingham to take part in BYC’s second regional conference of 2012. Whilst Members of Youth Parliament focussed on preparation for their upcoming House of Commons debate, youth councillors took part in a series of interactive workshops on issues such as Campaigning, Media and How to Engage. After lunch there was the chance to hone their debating skills in preparation for the upcoming UKYP House of Commons debate facilitated by the Parliamentary Outreach Team, which proved very popular. The day was rounded off with a consultation around Child Poverty. First time delegate Phoebe Hazenburg from Codsall said:

Youth Voice: Positive Stories ‘I enjoyed socialising with young people from different areas who have the same aim as us, to improve the lives of young people and give them a voice in society.’

Careers event As careers advice and work experience have been chosen as priorities for the Youth Action Kouncil this year, members are hoping to help plan a careers event for young people to coincide with National careers Week taking place March 4th – 8th March 2013. A small group recently visited a ‘Teentech’ in Coventry to see how the event was planned and delivered, and to assess whether this was something that they would like to see in Staffordshire. After speaking to participants, the group were excited about holding a similar event: Josie Hitchcock from Burton said: ‘It was interesting to see the workings of the event and I’m looking forward to running our version’. The group are to feedback to the wider membership, before researching possible venues and funding to support the project.

Work Experience in Parliament On the week commencing 22nd until 26th October I was invited to take part in work experience at Parliament with my local Member of Parliament, Aidan Burley. During this time I got take part in a number of exciting opportunities; I was given a 1-to-1 tour of both the House of Commons and House of Lords; before getting involved in the everyday activities that MPs encounter. This included writing emails and letters to constituents, sorting out local level issues and drafting up plans. I was also given the opportunity to write some speeches and meet many MPs including Ed and David Milliband, Ed Balls and Jeremy Lefroy. On the Thursday I went into the Chambers to watch the debate - it was exciting to see how politics worked and to see real life debating. My favourite part of the week was to get the chance to see what MPs do in real life and to be able to have the experience not many people get to have - I had some tremendous opportunities and I realise how fortunate I was to be given the chance.

If I was to do anything differently I would have been more pro-active by asking many more questions.

The feedback I received at the end of this fantastic week was excellent and I have been offered the chance to go back at any time. This was definitely a week I shall never forget!

Phoebe Hazenberg, 16, Youth Councillor “Better Together” was the motto that the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS Trust gave to members of Staffordshire’s Youth Action Kouncil (YAK) regarding their ambition of becoming a Foundation Trust in the near future. YAK met with three members of the current NHS Trust to discuss their plans and priorities for the future, including their proposals for their approach to membership of the Foundation Trust and their proposals for the Council of Governors. After a “health-based” ice breaker, the speakers explained the meaning of Community Health and Adult Social Care, before moving on to explain the benefits of becoming a Foundation Trust. YAK members had the opportunity to question the new plans, giving opinions on the positive and negative aspects, as well as suggesting names for the organisation. Members were given the chance to sign up for membership to the Foundation Trust, giving them the benefit of being able to have their say on local NHS services in the future. The possibility of a Youth Committee of Governors for the organisation was also raised and will hopefully be looked into. Fern Jobling, aged 15 from Rugeley, said: “I am excited to see this go ahead and enable young people to work alongside this great organisation to make positive changes to the health services.”

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Telford and Wrekin Ellis Snookes, 14, Member of Youth Parliament Successful consultations with young people at the YPF (Young People's Forum). I was very happy to receive a medal of sorts, for my achievement of collecting over 1,000 ballot papers; in fact I collected about 1,400 ballots... An all time high for Telford and Wrekin! We hope to have our first meeting with local councillors this month, to progress further in our campaign work.

I am preparing to have school(s) in our area show the House of Commons debate for the UKYP at some point in the day, as I think they should have the opportunity to hear their voices and views being represented by us.

Walsall Support worker Youth of Walsall (YOW) cabinet group have been working hard on their Activate Against Hate campaign.

The Activate Against Hate campaign is designed to educate young people on the different forms of hate in our society, its effects and encourage young people to embrace differences rather then see them as a negative. It works to 3 levels: Educate, appreciate and celebrate and encourages and empowers young people involved to become leaders in their community and organisations.

Throughout September and October the YOW group were running launch events with taster sessions that they have designed and developed themselves over the last year. Some schools in the area are already working on plans to implement the campaign into their schools as well as Youth Workers tying into the campaign for this years National Youth Work week. The Activate team which currently consists of around 15 members are all working hard together to arrange more events and activities to promote and test the campaign as well as putting together a toolkit that can be used by professionals and young people to deliver sessions on various different forms of hate. So keep a look out for the Activate Against Hate campaign as we think its going to be a big one! Walsall's UKYP representatives are all working hard on their 4 individual campaigns. So here is a quick update on where they are all at: •

• •

Thomas Evans, 13, Barr Beacon School, MYP: Think before you click campaign. Tom is focusing on cyber bullying and aims to deliver informative sessions to primary school children around how to stay safe online. As well as working with young people to look at who you interact with online Tom is also working on ensuring that schools are at a certain standard in terms of how they address bullying.

Danniella Hill, 15, St Francis of Asissi, MYP: Don't Push it: Danni is arranging a workshop day for 100's of young people to attend on everything to do with sexual health. Some of the sessions that will be featured there are: Self esteem workshops, boys and condoms, healthy relationships, baby think it over, myth busting and much more. Danni has also helped to design a poster campaign that will be featured on buses across the borough on healthy relationships.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories •

Zak Hems, 16, Grace Academy, DMYP: Drugged up. Zak is arranging for some professional training to be delivered to a group of mentors (young people) on basic drug awareness and brief intervention. The mentors will then be responsible for delivering drug education in their school as well as supporting young people with issues related to this. If the pilot is successful each school in the borough will be asked to put forward mentors from each school to undertake the training.

•

Robert Millward, 13, Pool Hayes School, DMYP: See the good behind the hood. Robert is trying to raise the positive image of young people in Walsall. To do this he is arranging a series of activities that young people will take part in that benefits the community, but they must do it in hoodies. Rob will then promote these stories as much as possible. Rob is also currently working with an editor of a local newspaper to start a regular youth column.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Yorks and the Humber Doncaster Linda Hardy & Debbie Burton, support workers Democracy Event A transport Event was held at Elmfield House on Monday 15 October as part of local democracy week.

UK Youth Parliament and the ‘Make Your Mark’ ballot identified transport as a priority for young people nationally at the debate in the House of Commons last year. The ‘Make Your Mark’ consultation also identified transport as a top issue for young people in Doncaster. The event provided the opportunity to bring together professionals and young people, to have a constructive discussion about public transport, with a question and answer session to explore issues and find ways of how we could work together to improve bus travel for young people.

The event was inclusive and made up of lots of diverse young people to ensure that it was representative of Doncaster, including the Disability Council, young carers, the Hub, Care Council, UKYP representatives and School Councils from Sir Thomas Wharton and Outwood Academies. The Panel consisted of DMBC Principle Officer for School Transport, the Advisor to the Mayor, DMBC Head of Transport for Social Care and the External Relations Manager for SYPTE. This was a very positive event 47 young people attended; they had identified questions that were significantly important to them, the Panel were able to listen to their personal experiences with bus travel, and answer questions from individual groups of young people. The event highlighted particular barriers for young people using the bus for example, one question was about bullying on school buses and an action was for School Councils to suggest a volunteer scheme where sixth form students could be ‘bus buddies’ on school transport.

The Youth Council will evaluate the discussions; build on the relationship made with the Panel from this event, represent Doncaster on the South Yorkshire Young People’s Transport Forum and continue to explore solutions to improve transport across Doncaster for children and young people.

Zac Swinburn, Youth Councillor Youth Council and the Chief Executive We held a meeting with the Chief Executive on Tuesday 13 November at Elmfield House. I was Chair for this meeting it was my first time and it was a brilliant opportunity for us to present our priorities to her and explain what we do as a Youth Council.

She was very interested and supportive of us even when we asked some difficult questions about how much is spent on Transport in

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Doncaster and what the money it is actually spent on. For example see below what kind of questions what we asked.

Q: One of our priorities this year is about the equality of provision for young people across the borough – given the cuts in the council how do you envisage that there will still be something for young people to do across Doncaster?

Q: As a Youth Council we promote positive images of young people, although, young people in Doncaster seem to always get ‘bad press’ what do you intend to do about it?

We went through last years Annual Report, explained about the work we do across the borough and how we (the Youth Council) are made up of diverse young people, with representatives from, the Muslim community and interfaith groups, area councillors, Barnardos young carers, UKYP, disability council, care council, school council and college reps.

The meeting was a great success she answered all our questions and was really down to earth and good to talk to. She also said she would like to be invited to future meetings and that we could twitter her anytime :D so watch this space.

Aysha Ahmed and Cara Steel, Youth Councillors DVD for Local Health Watch As youth councillors we were asked to take part in a DVD for Doncaster DFP TV is an independent production company specialising in corporate and public information films.

We’ve worked with Doncaster LINk/ Healthwatch to produce a short 2 minute film endorsing the changes to Healthwatch. This was to explain who can get involved and how much or little they can be involved.

There are a variety of participants in the film i.e. us, local Councillors, DMBC Director, current LINK members, GP’s etc all giving short snippets about what Healthwatch is, why they get involved and why local people in general should get involved. We were filmed about our experiences with health. The film is aimed at the local community of Doncaster – anyone who has an interest in healthcare, whether young or old.

The film will be used for promotional purposes by Doncaster Healthwatch and is now being shown on the screens in the Frenchgate Centre as part of the Community Road Show for 7 days in November.

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Kingston upon Hull, City of Support worker British Youth Council Convention Hull was pleased and proud to hold the second BYC Convention on 13 October. The day itself proved very productive with young people taking part in workshops around Transport, being a young reporter and the group of young people who are going to play a part in the planning of Conventions and activities.

After lunch the young people were then able to put questions to a panel made up of Sgt Mark Peasgood, Lord Prescott, Karl Turner MP, Councillor Hale (Deputy Leader), Councillor Mancey (Transport) and Councillor O’Mullane (Children and Young People’s Services).

Some of the discussions that took place were around the legalisation of drugs; young people aged 16-17 being allowed to vote in general elections and the importance of politicians listening to young people.

Voting also took place to elect the new PG which went to David and the debate lead for the House of Commons which went to Amaka – well done to both. The Make Your Mark ballots were counted and announced – the Yorkshire and Humber Region collected a staggering 35,980 – well done to everybody!

Mark Tomlinson, support worker On Thursday 25th October 120 children and Young People from all over Hull took part in the 19th Hull Young People's Parliament. There are three Parliaments per year and they are always held at the Cities prestigious Guildhall. Local Primary and Secondary Schools as well as other youth organisations took part looking at the two issues (previously chosen by the young people) of homelessness and safety.

The day as usual was a mixture of discussion, fun workshops and ending ultimately in voting on resolutions hotly debated within the council chambers. All resolutions passed will now be carried forward and presented by young people to local Councillors and Officers at a Decision Making

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Champions Group on November 13th to be actioned on. Any resulting action regarding the resolutions will then be fed back to the children and young people attending the 20th Hull Young People's Parliament on March 14th 2013.

Sheffield Support worker Young People Involvement Team – Sheffield Futures Democracy Week Sheffield Futures have many different involvement groups including Young Advisors, UKYP, Sheffield Youth Council and the newly formed youth forums. The youth forums are each attached to the 7 community assemblies within Sheffield and they each strive to get young peoples’ voices heard within their community. Each forum put on their own events for democracy week and UKYP and SYC joined together to put their own special event on.

As part of Local Democracy week the North East Youth Forum (NEYF) held their launch event. NEYF formally introduced themselves and presented their Key Priorities for the year to children and young people, local decision makers, service providers and various children and young people’s agencies. It was a well attended and successful event as it has opened many doors for the NEYF; for example NEYF have been invited to the North East Community Assembly’s Public meeting and relevant agencies have proposed joint working with the NEYF. Similar to NEYF the Northern Youth Forum (NYF) also formally introduced themselves and presented their Key Priorities for the year to Local Councillors, service providers and member's of the public at the Northern Community Assembly's Public meeting. It was an exciting opportunity for the NYF members as they got to observe how decisions are made within their community and also got an insight on what is happening within their area.

Engagement event at Woodthorpe Youth Club The East Community Assembly, local councillors, PCSO and other organisations attended the event along with tenants and residents of the area. Young people planned prepared and served a pea and pie supper and organised bingo in order for everyone to feel relaxed and get involved. The young people introduced themselves as a user group and told of their plans to be part of the East Youth Forum. The community assembly and councillors also introduced themselves and stated how they believed they could support each other. The key outcome for the event is that the area assembly would like the youth forum to do some consultation work for them as a first step.

South East Youth Panel (It’s Your Voice) delivered a youth conference for LDD young people The aim of the conference was around provision and accessibility. The event started by the youth panel introducing themselves. Then 4 interactive workshops were facilitated. Each workshop was delivered by a different agency and had its own theme i.e. youth panel - Involvement, Sheffield Futures – Accessibility, Fire and Rescue - Safety in provision and in the home and Activity Sheffield - Provision available.

Approximately 50 LDD young people attended. The young people were split up into 4 groups and moved around the workshops. For the second part of the event, parents and local councillors attended. Young people, parents and carers then participated in a question time event enabling everyone to have a say

Youth Voice: Positive Stories and the young people to ask questions that concerned them and getting the answer they needed to hear. A buffet was then available for everyone to enjoy.

The outcomes for the event- Young people now understand the role of the youth panel and how to get their own voices heard. Local councillors are taking away what the workshops discovered and also the opinions from the question time and another event will be organised to enable councillors to feedback to the young people On Wednesday 18th October, young people from across Sheffield were invited to take part in an intergenerational debate, co organised by Sheffield Futures and Sheffield 50+, with older citizens of Sheffield, entitled: In Local Democracy Week can young and old agree how best to make their voices heard? The debate was Co-Chaired by Helen Jackson, former Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hillsborough, and Tom Newman South West Sheffield Youth Councillor, taking place in Sheffield Town Hall, as a way of encouraging young and older citizens to discuss the problems they face in getting their voices heard, break down some of the barriers and agree solutions moving forward. The issues being discussed on the night included: • • •

The young deserve resources and support because they are our future.

The old deserve resources and support because they have paid in for it all their lives.

A million young people out of work is a waste of a precious resource

Everyone who attended the event had valuable contributions to make to the debate; painting a real picture of some of the stereotypes both young and older generations within society are subject too on a daily basis. Both young and old were very supportive and understanding of each others issues and were in agreement that they both face discrimination in aspects of their lives and that they all have great contributions to make to society. Tom Newman stated: “It was a really great event, which I thoroughly enjoyed chairing.”

York Ella Boorman, 15, Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor This month, so October, I have done quite a few things to represent the people in my area. Linked with the UK Youth Parliament, I sent round the make your ballot papers to every school in my area and asked the young people what they wanted me to debate on in the House of Commons when I go in November.

This allowed young people the opportunity to express their views and for me to express and represent them when I go to the houses of parliament in November. With their feedback and guidance, I will be able to represent the people in my areas view. I also attended a regional convention where I took part in various challenges and debates about different issues that affect young people in our areas and therefore whilst doing these various activities, I expressed and represented York. I also attended the first youth council event and helped chair the event. I represented young’s people’s views as in the meeting we focussed on issues that really affect and are important to young people. I really enjoy working with councillors and important people in my community, and it makes me feel good to think that I could be changing young people’s lives in small ways. I also did a week’s work experience shadowing a local

Youth Voice: Positive Stories cabinet member and expressed to her about the problems that face young people, this could be seen as representing young people’s views and opinions in my area.

We hosted a regional event to bring together bus operators, young people, council officers and councillors to explore issues and find ways we could work together to improve bus travel for young people. We covered a wide range of topics, from ID cards, to cleanliness on busses, safety and accessibility to using more social media tools to provide up to date information. At the end of the day we worked together to produce an action plan, which all involved have taken away to work on. I will be meeting with our MP to talk about how he can work with us on transport issues, and also our chief executive, and lead member for transport.

We have mainly focused on our local campaigns: Improving PSHCE – we have been finding and recommending tools and lesson plans that we think are relevant and interesting for young people. We have met with the Senior Adviser for Behaviour, Attendance and Learning and the Healthy Schools and Risky Behaviour Consultant. There are going to be young people as representatives on a new working group who will be developing resources for secondary school pupils about emotional well being. We have also written and commissioned a film maker to produce a short film about emotional resilience.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Northern Ireland Belfast Support worker This month has been all about getting ballots out around our areas for the Make Your Mark campaign as a result, some of my fellow MYPs and myself have been working hard within our school to get as many ballots across as possible. We received a fairly decent response! On top of this, I have been preparing my application to stand for election to the Procedures Group of UKYP.

Sarah Robinson, 18, Member of Youth Parliament This month I was involved in a photo shoot for Anti-Bullying Week. The Northern Ireland Anti- Bullying Forum week runs from 19th to 23rd November and is supported by Translink. The photos taken where of different bullying scenes and will be used on posters and adverts across Northern Ireland. This was a great opportunity as bullying is still a major issue in NI, with research showing that 43% of primary school children and 29% of post-primary pupils perceive that they have been bullied at least once.

I have also been very involved in the ‘Make your Mark Campaign’. I have been in contact with different youth organisations and schools and have distrusted many ballots.

Carrickfergus Alice Kennedy, 17, Member of Youth Parliament In my local town Carrickfergus me as a UKYP representative and my local youth council organised a project on where we find the most threatening places in Carrick, we have made a portfolio and gathered a variety of statistics for the portfolio. Together we are all going to present the portfolio to be local council men and women to see if there are changes that can be made. We are hoping the information will be used by the council, youth service and other organisations to make Carrick a safer place for all.

In addition, I have been promoting the Make Your Mark campaign in my school and the wider Carrickfergus area. It has been really popular; in fact I ran out of ballots and had to collect more!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Down Page McLaughlin, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month was the most important month in my term so far - the final month of the make your mark campaign! This was as important as it was the final chance for myself and my other MYPs to get as many ballots as possible in so that we could represent as many young people’s views in the House of Commons as possible. I went around my school, to every class room, with the help of my fellow MYP Serena and our school's head boy and head girl, and some of my friends helped toon, in order to ensure we got around every class. We had several packs of ballots, and ran out completely, which was great as it meant we were capturing lots of peoples views. When I got more ballot papers it meant that I could give out ballots to the other school in my area - Priory college - and my GB. This month myself and several other MYPs also went out to the streets of Belfast and asked passing young people to fill in ballots for us so that we could gain more insight from young people from all over N.I. and not just my area. This was exciting as it gave us a chance to speak to more people about the Make your Mark campaign and what we as MYPs do and will be hoping to achieve. It created awareness and gave a positive image about us to the young people we were approaching.

Omagh Nola Mc Dermott, 18, Member of Youth Parliament I've been working on collecting Mark Your Mark ballots; therefore I have been targeting youth groups such as my local youth council, youth clubs etc. My aim is to represent the voices of all youth people in my community, young people from all different backgrounds, race and ability.

My own personal target is to complete 1000 mark your ballots which therefore represent a vast array of views of young people in my area. I have also been using social media site e.g. Facebook to encourage young people to make there voices heard.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Scotland Glasgow City Jack Green, 16, Member of Scottish Youth Parliament October has been a busy month for Glasgow Youth Council - at the start we welcomed our very first coopted members who note the start of Glasgow Youth Council's expansion.

We now have young people representing the different areas of Glasgow, Higher Education and general representatives. I look forward to working with all our new members in helping represent the young people of Glasgow better! On top of this, co-opted member nominations continue, with new members set to start in November to expand the Youth Council further still. It's a busy time for everyone at Glasgow Youth Council, with these new members and outreach events being planned for later in the year but it is incredibly exciting times for us here in Glasgow!

As a MSYP, I have been busy attending youth groups, meeting young people in my local area and I have recently been elected onto the board of a local community charity that works with children, young people and families. I have been working on a project, as a representative of young people, on a new unscheduled, trauma and emergency strategy for NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde on the patient reference group. We are looking at how in the next 3-8 years, emergency treatment could be improved for patients in Greater Glasgow and surroundings. It's been very busy and there doesn't seem to be quietening down in November!

North Lanarkshire June Ford, support worker North Lanarkshire Youth Council Hosts the 49th Scottish Youth Parliament Sitting As well as member motions and debates, our very own Lauren King made a presentation to the members to consider a Petition for the Scottish Parliament Petitions Committee. Lauren petition on an allowance for Young Carers was overwhelmingly approved and she will now present this at the next Sitting to be held at the Scottish Parliament in March 2013. NLYC also organised the Entertainment for the Saturday evening, and decided to showcase the talent of North Lanarkshire. This included Bands, Solo Artists and a Dance Troupe. A great productive weekend was had by all.