Positive stories august 2014

Youth Voice: Positive Stories August 2014

Minister for Civil Society, Brooks Newmark MP, lends support to UK Youth Parliament’s Make Your Mark ballot

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Youth Voice: Positive Stories A report by youth representatives and the workers that support them August 2014 Welcome to the August 2014 edition of Positive Stories. Our format reflects part of our commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child Article 13 - Freedom of expression ‘Every child must be free to say what they think and to seek and receive all kinds of information, as long as it is within the law,’ (UNICEF UK).

The British Youth Council will share this report regionally and nationally, with local councillors and MPs, and certain media outlets, 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 This month we have also highlighted the recent results of Youth on Board (YOB) Awards which are an exclusively youth-led rolling award scheme that recognises innovative and exciting youth participation, both from young people and the projects and organisations that support them. See the end of the report for the results and for more information go to: http://www.byc.org.uk/training-services/youthon-board-awards.aspx

The online survey remains open and we produce reports 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: http://www.byc.org.uk/ukwork/youth-voice The British Youth Council would like to thank all the workers and young people who took the time to promote and complete July’s survey and we look forward to hearing more from everyone over the coming months.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Contents Young People’s Stories East Midlands East of England London

4 6 11

North East North West South East

16 20 24

South West West Midlands Yorkshire and Humber Northern Ireland

27 35 38 52

Wales Scotland

55 56

Support Worker Stories East of England London North East North West Yorkshire and Humber

61 63 65 66 67

Youth on Board Awards Innovation Award Inspiring Project Award Make a Difference Award Youth Led Award

68 70 76 82

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Young People’s Stories

East Midlands Derbyshire Rachel Wibberley, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month I began by campaigning for more youth activities over the summer, especially for targeted youngsters in my area so that they would have a beneficial activity to attend which would essentially broaden their horizons. After expressing my desire for youth club activities etc, I was invited to a local council meeting where I was given a sum of money to put towards youth groups who then were able to set up summer activity centres in my area. Over 400 young people will have benefited from this in some way. Also, regarding the make your mark campaign, I have contacted organisations and all of them have given a positive response. Most recently, I have written a 1000 word article for my local newspaper; the Derby telegraph about the make your mark camping and why it is important for young people to get involved in the democratic process. This article will be published on Monday 1st September and will hopefully spread the word about our work and the national consultation.

Leicestershire Sian Vincent, 14, Member of Youth Parliament To help achieve the 1 Million young voter’s goal, I have sent two emails out, to both my previous and current school head teachers. I have offered help for them to get their students involved by talking in assemblies, giving them resources online and helping them to sign up. Both Ibstock Community College and Ashby Grammar School are yet to reply to my email.

I now have an email template to use for any other schools that need to be addressed in our area.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I recently posted a video onto my DMYP Facebook page, promoting the Votes at 16 & 17 campaigns. I stated that it wasn't my campaign but I just gave everyone an idea of what is was and how they could help.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

East of England Hertfordshire Ahmed Al-Maadanli, 16, Member of Youth Parliament After the Annual Sitting weekend at the end of July, I’m more inspired, committed and more open minded … not that I wasn’t before! Since being back from the Annual Sitting, I've tried to help other MYPs in different counties and regions to help prevent cuts and or loss of their youth services. Every time I hear anything about the cutting of youth services it saddens me as these are one of the most important services. If our youth services were to be completely cut in Hertfordshire, 110,000 people would feel isolated and betrayed, leading to chaos. This is why I feel it a duty of myself to help others.

Also, with another MYP, I am working on a votes@16 rally in London to give the campaign a final push before MYPs vote on the new campaign in November. Our plan is that people will learn about UKYP and realise that, if not by government, UKYP and BYC value each and every young person as together we are stronger.

Alex Hirsh, 17, Youth Representative 'Votes at 16: a contentious and highly debatable issue' On Friday 27th June, myself, Ahmed Al – Maadanli MYP and Nia Powell MYP attended the first day of evidence to the Youth Select Committee on ‘Votes at 16’, held at Portcullis House, Westminster.

As you are aware, ‘Votes at 16’ was chosen as the national campaign for the forthcoming year at the House of Commons session last November (2013). This issue is a contentious and highly debatable one, which I gather provided reason to select it, but also as many young people would passionately endorse it.

I was greatly impressed by the firm chairmanship of Michael Hope, and the eloquent questioning of those on the committee, including Herts MYP, Brandon Minichiello. During my time in the session, I heard an excellent panel: Natasha De-Freitas, Head of Youth Action at London Youth, Hassan Abu-Bakir, Youth Work & Policy Coordinator at UK Youth, Alex George of the Scout Association, Dr. Andy Mycock, of the University of Huddersfield, and Professor. Jonathan Tonge of the University of Liverpool Although I would accept this is an interesting and thought provoking issue, I did not vote for it. Let me explain why…

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Let me be clear – my problem with this argument is not any personal opposition to wanting to expand democratic means in the UK. Instead, I believe that if any government where to impose this expansion, they would use it as a ‘box – ticking’ exercise to mute youth discontent and issues of under – engagement by young people, which I think we can all agree are vast and growing year by year. Instead, government intervention should focus on widening participation, and tacking practical matters, such as ensuring all 18+ are registered to vote. Giving the vote to 16 – 17’s does not mean 16 – 17year olds are suddenly ‘acknowledged and respected’ properly by the government (our overriding objective). In short, this is not the answer to our problems.

As for pro – 16 campaigners, I believe they must, if they wish to further strengthen their argument, get beyond the tiresome argument of how many 16/17 year olds ‘can marry, or start training for the armed services’ and therefore should be entitled to vote. My other concern with the motion is one of basic sense; who’s to say that after the franchise is expanded to 16 year olds, the UKYP of 2034 won’t have as their national campaign, ‘Votes for 14 year olds’?

I’d like to wish Ahmed, Nia and Brandon well this year, and knowing them both, I know they will serve Hertfordshire impeccably. I’d like to thank Alex Ferguson; our Youth Connexions Youth Worker for ensuring Hertfordshire got involved on the 27th of June. Despite my opposition, I am delighted that this issue has now unquestionably entered the political arena in the UK, so both sides of the debate can thrash out their views.

Stephanie Mabbutt, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Very busy, no time to write in full but this is what I’m up to ….. Along with herts1125 and Herts UKYP work of course             

WWF Media moment Contacting mental health charities Locating a venue Comparing prop prices Starting O2 Think Big application Work experience Setting up assemblies in school and others Working to get the inside story on Votes @ 16 Campaigning for bring back our girls Cyber smile Bullies out Transgender rights Contacting Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Barber and Joules to consult about teenage models

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Norfolk Kieren Buxton, Member of Youth Parliament For the past few months, I have been working closely with Children Services in Norfolk County Council to help write and complete the Involvement Strategy. This is a written document by the Children Services team, councillors and young people to enhance the participation of young people across Norfolk within Children Services and the Council. This has given me further good connections with members of the council in my constituency and across Norfolk.

Within Norfolk Youth Parliament this month, we have been discussing the actions we will take in Make Your Mark and the most successful ways of enhancing the chance of young people voting. We achieved a phenomenal 37,000+ votes in the elections for our MYPs and now we hope to replicate a similar figure in Make Your Mark! We have been spreading the word to young people across Norfolk posting out one of the ten topics each day through social media and contacting schools making them aware about Make Your Mark.

Suffolk Erika Spall, 16, Member of Youth Parliament So this is the month Make your Mark starts, I will be setting myself many tasks to complete to get the amount of votes I need. At the start of this month I attended a meeting at Suffolk county council , and discussed what we've been doing as a constituency to our funders , also we discussed make your mark with them. So overall I hope to consult with many young people about make your mark and get them involved.

Liam Jackson, 18, Member of Youth Parliament I have attended many meetings this month, which will help raise youth representation and bring youth issues forward to decision makers more closely. The first was the meeting on the creation of the Suffolk Assembly for Youth (SAY), which aims to incorporate many different types of youth organisations, to form a single unit in Suffolk to have a better chance at representation, and influence. The second was the planning of a presentation to the East Suffolk Partnership board, where we are putting together a presentation regarding youth issues to decision makers in the area to raise awareness of them, and also get action. Issues include careers, transport and youth services. Thirdly was a meeting with my fellow Suffolk MYPs to plan a strategy for Make your Mark and the maximisation of ballots cast. Our own links in to schools will be a big part of reaching our targets!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Natasha Graves, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month I met with my local councillor Sandra Gage, the two of us spoke about Suffolk Youth Parliament, my role and my manifesto, and how Ipswich Borough Council could aid our activities and campaigns. I spoke with her about my local community project 'Incredible Edible Ipswich', and the future plans of the group. I also spoke with her about increasing 'Make Your Mark' distributions and the new 'Suffolk Assembly of Youth' (SAY), of which I am part of the young people’s steering group. I have also met with seniors members of Suffolk County Council; Lisa Chambers, the Deputy Leader, Gordon Jones, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Sue Cook Director of Children and Young Peoples Services. I and other members of Suffolk UKYP spoke about the Youth Parliament activities in Suffolk and our achievements over the last few months and about how to best increase numbers for Make Your Mark.

Members of Suffolk Youth Parliament also met up to discuss plans for creating some events for SAY, which would be inspired by an event by the Red Room on tackling racism, which I attended on behalf of Youth Parliament. In a few days SAY will be discussed again by a group of young people who will be steering the project. We also met with the manager for The Source website to discuss who Youth Parliament's page will look in the future.

I have already set the ball rolling for Make Your Mark by signing up my own school and e-mailing NCS in the hopes that NCS graduations may be a good place to get votes. I hope to arrange a visit to a school with my local MP to encourage more schools to partake in Make Your Mark.

I have also got started on a community allotment and orchard near my school as part of Incredible Edible Ipswich, because my manifesto was aimed at making Ipswich a healthier more sustainable place. I have also met with a local sport centre about getting a community growing bed going by next spring.

Toby Jeffery, 16, Member of Youth Parliament My main focus as a Member of Youth Parliament this month has been preparing for the first meeting of the Bury St Edmunds Youth Forum. This is a community organisation that I am chairing, with assistance and funding coming from the local council, as well as support from teachers, councillors and other council staff. The inaugural meeting is on Wednesday 3rd September, 7pm at Southgate Community Centre in Bury St Edmunds, and is open to all 11-18 year olds from the town.

Lord Tebbit and Baroness Scott of Needham Market have already confirmed their attendance, and will be the guest speakers at the first two events. This month I also met with several people regarding my anti-smoking campaign. I am looking to create a video aimed at young people to dissuade them from taking up the habit of smoking. As well as that, Suffolk Trading Standards are working with me on a social media campaign, aiming to prevent the sales of tobacco to underage young people.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Other events include the UKYP Annual Sitting in Lancaster, where I spoke in front of other MYPs on improving communications between teachers/pupils and the government. I have also attended a workshop on Make your Mark, and met with 'The Source' for young people in Suffolk and to give feedback on their new website.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

London Barking and Dagenham Chloe Kent, 14, Barking and Dagenham Youth Forum Member Mayor’s Charity Car Wash raises money for Teenage Cancer Trust The Mayor’s Charity Car Wash raises £70 for the Teenage Cancer Trust as BAD Youth Forum volunteer’s time to washing cars and taking donations for a good cause. On Monday 11 August, eleven members of the Barking and Dagenham (BAD) Youth Forum hosted a charity car wash in aid of the Mayor’s charity appeal – Teenage Cancer Trust. The Vibe’s car park was the venue as cars lined up for a £5 car wash to take part in the event and give money to a good cause. With the Mayor in attendance throughout the charity event, she even offered her support by helping to wash the car she uses for her official duties. A total of £70 was raised for the young people’s efforts and plans are already in place for the BAD Youth Forum get involved in more charitable events. A member of the BAD Youth Forum, Chloe Kent, said: “It was fun to volunteer and help out a charity that helps other young people. I’m glad I had an opportunity like this.” Councillor Evelyn Carpenter, Cabinet Member for Education and Schools said: “The BAD Youth Forum’s efforts to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust is a good example of young people giving back to society and making a positive contribution with their time and efforts. “The Forum is provides a solid foundation for young people to do their part to build pride, respect and a stronger community where everyone feels they have a place and something to give, no matter how old they are.” The group are planning a community clear up in Pondfield Park which includes painting of a metal seating shelter and litter picking. This project is supported by the Councillor Darren Rodwell, the Leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, who has kindly donated funds to enable the young people to transform this small area of the park.

Stephen Abordo, 16, Member of Youth Parliament 2014 Annual Sitting was indeed an amazing experience ranging from fun and excitement to productive debates to widening our networks ; the entire package was an great experience! I only wish it had lasted a lot longer with spaces for DMYP’s and other Youth Councillors to attend. All the same having a collection of great minds all gather under one roof as one voice debating on issues that matters not only to them but to the UK Youth was prodigious and it was an honour to have been a part of it all.

The word ‘Potential’ – possible, as opposed to actual; capable of being or becoming (by definition) – is one word that stuck with me from the 2014 Annual sitting (thanks to Kamal Hyman) who’s speech turned out to be a wakeup call for me; to avoid being described someday as an MYP that had potential but as an MYP with a difference and as an MYP that brought about positive change. “Don’t be average!” As a result, I intend to work hard during my term of office and beyond, giving my utmost best to serve the entire Barking and Dagenham community - starting off with a pledge of 4000 votes to support the ‘Make Your Mark” Ballots reach its 1 million target and possibly exceed it. Letters have already been drafted and ready to be sent out to schools to arrange days for assemblies where possible and or via online votes in schools. However for the time being, MYM online votes are being promoted on our forum pages and on

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Facebook to enable as many young people as possible vote in this Ballot. Also I will be visiting scout groups, cadets, and other youth groups to promote MYM. The press have also been contacted in regards to MYM as we will need all the publicity we can get to enable us reach our 4000 pledge and to contribute to making our national target a reality.

This month , the Barking & Dagenham (B.A.D) Youth Forum have been fuelled to soar high amidst the clouds to rain upon down some positive change that will be beneficial to all other young people in the borough. Over the past few months, various sub groups in the B.A.D Youth forum have been focusing on tackling issues that were brought up by other young people within the borough.

The Barking and Dagenham Youth Forum Young Inspectors sub-group provides local Services with the opportunity to have their services inspected by trained, experienced Youth inspectors. Our ‘Young Inspectors this month have been undercover to various Pharmaceutical shops to observe, check and to test the extent of and how favourable and friendly services are to young people within the borough and to see if they are rendered following appropriate procedures (some of these including Chlamydia testing for young people, Condom distributions etc.) this will be help in offering feedback on our condom distribution scheme aimed at young people.

As part of our contribution to ‘Curriculum For Life’, another youth forum sub group focusing on Sexual Health Education has had series of meetings with the PSHE Coordinator (Jo Caswell) and training and researching and finally concluding that it would be best for young people to teach other young people about sexual health as they would be a lot more attentive. As a result, the Forum commenced a filming programme in various sections which include: Safe sex, contraception’s, STI’s, Relationship and Pregnancy and many others. These have been broken down into sections to enable teachers pick and choose which ones to use during lessons without having to watch the entire video. These will be promoted round schools in the borough and following on from the feedback, we hope to promote it on a national scale and include other factors besides Sex, Relationship Education (SRE) or sexual health.

Forum members also organised a charity carwash in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust which is the charity supported by the Mayoress of Barking & Dagenham. Although the rain came down it didn't dampen the enthusiasm of everyone involved and an amazing £63 was raised from the carwash. (Every little helps) Other members of the forum and myself also volunteered to help clean up and repaint benches within a local community to encourage more people to use the park and also to keep the environment clean

Barnet Louise Hawkins, 14, Youth Councillor and Member of Youth Select Committee This month I have been working a lot on my project Build! From Bullying Build! From Bullying aims to set up workshops all over Barnet, the workshops will be helping young people involved in bullying, by help the victim build back their confidence and give them ways of making friends and for the bully help them understand why they are a bullying and give them ways of coping. So this month I have created a created a survey to get more young people views on how to deal with bullying.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories The survey link is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZDT725Y please help by filling in the survey :).

Camden Hannah Morris, 14, Member of Youth Parliament I recently sent an email to all the councillors and education chiefs about MYM. Many replied and claimed to be interested in the topic and eager to help. Emails have been sent to Head teachers and meetings arranged.

Ealing Pervin Kaur, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Hi Readers! As Make Your Mark has already started and everyone has made their move on in their own boroughs, I have too done work on it and I would like to share it with others. Firstly for those of you who do not know what is Make Your Mark, it is UK-wide ballot which gives young people aged 11-18 the chance to decide what Members of Youth Parliament should debate and vote on during their sitting in the House of Commons this November. Young people chose from a shortlist of topics on the ballot paper, the top 5 are then debated in the House of Commons by Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs) from across the UK, on 14th November. Following the debate, MYPs vote for two issues to become our national campaigns for year ahead.

I have already contacted almost all the schools in Borough and I am pleased with the response that I received from the schools. From here, I will work hand in hand with particular schools to select dates and times for me to do short assemblies in their schools. Furthermore, I have managed to contact my local MP, Angie Bray to help me spread the word around the Council. From her, I hope to get a quote from her so that I can publish it in the local magazine. Moreover, I also contacted the press and gave them a quote that they would publish it to spread the word of Make Your Mark.

That's all for now and I am currently waiting for more replies to further my work with Make Your Mark. I hope you too are doing your part to spread Make Your Mark. What are you waiting for? Thank you for reading.

Greenwich Kim Emenike, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I look at people around me, and I feel inspired. UKYP 2014 Annual Sitting has inspired me to think, as well as go above and beyond. As Kamal stated in his speech "aim a little higher". This has encouraged me to fulfil my role as MYP for Greenwich to the best of my ability. This means, that I should not just be a MYP and stop there, because becoming an MYP should just be the start of impacting young people. My

Youth Voice: Positive Stories mission officially starts with Make Your Mark. Make Your Mark will enable me to portray the qualities of being a good MYP. At 2:43pm, when I boarded the virgin trains from Lancaster back to London (made by Richard Branson) with my senior project manager Kaz, Chloe and Matthew (PG). This was an experience that changed my mind set of success and how to get there. The conversations that occurred challenged my perception of my own abilities of what I can do with the support of my peers, co workers and local youth council (GYPC). The positive story here is that this experience will drive me to meet my goals and empower the young people in Greenwich to have their say and to get involved in politics. By Kim Emenike (MYP for the Borough Greenwich)

Hackney Ife Grillo, 16, Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor Working with Hackney Youth Parliament for the last two years has been humbling and amazing experience and I'm extremely sad that's it's coming to an end in October as I won't be restraining as a candidate. I've been running training projects for the new candidates and campaigning for an even stronger youth parliament.

This month I've kick started Hackney's campaign to get 8000 ballots filled in! I've been contacting members if the council and setting up places in Hackney where I will be distributing ballots. Currently, I’ve competed 400 ballots!

Hammersmith and Fulham Fred Gill, 18, Procedures Group, British Youth Council At the end of the last month we had the UK Youth Parliaments Annual Sitting in Lancaster. It was an amazing weekend and we got quite a lot done. In the first LASER session that we ran, we had some amazing debates taking place to get ready for the Big Vote, everyone who opened and contributed to the floor speeches spoke with passion and got their points out effectively. During our second session we were looking at success and barriers that have come about during their terms and the ways that they can be fixed in order to get the most out of their term as MYP. We also reviewed their terms so far and looked at what they have completed and got some tasks ready for them to do when they get back to their LA's.

The next big thing to happen at the Annual Sitting was the BIG VOTE. For the first time ever we got through all 26 motions and we added some great new motions into the UKYP manifesto. The final section of the Annual Sitting was the Make Your Mark planning and London MYP's started to pledge how many ballots they are going to collect.

Over all it was a great weekend and I hope that everyone can take something away from it.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Haringey Daniel Njoku, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament We have held a large scale youth networking event which raised a lot of awareness for opportunities in the borough. Many youth groups were allowed to come and have a stool to pitch their group to other young people. There was a barbeque and a fun theme throughout the day which the young people really enjoyed as this does not usually happen.

We are currently in the process of getting an anti bullying video made with another youth media group in Haringey so we can promote our ABC campaign. Furthermore, I have held debates at school concerning the topics of the make your mark ballots.

Harrow Zak Wagman, 15, Member of Youth Parliament Over the last month I have been working on how to increase Harrow's turnout for the Make Your Mark ballots. I have written and circulated press releases, contacted senior officials (such as school heads, MPs, Councillors and other local politicians), have helped Harrow Youth Parliament members to contact their schools and youth groups, and devised a rota for HYP members to be out on the streets of Harrow during weekends in September. Last year, we collected over 3,000 ballots. However this year, we are targeting 10,000 and are looking forward to the challenge.

Havering Jordana, 13, Youth Councillor The Havering Youth Council had a very successful skill swap with the older members of Havering. It was simply the youth council teach them something and they teach us something in return. I personally worked with a very pleasant elderly lady called Eunice. I taught her how to email, take, save, and to delete pictures how to work her Facebook, share your neighbours Wi-Fi and we played quite a fun game of candy crush. We also went around the world on Google earth and watched a couple of videos on BBC iPlayer. In return she showed me some of the pictures on her iPod and told me a couple of stories. All in all it was quite a success and a wonderful learning experience for everyone there.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North East Darlington Danny Brown, Member of Youth Parliament This month in Darlington has been busy because of our work around Make Your Mark, our continuing work about young people’s health and we enter a speech for the UKYP WW1 remembrance.

For Make Your Mark we have been working on different videos to inform and promote what it is and why we do it. In doing this we got lots of different people involved in starting in them; as well as myself Daniel McKenzie (MYP for Coventry) came up to see us and we could not let that opportunity go past without getting him into our studio. Also members of our youth partnership got involved; not forgetting young people taking part. These videos can be used within school to help make the 1 million.

We have got ballet boxes ready with 5 schools sign up. We need 1656 returns be we think that we can go higher. To see the videos our YouTube channel is Danny MYP Brown.

With health I went to see the Centre for Process and Innovation (CPI) to meet with Chris Dowle the director of Biologics to learn what they are planning for young people, it looks really good, after a meeting with the leader of Darlington borough council, Bill Dixon. I hope to keep up to date with their next steps.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Northumberland Annabelle Cooper, 16, Member of Youth Parliament On August 15th I attended a family fun-day in aid of raising money for a new RNLI lifeboat in Amble which was organised and ran by members of the National Citizen Service this summer. There were various stalls consisting of face painting, name the pig, and of course selling Loom Bands. Below is a photograph of Stormy Stan, RNLI mascot who walked the streets of Amble.

The day before, I had received in the post the UKYPs Make Your Mark ballot papers and the fair was a terrific opportunity to get a head start in completing some ballots as well as a few 1001 voices postcards.

South Tyneside Molly Williamson, Billie-Jo Thurlow, Dominique Thurlow, Kate Palmer, Ellen Smirnov, Katy Kearney, Emily McKay, Willow Simons and Jack Clavery, Youth Representatives, FAB (Friends Against Bullies) We’re a group of Young People committed to stamping out bullying in South Tyneside and have been given the royal seal of approval after being honoured with an award in memory of Princess Diana.

We have been presented with the Diana Award which is given to young people who make a positive difference to the lives of others and their communities. The award is a legacy to Princess Diana’s belief that young people have the power to change the world for the better.

In addition we can now join the Diana Network – a programme which opens doors to work experience,

Youth Voice: Positive Stories volunteering and campaigning while also training them in employability and social action skills. We can also join the Anti-Bullying Ambassadors Programme to become ambassadors in their school and communities.

Tessy Ojo, Executive Director of the Diana Award, said: “The Diana Anti-Bullying Award is presented to inspirational young people who have made a positive difference in their communities. With a growing network of over 42,000 award holders, we are building a force of young people who are committed to taking social action and improving our communities.”

Councillor Joan Atkinson, Lead Member for Children, Young People and Families, presented us with our award, this was a very proud moment for us.

Receiving the award has enabled us to promote anti-bullying work further, by being featured in this newsletter, local news papers and we’re even being interviewed by BBC radio Newcastle, all of which we’re very excited about.

Friends Against Bullying and Junior Local Safeguarding Children's Board (LSCB) Willow Simons, Kate Palmer, Lucy Bell and Emma True, South Tyneside’s Member of the UK Youth Parliament We have joined other young people from the North East, Manchester, Liverpool and Tower Hamlets at a workshop held at South Tyneside Council’s Thurston Outdoor Education Centre in the Lake District to develop a national Children’s Manifesto to tackle child poverty.

We met at Thurston to put the finishing touches to our manifesto along with Labour councillor Roxanne Mashari from the London borough of Brent and Robin Beveridge, Poverty Project Manager for the North East Child Poverty Commission.

We came up with a number of ideas in our draft manifesto on child poverty including providing the first school uniform free of charge and using anonymous uniform banks as well as offering free school travel for pupils on free school meals. In order to increase youth participation in politics, we are calling for politics to be incorporated into the education system, the voting age to be reduced to 16 and a percentage of MPs to represent young people. Once the strategy is complete, we will present our manifesto to an All Party Parliamentary Group.

While at Thurston, we were rewarded with a selection of adventurous activities including raft-building and team orienteering, activities were really fun and broke up a weekend of hard work.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Sunderland Brian Terry, 15, Member of Youth Parliament I was elected into the MYP role in June 2014 and attended my first annual sitting held at Lancaster University; at the annual sitting I met many MYPs and did many things. I made new friends as well as new contacts. Multiple workshops based on things like communication and networking, mental health and campaign management kept me occupied for large amounts of time allowing me to learn valuable skills for both work and life. In addition to this, I took part in the Big Vote where we discussed 26 important topics for UKYP to decide where we stood with them. Topics included free higher education, tackling obesity and cyber-bullying. I had an unforgettable time at Lancaster and I am excited for the year ahead filled with work, campaigns and further meetings.

Daniel Alcock, 18, Youth Representative Last month I was invited to go down to the Department of Education to help with the interview process that the Children Commissioner was going through to find the right team for the job to look into how effectively complaints are taken against schools. It was a fantastic opportunity to be part of all this as it allowed me to gain skills in an environment that I had had little experience in. The actual interview made me a little nervous as the group that was chosen would be given a lot of money and trusted to do the work they promised they could do. Later this month four other young people from Sunderland are going down to the Office of the Childrens Commissioner to have a look at the work that is done and see if they can help in any way.

Youth Representative When youth groups set out to improve perceptions of the youth in our city, the obvious first step is to create new youth group relationships. A united front for positive and thoughtful practise. Sunderland Youth Parliament has aimed to achieve exactly this, working with the Sunderland branch of the nationwide programme, NCS. With workshop opportunities twice this summer alone, it’s needless to say that this bond looks to be advancing from strength to strength. SYP has focussed its 2013/4 term on Discrimination (this ranging from racism, to homophobia, to mental health stigmas), and so has been working with NCS largely with the goal in mind of understanding how young people in the city approach these issues, and what ideas we can brainstorm in order to combat them. What has emerged from these workshops has been not a revelation, but a block of evidence that the youth of Sunderland are able to comprehend and produce ideas with sensitivity and intelligence. Fully understanding the causations of discrimination, and its faults requires a level of maturity that one doesn’t necessarily gain with age; and the methods suggested to break these social barriers were, at times, iconoclastic, yet always ambitious, optimistic and impressive. Eye-opening and productive, the engagement between the groups seems set to revolutionise systems in Sunderland for the better.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North West Bolton Gulwali Passarley, 19, Youth Representative BYC August positive stories :) I have continued with my activism and youth representation activities, attending meetings and events throughout the month and happy to share what I have been up with my commitments and engagements.

In the first weekend of August I was invited to the Afghan Summer Festival in London and I went ahead to volunteer on the day to help out and support the event organisers. It was such a brilliant and fun event as we had some of the best afghan singers there and it was a day for families and friends to come together but more so the whole afghan community. I was glad to be useful and able to serve the community on this special occasion.

I was recently selected by the Care Leaver Association to become a Trainer Mentor for Care Leavers, help and support them into independent living. So I had the opportunity to go for day training in Manchester, as well as to meet fellow mentors. It was inspiring to see young people who has left care but now wants to give back and ensure that care leavers have the best start to their life by sharing our experiences with them and giving them the right advice and information to make more informed decisions. I am pleased to be involved in this project if successful will be introduce nationally. I hope to inspire, motivate, encourage and empower care leavers and let them know they can be successful and achieve great things. I look forward to work with the CLA to achieve our objectives and aims of supporting and helping young people integrate into society.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

On the 12th August I attended and participated in my first Model Westminster event for which I am one of their Ambassadors. I went down to London and the event was about Digital Democracy and were held in the HoC; supported by DD commission and Parliament Outreach Service. There were about 60 young people from across the UK interested and keen to hear and share their thoughts about politics. It was undoubtedly a great experiences to meet likeminded people, share my thoughts on what's happening in Middle East and learn from the different speakers about how and why digital democracy is important. Some excellent ideas on how to engage and get more young people involve in democracy and politics. We learnt about many areas of policy making, the role of government in encouraging people to participate and what responsibility do we have to take action and so on. The Commission is looking into digital democracy and will produce a report for the government and our views shall be taken into consideration. And then for the next two days I stayed in London for the Children's Commission on Child Poverty to evaluate and feedback about our recent parliamentary inquiry into cost of schooling for children in poverty. The commissioners worked on a midterm report including the inquiry findings. which will be out in October.

Finally I have been fortunate to be accepted into the Youth Management Board at NCVYS and to be one of the 20 Young people working on the project and I will be part of the Recognition and Reward sub-team.

This month, overall was productive and full of useful experiences for me. I have and I will represent the views of young people to the best of my ability and hopefully influence decisions makers and achieve positive change.

Cheshire West and Chester Alias Buchanan, 15, Member of Youth Parliament It's all very hectic at the moment, trying to get as many people and organisations on board as possible for MYM, through emails, phone calls or even visits in person. Hopefully it will all be worth it! Let's not only hit the target of one million votes, let's get more!

Ciarรกn O'Shea, 18, Procedures Group Make Your Mark has hit the ground running, with an official opening day on the 12th August. After having prepared plans with every local authority in the North West, I am very confident that we will smash our target of 103,000 ballots! It's been amazing to see how involved and proactive some people are, not just in the North West but across the UK. On the 22nd I attended a meeting with my YDC in Manchester to assess the situation and target specific local authorities where help is needed, and I personally think that we are in a better position this year than ever before to get a million young voices heard.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Juliana Christianson, 15, Youth Councillor On August 1st I attended my first Youth Senate meeting and despite my previous fears it went really well! I was given plenty if opportunities to make my voice heard and give my opinion on the points of agenda.

We discussed a range of topics from fracking in our area to the teaching of Religious Education; I even made my own suggestion regarding the introduction of a student library card which was well received.

Overall, I found the meeting very engaging and interesting, feel much more confident and can't wait for the next meeting in October.

Liverpool Ciara Brodie, 16, Member of Youth Parliament In July, I was elected by members of Youthforia as an area representative for Merseyside on our Steering Group. I was so happy with this is Youthforia, as an organisation, means so much to me so I was humbled to be elected into this prestigious position by members. I can't wait to get started! So I attended the Steering Group 'handover' meeting in Manchester on 16th August. 'The old to new'- it was a lovely day celebrating Youthforia's achievements over the past year and how we are going to move forward over the next few months. Of course last year, Youthforia's regional campaign was around Youth Unemployment and since then we've produced a report that has gained national attention. We had a commission of young people and adults and this proved to be very successful. This year's campaign is around Mental Health and in particular, young people. I am so excited to be part of the Steering Group and part of an amazing group of people! Here's to the next year.

Sefton Laura Curran, 15, Member of Youth Parliament & Youth Councillor After returning home from the Annual Sitting in Lancaster University, I began planning a feedback session that I would deliver to the other members of the youth cabinet in Sefton, 'Shout It Out Sefton' (SIOS).

During that time, I told them about what happened at the Annual Sitting and details about Make Your Mark. As a result of this, numerous members of SIOS signed up to be Make Your Mark Champions and they all had a clearer understanding of why Make Your Mark is so important. Also at this meeting, there were elections for the Chair of SIOS. With the relaunch of SIOS being fairly recent, this was the first time members could run for Chair as the meetings were facilitated and ran by the staff beforehand. I am proud to say that I am now Chair of SIOS and I will be in this role for 3 months. The first meeting I will chair will be at the end of this month (August). I have recently emailed the eight schools in Sefton that have registered for Make Your Mark to remind them about it and giving them as much information about it as possible, including this year’s target for Sefton which is 7,000. This is so at the beginning of the school year they know what to do and to try and get as many young people in Sefton to make their mark. Also this month, a number of young people from Sefton including myself who are involved in youth

Youth Voice: Positive Stories voice/work/services did a presentation in front of a group of Sefton’s decision makers. Things that we spoke about included UK Youth Parliament, Youthforia, the Young Commissioners/Inspectors group (a panel of young people who give out money to various youth led groups in Sefton), SELFIE (a group of young people delivering Curriculum for Life sessions in schools and youth provisions in Sefton) and SIOS. We also said how being involved in youth voice effected us individually and what we have gained during our involvement. The feedback we had was excellent and the decision makers said how they now have a greater understanding of what we do and appreciate the work as well. They have insisted that we do another presentation in front of numerous other decision makers in Sefton due to the effect it has had on them. In September, I plan to be already doing Make Your Mark related work in addition to SIOS networking within Sefton to get people knowing who we are and what we stand for.

Warrington Rose Warburton, 15, Member of Youth Parliament I have realised that I don't have a true understanding of what life in Warrington is like for minority groups. So on the 5th of August I started to volunteer with playability an incredible charity that works with children and young people with disabilities.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South East Brighton and Hove Thomas Soud, 16, Member of Youth Parliament During this month we have made considerable progress in the Make Your Mark campaign for Brighton and Hove. We have taken a four pronged approach to Make Your Mark. Firstly, we are working with the Youth Participation team to get contacts in schools and to raise awareness of Make Your Mark in conjunction with Brighton and Hove Youth Council elections. Secondly, we have contacted all schools and colleges in Brighton and Hove about Make Your Mark independently by email, if they do not reply we plan to send letters, then phone calls, then personally walking into the schools. Thirdly, we have assembled a team of Make Your Mark champions from across the schools in Brighton and Hove, of those willing to help the Make Your Mark campaign, so they can push it on the ground. Finally, we are pushing Make Your Mark through Youth Clubs via the youth service and have sent Make Your Mark ballots of to all Youth groups across the city, we hope to get ballots through there. Overall, we presently have direct contact with those wishing to be involved in 3 schools/colleges and Make Your Mark champions in 7, giving us an overall reach of 9500 11-18 year olds. We also hope to contact the Director of Children’s Services and ask for their help in the campaign, though they are currently on holiday. To make sure Make Your Mark is as widely known as possible in Brighton and Hove we are also in the process of arranging a television interview with local T.V. and also a radio interview.

East Sussex Charlotte Thomas, Member of Youth Parliament I have successfully enlisted the backing and support form a local charity involving young people, Xtrax, their age range is 16-25 and includes people who can vote in Make Your Mark, they have agreed for me to speak to their young people and are involving the ballot as part of the work they do with young people, this will hopefully mean a wider turn out from the 16+ young people in my area. I have also started working with Xtrax and their Young People on other campaigns like votes@16 which means it can be campaigned with the backing of my local 16 and 17 yr olds

Hampshire Alex Maynard, 21, Youth Voice Representative The past two months have been some of the most interesting in my role as Youth Voice Representative.

On 23rd July, myself and the other Youth Voice Representative, Amelia Wrigley attended our first Children

Youth Voice: Positive Stories and Young People’s Select Committee at Hampshire County Council. We were pleased to be seated at the table, effectively meaning we had the same debating powers as the councillors on the Committee. During the meeting, cuts to the Disabled Children’s Short Break Provision were discussed as well as reports by the Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service (EMTAS) and Public Health. It was really great to hear that ethnic minorities within Hampshire are achieving at the same level as their counterparts, something which isn’t necessarily the case around the country. Public Health’s report was about the health of children at school, and highlighted the need for greater cooperation between various providers in the field in order to ensure we have the widest picture available of the health of young people in our schools. It was a really great meeting and we got to meet a number of important people, such as the Head of Children’s Services and the executive members for Education and Children and Young People.

A week before this meeting, Hampshire hosted one of its three yearly Hampshire County Youth Conferences. The theme was Xpress Yourself and focused on ways to get young people active within their communities and running their own social action campaigns. The event is run by the Youth Voice Representatives as well as Hampshire’s Members and Deputy Members of Youth Parliament. The event was a great success with attendees representing various schools and areas of Hampshire and displaying a great willingness to participate in the events. We met so many great candidates for future Members of Youth Parliament and Youth Voice Representative and we will be keeping in touch with them and maybe you will see some of them next year.

The highlight of the last two months for me was the opportunity to represent Hampshire at the week-long Association of European Regions (AER) Summer Academy in Novi Sad, Serbia. I was chosen to represent Hampshire alongside Phil Hyland, a care ambassador. The subject of the Summer Academy was “Multicultural, Multiethnic and Multilingual regions: Regional diversity for socio-economic growth”. More than 140 participants from 37 regions took part in the event and it was an excellent opportunity to talk to youth representatives from other countries about how they worked with young people and how we could better improve the systems we have in place in the UK. Each day, we listened to lectures from experts in the fields of multiculturalism, ethnic diversity and immigration, before debating ideas and travelling around the province of Vojvodina to see these principals in action. I can honestly say that I have never learned so much in a single week. I learned about how beautiful Serbia is as a country as well as things that completely changed my perspectives on multiculturalism and Europe as a whole. It was incredible to see in Serbia how so many ethnic minorities lived in complete harmony, whilst maintaining the traditions of their homeland. The final statement of the week can be found here: http://www.vojvodina.gov.rs/aer/final-statement.

Phil and I hope to bring these lessons back to Hampshire, and organise meetings with senior decision makers to feedback on how we could better work with ethnic minorities as well as encourage them to maintain participation in AER, something I think that every UK region should look to achieve. Phil and I would both like to thank the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina for being such a wonderful host to the event, as well as Ellen, Kristian, Lea, Ena, Pawel, Tomasz, David and so many others for making this experience one of the best weeks of our lives. We hope that our experiences will encourage Hampshire and other counties to expand their horizons and look to European counterparts for some of the most productive discussions possible.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories If anyone is interested in learning more about AER, their website is http://www.aer.eu/ or you can email me at hantsyouthrep@gmail.com and I would be happy to put you in touch with the relevant people.

Kent Angel Layer, 17, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor Since the beginning of August I have used all the information that I gained from the UK youth parliaments annual sitting at the end of July to enforce in my county and local area and talk to more young people.

Firstly, I emailed all my local youth councillors encouraging them to be Make Your Mark champions. At our filming sessions to promote our local elections, I also spoke about Make Your Mark, through that I believe we have a high chance of getting young people to want to get more involved in youth politics. I have also got young people’s voices heard in regards to the commemoration of WW1 in my local area, I did this by talking to the councillor who is running the schemes and giving them ideas to how young people would like to be involved. I along with another youth councillor am also arranging an event to link with parliament week so that they feel more included and have a voice. I have represented young people in an event run by Model Westminster and I feel that I have more information and I'm more educated to inform them on current affairs.

Reading Ellie Emberson, 15, Member of Youth Parliament I will start with what I am sure most other positive stories are starting with... Make Your Mark! The UKs biggest youth consultation launched on the 12th of this month and here in Reading we are aiming high with numbers! We have been set a target of around 2,000 ballots. However in the elections our youth cabinet held late last year we received nearly 5,000 responses. Therefore we are aiming higher than the expected target we have been set! Other local authorities should definitely watch out.... As well as this I have been leading the mental health campaign in Reading. My youth cabinet set up a mental health focus group which representatives from various organisations are in, including Berkshire CAHMS, NCS campaigners, members from the Reading council and young people that have been effected by mental health issues. We are setting out to create a "pack" which schools can use to provide a high standard of mental health education to their students. We will be launching this pack at our annual youth cabinet event at the end of October. Most excitingly I have set up a new movement called PolitiCOOL, it aims to increase youth engagement in politics through the use of social media. We have been given a fund of ÂŁ300 and with the help of my MP I have a day in Parliament booked which we hope to host an event which young people will attend in the hope we will engage them more so in politics. I hope to create a website shortly which will have information on getting involved with the movement.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

South West Bristol, City of Bradley Jewell, 18, Youth Councillor I attended a youth event in Bristol to support young homeless people between 16 and 25 and between the team and I we raised 35,000 pounds this is the 3rd year and we have almost raised 500,000 pound for this particular homeless charity they helped me when I became homeless so I thought best if I give back to them. I also attended the annual sitting in Lancaster on the first day there we arrived at about 4.30 and listened to someone speak about the fact that potential means you could but aren't yet doing. the second day we listened to a speech from the Rt Hon John Bercow the speaker of the houses of common and also Maggie Atkinson; Childrens Commissioner for England came in and spoke to us the big debate went very quick and it was understood by new members I didn't understand at first but got the hang of it after the first few some of them passed and lots had fallen because of the great words used by most of the MYP's and others. we went to our workshops first I had campaign mgt and I learnt that you can organise a campaign into sections and work on it in groups my next workshop was funding I had put down about a national database for work experience and it got the top marks from my group of young people and other had designs like dancing competitions and a young people football club it was a fantastic weekend and it was all thanks to the BYC

Cornwall Jaspa Stritt, 18, Member of Youth Parliament On 24th July, I travelled to Liskeard to attend 1 of 3 Cornwall young people’s reference group meetings. At the meeting we discussed a new system which we hope to introduce to Cornwall youth services called time banking. The system will reward young people for volunteering at meetings and other events by giving them tokens which they can 'spend' on rewards such as swimming sessions, cinema tickets or gift cards. It is still in its early stages but will definitely grow strong into a great system! We also looked at creating brands for all of the Cornwall youth services that were recognised as being useful and worthwhile to young people. Young people (including myself) created and discussed possible logos that could be used by recognised services (see pictures). I also recently spoke to my old secondary school and hope to visiting soon along with MYM ballot papers to collect ballots as well as talking to students about youth parliament and how they can get involved, especially as election time is approaching quickly. In addition to this, I am now a leader at my local scout group and hope to be talking to them and other scout groups in the Penwith district about youth parliament.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Tabitha Wethers, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been very quiet for me due to not having any meeting to attend; therefore I have not been very active in my role as MYP. Although, I was very excited for the start of Make Your Mark! I am very organised for the next 2 months ahead of me and have counted my ballot papers ready to be posted to 2 of the schools who agreed to be involved with MYM. I will be attending my local youth centre next Thursday also to start collecting votes!

Devon George Downs, 17, Member of Youth Parliament 6 months ago, a leading Devon County Councillor, Eileen Wragg claimed that for the first time she felt “ashamed” of being a councillor after Devon youth parliament and youth service users were gagged by council chiefs during February’s full council meeting on youth service cuts. With Cllr Frank Biederman describing it as a “sad day for democracy”, the damning reaction then went national as we hoped that no such occurrence would take place again. I’m sorry to inform you that this is not the case. On 21st August, Devon youth parliament was banned (notified only the night before) from observing a meeting between cabinet councillors, commissioners and senior managers which confirmed the handover over of thousands of pounds to other agencies to take over 24 of our county’s youth centres – many of these groups intending never to reopen the doors for open-access youth work in the future. This was despite Cllr James McInnes’ previous pledge to fully involve Devon youth parliament in the outsourcing of youth centres – a promise which he made to the viewers of ITV West country in early August. The decision makers also plan to ban the youth parliament from attending a similar meeting in September. The reason for excluding youth representatives was that the meeting was “informal” and therefore off the record. This meant he had no obligations to allow young people to observe the meeting.

Olivia Welsh, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been working on Devons' campaign of natural beauty where I have been working on a workshop to present to a group of young people to challenge their views about the ideas of negative body image. I have also attended Devon’s youth parliament monthly team meeting where we discussed the campaign about natural beauty and also talked about the changes to the Devon youth service. This month has been really busy for me, and I also got my GCSE results which determine my college courses.

Dorset Grace Van Zyl, 13, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament Hi it's me again, over this past month I have been involved with exciting experiences with young people such as, interviewing candidates for a role in children services (contracts manager); writing two articles for the Dorset Echo, one about the Tolpuddle Martyrs festival and another about a Combined Arts Week that I

Youth Voice: Positive Stories did recently with about 30 other inspirational young people; I have been focusing on Make Your Mark and will be going into schools, shopping malls and loads of different youth groups and I will be starting to develop... a MEDIA EXPLOSION, where basically I get as much media attention as possible to link with my manifesto of cheaper sporting facilities but more about that soon so keep an ear out!

Owen Shepherd, 12, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been very busy working on make your mark. I have emailed the necessary people such as my local MP Christopher Chope, the director of children's services for Dorset Sara Tough and my local press office to inform them about the Make your Mark ballot 2014 and how and why we want to achieve the 1million vote’s milestone this year.

Gloucestershire Nathan Howarth, 16, Member of Youth Parliament I have been speaking with schools to make arrangements for speaking to students for MYM. Also I am in the process of doing a curriculum for life review with my school and making preparations for the New Year to speak to the students about their experiences. The school have already filled their part in.

James Bennion, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Just a short update. Whilst still working on my local area campaign of the WhatWhenWhereGlos website, Make Your Mark has officially been launched which is incredibly exciting! I have received my ballot papers already which I plan on using all of them. So far, I have created a plan of what schools and youth groups I am hoping to get many ballots returned from and where I should do ballot paper responses, headcounts etc. I hope to do this in a very quick turnaround so I can keep as many ballots coming in. Obviously I am aiming to beat the number of ballots returned last year so Make Your Mark is going to keep me busy for the next few weeks.

Plymouth Katherine Newnham, 15, Member of Youth Parliament After the annual sitting last month it gave me a lot of motivation to do as much as I can in my time as being MYP and came to the decision that I definitely want to campaign for MYP next year! Since then I have rung the charity fixers but it turns out that the women for my constituency is on leave, therefore I am going to have to find someone else to work with. I have been looking in to other ways of completing my campaign to my fullest potential.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Sarah Staples, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament During this month I along with some members of Plymouth Youth Cabinet started drawing up a plan to host a Question Time style event aimed at young people to engage them with local and national politics.

We have a meeting organised with Fixers to help us move forward with this project. Plymouth also began working on the Make Your Mark campaign, I spoke to Derry's Youth Mayor (Thomas Chambers) sharing ideas on how best to involve young people with democracy and schemes like Make Your Mark.

Poole Thomas Rowledge, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament In preparation for the Make your Mark ballots, we’ve had a really positive month! We have managed to get almost every school in the local area signed up, and have also managed to secure a deal with youth centres in the area, allowing ballots to be displayed and filled in there. In addition to the work with make your mark, we have also arranged a meeting the manager of a local youth centre regarding the coupon booklets allowing young people free opportunities in the area. We hope this will lead to further opportunities to be provided in our booklet allowing more young people engaging activities. The funding has been secured and design work is also proceeding really well - a very enjoyable month and looking forward to MYM!

Somerset Cat King, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been a very busy one. Ranging from all sorts of activities. Firstly I took part in one of the funding days with my local Youth Council where we distribute money to local clubs of Somerset for a range of expenditures, but they all aim to benefit young people. Now we don't just give out money here there and everywhere we have all been trained on how to make sure the bids we get given fit or in some cases don't fit the criteria. It's an amazing process to be involved in; it not only develops your skills but it allows young people to really take control and make sure that others are heard, and listened too. Now, if you've been following me for a matter of months through positive stories you would have seen that I've been working with ITV Fixers on my campaign 'Bullying and Sex and relationship awareness' . A few weeks ago a team from the organisation came down to Taunton, Somerset and filmed me, with intentions of it being put into a short piece before the ITV regional news on the first Thursday of October. The idea of it being broadcasted is in hope that young people will get a voice and that Teachers and Youth Workers may really want to engage in the project. Behind the scenes it's a buzz with action in creating a resource that can be used in Schools, Colleges and Youth Clubs that is both enjoyable and informative. With MYM coming up myself and my fellow D/MYP's from Somerset had a meeting and discussed ways we can get to a wide audience of young people and consult as many as possible. We have a number of ideas and very much look forward to working them through in upcoming months.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Chelsea White, 15, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have taken part in the local youth community giving grants, where young people decided whether to grant youth clubs money. There a wide selection of youth clubs from across the county asking for our support and it was great to be a part of the decision making process. Also this month I have been working on my Make Your Mark action plan, by preparing a mini speech of what make your mark and UKYP is about. As well I have also involved young people in my area to help distribute ballots for make your mark which they are happy to do.

Ellen Collard, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been busy with our Youth Funding Days. We allocated over £40,000 to local youth projects across Somerset. My fellow D/MYP'S and I assessed each application on a set criteria including: the sustainability, input from young people and whether its universal/open access. The days were brilliant because we were actively involved in decisions affecting hundreds of young people across our constituency. Also, we have been busy working on our targets for this year’s make your mark. We want to reach over 2000 in Taunton Deane and West Somerset, and we will work very hard to do so. We plan to run assemblies in local schools to really promote Make Your Mark and the work of Somerset UK Youth Parliament.

Eve Anderson, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been very excited as the run up to MYM begins. I have been spending lots of time planning my assemblies, counting my ballots and emailing schools. I am in touch with two schools which means altogether I am aiming to collect about 1000 votes. As well as MYM I have been planning a mini question time event to do at my school. So a holiday full of planning and really looking forward to reaping the benefits.

Thrinayani Ramakrishnan, 16, Member of Youth Parliament August has been a particularly busy month for me as the school summer holidays has allowed me to work more on my campaign as an MYP which is employment for youth and making sure young people have skills needed to excel in the work of work.

I attended the BPP summer school held in Bristol and gained a lot of valuable tips and advice on CV writing, interviews and weighing up the benefits and drawback to post-16 options such as university and apprenticeships. This helped me to understand what to include in my employment skills workshop which I am hoping to present to young people in schools and youth clubs in my area.

I have also worked on the format of my skills workshop which will be delivered to young people and made sure that it is interactive. I took park in youth and community group grant days. These are two days where members of the UKYP advisory group including Members and Deputy Members of UK Youth parliament (Somerset UK Youth Parliament), allocate funding for youth clubs in Somerset that provide

Youth Voice: Positive Stories positive activities and youth work for the young people in Somerset. It feels very rewarding taking part in the process and as an MYP I really feel like I am making a difference by funding these youth clubs in need.

I want to make sure that more young people than last year are given a voice in the make your mark ballots so I have planned how I am going to distribute them this year. I have also made a presentation that I will deliver in assemblies in schools.

Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month I have taken part in the local youth community giving grants, where young people decided whether to grant youth clubs money. There a wide selection of youth clubs from across the county asking for our support and it was great to be a part of the decision making process. Also this month I have been working on my Make Your Mark action plan, by preparing a mini speech of what make your mark and UKYP is about. As well I have also involved young people in my area to help distribute ballots for make your mark which they are happy to do.

Swindon Ellie James, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Following the Annual Sitting, I was given the task of leading the production of Make Your Mark films to promote Make Your Mark and make it clear what each issue was to those voting. I have got many other MYPs on board to make individual videos for each issue that I will then merge together. We are still in the planning stages but have thought about the structure we would like the films to take. I gathered 10 young people to help me in the final stage of my Fixers project by meeting to discuss a launch event in Swindon and how to promote my Fixers films online. We are also planning to present at school board of Head Teachers etc. so we get the message 'Embrace Your Ace, It's Your Future To Chase' to those who can spread it further to my target audience. However we will focus the promotion online via Vine, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We have also planned to meet with our local Young Carers forum to look at what we can do to help change things for Young Carers in Swindon.

Wilfred Steenbergen-Cockerton, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I've started work on make your mark this mouth, in preparing the signed up schools in the Swindon Area for the initiative, such as how they want to have the information presented. In addition, I attended a session about Anti-Bullying, which no doubt helps towards my campaign

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Torbay Samuel McArthy, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I have had the pleasure to work with labour and conservative parliamentary candidates, enabling discussions on how to integrate youth parliament into more council meetings and boards -Arranged meeting with the police and crime commissioner to explore how to support young people across the Bay Make your mark campaign is underway also -meetings will resume as usually as of the 26th

Wiltshire Charles McGrath, 18, Youth Councillor This month, I have been continuing work on the Salisbury Student Union's 'Change in Our Hands' campaign after having met with Andrew Sherrington of Salisbury Reds at the end of July. I have also started preparing for the 'Make Your Mark' campaign by assisting current Member of the Youth Parliament for East Wiltshire, Courtney Pickering, in distributing ballot papers in local schools, youth clubs and to the public while also publicising the campaign online. We will continue working on the 'Make Your Mark' campaign over the coming weeks and hope to both better last year's achievement of just under 5000 completed ballot papers in Wiltshire by reaching our set target of 7000 completed ballots countywide.

Chloe Lintern, 16, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor It’s been a very quite month as we don't have a monthly meeting in the summer we have a day out to relax and take a break. I have been working hard with getting ballot papers out to youth groups for Make your mark, and 300 had been sent within 20 minutes of me receiving them! I have been planning a survey for young people on what financial vocab that they think they should know/ will need to know in the future ready for our local campaign on financial education. My support worker has had a meeting with the design team at Wiltshire Council to look at the idea of our app for this campaign as well. I attended the StudentVoice residential where we planned our next year and our campaign and we also spoke about the funding for the next year. On Tuesday 12th August, I attended a Model Westminster event at portcullis house where we looked at digital democracy. It was a really good day and the design challenge for a 21st century democratic system was quite fun because you could think of different ways to make voting more digital and use technology for this. My team came second in this design idea and we won a tour of parliament!

Overall it’s been a busy and intense wait for exam results but hopefully next month will be more interesting in terms of youth voice.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Jordan Green, Member of Youth Parliament I have been planning with my deputy our plan for MYM and how we are going to get as much votes as we can, we are going to do this by organising assemblies ,as soon as we go back to school, we have produced a PowerPoint of a young person friendly context so they know what we are talking about and are able to votes fairly and to what they feel Is the best campaign for the house in commons later in October!!!!!!

Courtney Pickering, 15, Member of Youth Parliament This month I have been very busy with our national campaign Make Your Mark. I have been in contact with several local groups about going in and doing a session with them. I have also been producing flyers to be put up in local libraries and my local community room. I also did a Make Your Mark session at my local youth group and I'm arranging meetings with the other youth groups. Make Your Mark is going really well and I can't wait for more young people to be involved.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

West Midlands Birmingham Sam Holmes, 17, Member of Youth Parliament At the end of last month the UK Youth parliament gathered in Lancaster for the annual sitting, where we heard talks from John Bercow and others, and where we voted as members of UKYP on what would go in the manifesto. What was striking about this vote was how much people cared. The manifesto is set out to represent the voices of young people across our regions, and clearly MYPs wanted to do this. One MYP, Zak from Harrow, I recall actually taking a tally of all of the members of his local youth council, and voting in accordance with the outcome of that vote. After all what is the purpose of UKYP if we don’t vote based on what is best and desired by young people? In Birmingham we didn’t have the privilege of being able to consult with a youth council, so we took an approach that I noted many MYPs had taken – we researched the effects on our area. In particular I recall the motion ‘the retention of grammar schools’ was very well research. We noted that in Birmingham the wealth divide between those in a normal school and those in a grammar school was so significant that they have a detrimental effect on young people in the city. This led most of us to vote against the motion.

It was this level of passion to really make the right decisions for our peers that we represent that makes me most proud of the UK youth parliament. It isn’t just a gathering of young people voting on their own doctrine driven ideals, but a democratic system that does its best to really get what is best for young people across.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Dudley Kyle Simms, 16, Member of Youth Parliament In Dudley's Youth Council we've been working on Volunteer booklets which have given us the chance to look back at the work we have done with BYC/UKYP. Furthermore we have released an Annual Report for the first time which will be sent out to all our local councillors, MPs and important decision makers in Dudley to let them know the work we've done since 2013 and will continue to work on in 2014/15.

Staffordshire Adam Barr, Youth Action Kouncil Members of Staffordshire’s Youth Action Kouncil (YAK) attended the British Youth Council’s Regional Convention in Birmingham on Saturday 7th June 2014, we met at New Street station, walked to the venue where we enjoyed a great day at the convention. Afterwards we walked back to New Street Station and went our separate ways home. If that’s all you wanted to know about the day you can get back to surfing the web, if not, and I hope you’d like to know more, please carry on reading this superb positive story.

Right, so we, Staffordshire YAK, arrived as a group at the convention and immediately started mingling with other Youth Councillors. Once everyone had arrived and the time was right, we all made our way into the lecture hall and listened to a talk about what was going to happen during the day. There was a Youth Parliament session for Members of Youth Parliament (MYP’s) and Deputies (DMYP’s), but as I’m neither an MYP or DMYP I attended a session called “Young reporters Master class” which was about setting up an article in your local newspaper and writing for them. I learned a lot from the session and would like to thank the Young reporters for running it.

I then attended a session which was described as – “Master class Al Pagan Media Artist: get creative with technology in your hands! Tips and tricks” It was about different ways of grabbing people’s attention using different media. We looked at photography, hash tags (#superbstuff) and a bit of social media. Later on in the session we were let loose and took our own photo’s which, even if I say so myself, were great. At the end of this session we had lunch.

There were 4 more sessions in the afternoon, the highlight for me was meeting Bob Jones, the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands. He shared many interesting statistics and facts with us but by far the best bit was hearing his views on young people, which were mainly positive and honest.

The day was a superb opportunity to learn about lots of different things that effect young people and how young people can create their own affects. I enjoyed every second of it, I’d like to thank everyone involved and encourage you to get involved too.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories James Cain, 17, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor On Wednesday the 20th of August James Cain and Luke McCormack attended a wreath laying ceremony at the German military war graves on Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. The ceremony was part of the annual 'Bremen-Exchange' , which welcomes German young people to the county to work on the graves and to forge intercultural friendships with English young people.

Attending the ceremony were the county's eight mayors from district and borough councils, Paul Farrelly MP for Newcastle-u-Lyme, the Chairman of the County Council, representatives from the Royal British Legion, as well as representatives from the German military forces. The event began with a short prayer and reflection followed by the laying of wreaths at the Commonwealth Cross and war graves. Then there was a longer memorial service in the German military war graves (the only one in Britain), followed by the laying of wreaths at High Cross in honour of the fallen German soldiers. As part of the memorial service, the young German and English people participating in the work camp, joined together in singing the poem 'In Flanders Fields'. James Cain, 17, Vice Chair of Staffordshire's Youth Action Kouncil, and MYP for Newcastle-u-Lyme and the Staffordshire Moorlands, said “It's fantastic to see how quickly people of different cultures have been able to find friendship with each other. This sort of intercultural project is essential for the promotion of peace and understanding in society.” Luke McCormack, 16, MYP for Stafford and South Staffordshire, said “it's important that we remember the sacrifice many made so that we could enjoy a fair and democratic society. This project is a great initiative which engages young people in remembrance.”

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Yorkshire and Humber Barnsley Barnsley has used a shop in the town centre within the 6 week holidays to provide young people with career advice and post 16 information such as apprenticeships. Therefore, the shop was a fantastic location for Barnsley Youth Council to target and fill as many Curriculums for life petitions and MYM ballots with the help of Barnsley Youth Councillors and Youth workers! Barnsley is all ready to get their young people's voices heard for this MYM year!

Pegah Moulana, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Today, COLOUR ME RAD 5K was held in Yorkshire and Humberside at Sheffield. As a volunteer at the event I managed to get into the events spirit of colour bomb powders and after the run to get young people at the event to fill UK Youth Parliament ballots just before they were returning home from the amazing colourful day!

Most Youth Councillors in the region have registered for (I Know I Can) passport which allows them to record every voluntary work they have completed and will be awarded after certain hours completed! This is done beside other young people, especially during summer term this enabled them more opportunities such as helping a sports project, Library reading challenge. This was seen as a great way for Youth Councillors consult young people as much as possible especially for the MYM ballots!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories In Barnsley town centre, a shop has been allocated this summer to provide career advice for the young people who are thinking of going to higher education or college! Barnsley Youth Council has used the location to provide further details for the young people on what work youth councillors have completed so far with photographs of MYP's and leaflets to ensure young people are aware of any work completed nationally on their behalf!

During Annual Sitting the workshops such as "Europe" and "consultation" was very effective for the MYP's and this enabled Barnsley MYP's to consider using workshops at the local council meetings as they were very educational! The weekend was full of details, ambitions, drive and learning resources! Ever so thankful for the great weekend from BYC and PG's The recent feedback I have received from the ballots are that young people believe this year ballot has more than one important priority for them to cross! Meaning we are going to be debating the correct motions which young people want to see changes in Youth councillors in Barnsley were encouraged to video their full meeting and answer questions based on why they like to represent young people. In Barnsley we have 11 campaigns to work on including Votes at 16 and Curriculum for life! Each campaign has its own leader which makes sure most work is done! They videoed about their campaign and soon to be released on social media for other young people to see, ensuring that they are felt involved with the youth voice work!

Youth councillors in Barnsley were encouraged to video their full meeting and answer questions based on why they like to represent young people. In Barnsley we have 11 campaigns to work on including Votes at 16 and Curriculum for life! Each campaign has its own leader which makes sure most work is done! They videoed about their campaign and soon to be released on social media for other young people to see, ensuring that they are felt involved with the youth voice work!

Barnsley Youth Council concentrated their August meeting to prepare for the Make Your Mark in their own local area which they represent, and came with strategy plan on how many ballots they wanted to complete! The overall aim is to beat Barnsley's 8000 target and represent the most of Young people in our region! Youth councillors came with plans with their support worker when they return school such as planning lunch time sessions and assemblies during morning!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Calderdale Ella Beavers, 14, Member of Youth Parliament In terms of Curriculum4Life, I have sent emails out to all headmasters of secondary schools in Calderdale explaining what C4L is and what the criteria is for a school to pledge. 6 schools in Calderdale have pledged and it's safe to say that each prepare students for life after secondary school. For Votes@16 I have adopted Lord Ahmed and have been in contact with him recently. He is in full support for V@16 and has posted his support on the website! As part of my election campaign earlier on this year, I promised to reduce bus fare for young people.

For this, I devised a campaign called Fairer Fares 4 Youth. The first step is to get the bus companies to re-evaluate their policies so that young people wearing school uniform are automatically entitled to half fare.

It's a small first step- but an important one!! I have sent a petition round 6 secondary schools in Calderdale (we have not received them all back yet) and Olivia and I have spent several days in town collecting signatures. We already have over 1,000 signatures but still have more to come! Also, the Halifax Courier (our local newspaper) has offered me a regular feature and I have already had a half page spread. It's a great opportunity to advertise the Youth Parliament campaigns so that local people know we're working hard!

Doncaster Aysha, Member of Youth Parliament Recently I went to the Annual Sitting, and it was such a fantastic experience. This wasn’t the first time I had been but it did not mean I did not enjoy it any less. I not only found every aspect of the Sitting very enjoyable but I also learnt so much! In particular I had matched my workshops so that they complemented each other, with the theme being media. I attended the press release workshop and media interviews workshop.

At the Annual Sitting I also found the guest speakers to be so fascinating, from the motivational speech from a past Member of Youth Parliament who had even written his own book!) To the feminist activist, who had been successful in her campaign endeavours –it was really an inspirational weekend. In addition to that the Big Vote (which is always full of passion and enthusiasm) was very lively, and we even managed to get through all the motions!

The Annual Sitting was also great because of the many friends that I made, it provided me with so many opportunities to meet new people and catch up with old friends, through the quiz on the first night to the summer party.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I had an amazing time during that weekend, which has formed many happy memories and equipped me with more skills and motivation to go and make a difference in my constituency. Roll on make your mark!

Charlie, Doncaster Youth Council, Chair What a fab week not only have I got great results and I’m going to see a University next week I also managed to start getting people to vote for Make Your Mark. I’ve signed up as a champion and really want to get as many as possible; we’ve already started competing between ourselves here in Doncaster so we had better make our target of 6,000!

Emma Spencer, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament I had a really positive experience at the UKYP Annual Sitting. We all (young people & staff) made some really good links with other authorities and had a really good time. I went to some really informative workshops, I enjoyed the Big Vote (even though it went on for ages), I was wowed by the most amazing and inspirational speakers and being into drama and performance I loved the whole Shakespeare theatre production. We were well inspired over the weekend and we agreed to work even harder on the Make your Mark Ballot. Last year we achieved 4,360 votes and this year we are determined to reach even more young people, so we are aiming higher and have set ourselves a target of reaching 6,000!!! The Annual Sitting was a really good weekend we all (MYP’s & Staff) had the opportunity to share our ideas and learn from one another.

I thought the Annual sitting was awesome and the Procedures Group must have worked really hard to plan and organise it…well done Guys! You could tell they had put a lot of planning and effort into the whole weekend.

Keiran Bennett, Doncaster Youth Council & Ladder Group Representative As promised here is my update about our Priority 2, the Disability Event. We held an event to provide the opportunity for young people to have their say and talk about issues that are important to them. The LADDER Group which is a forum group made up of young people with disabilities identified some topics that we wanted to discuss. We wanted young people 11 – 19 years with disabilities to come along and meet with us and we were hoping that their thoughts and comments would help us inform service providers about how we can make things better for young people with disabilities.

We didn’t get as many people there as we had hoped for  so we are planning another event at one of the central youth centres in September, were going to open up on a Saturday so more young people can come along. So really this is a positive story because we have an alternative solution to what could have been seen as a negative response for us 

Liam, Doncaster Youth Council Yeah!!! I have signed up to be a MYM Champion and I have got over 200 already from my school friends and people I know in my neighbourhood. I really hope I get more than 1,000 that’s my target. We all met

Youth Voice: Positive Stories up yesterday to talk about our plans of action and I have agreed to do assemblies in my school and go to all the youth centres in my area.

Luke, Doncaster Youth Council Just been involved in interviewing for a new worker, an Independent Reviewing Officer, they are responsible for supporting young people in care and advocating for their rights. So it’s important that we as young people are involved and we get the right person for the job. I enjoyed doing the interviews and I think it will help me when I go for a job myself. If you get the chance to do this for your local authority I would say definitely do it – it’s a good experience and you can put it on your CV.

Leeds Amy Kitchingham, Leeds Youth Councillor I was entered into a competition for tickets by creating a design to be used as inspiration for the Tour de France street art mural that now stands near the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Provided with my wooden template and acrylic paint pens, my creativity burned and I fashioned a contribution to the commemorative creation. This was done to a background of break dancing and young musicians, as the event was designed as a celebration of young people in Leeds, with craft stalls also part of the supportive entertainment. Everyone who entered a design was put into a prize draw for tickets to the Grand Stand at the Grand Depart in Leeds City Centre – unbeknownst to me, I would be the lucky winner!

I casually checked my emails a few days later to check for a coursework update when I noticed a message from an unfamiliar Breeze address. I discovered I had won two tickets for the Grand Stand! To say I was over the moon would be an understatement – I was already planning to attend the event, though fate had somehow intervened, and everything was improved by a mile. I even screamed with excitement, down the phone to my friends and to my parents!

The wait for my tickets was agonising! They even got lost in the post, so I went into a blind panic wondering how I would manage to get them on time. Luckily, I had a knight in shining armour in the form of Breeze representative Jason Tabor, who had first let me know of my prize. I contacted him, and, luckily, he dropped them off the night before the Grand Depart. Thankfully, I was completely ready for the big event.

On the 5th of July, I arrived at the Grandstand with my friend Jason and signed in at 7.30 to get my wristband for the seats. It couldn’t have been easier to find my way – everything was clearly signposted, I had numerous information packs that had come with the tickets, and there were officials and security at every corner. The atmosphere was buzzing throughout the whole day, with entertainment provided by the stage opposite the stand, where the official song of the tour was performed and magicians showing cycling themed tricks. The emcee of the day provided the crowd with information on everything that happened, so nothing was confused or lost.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories I spent the day wearing souvenirs from my fan pack. T-shirts, caps, scarves- everywhere was a sea of yellow! At 8.30am we saw the cadet riders set off with huge support from spectators, and at 9.10am the publicity parade started its journey along the route. Music blasted from the vans of every colour and size, and the excitement continued to grow among the wonderfully enthusiastic spectators. Free gifts were thrown at every space in the stand, and I even caught a few of them myself! It was an amazing spectacle and only encouraged the thrilling mood among the anticipating audience. The mood didn’t dip once during the day, whether we cheered for cyclists or watched the huge screen. There was even space for children to draw on the road with chalk!

By the time the cyclists signed in, we couldn’t wait any longer! The support was immense and extraordinary. The friendly and cheerful mix of French and Yorkshire people meant, no matter the nationality, everyone was welcome to celebrate a bit of history.

The cyclists were lined up on the Headrow, surrounded by cheering fans. We could see everything there was to see– we even caught photographs of Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome chatting to their fellow competitors. There was a brilliant sense of unity in the electric tone of the day! The clock counted down to the start.

5...4...3...2...1...0!

They sped off with all our best wishes in tow! The marvellous cyclists embarked on their voyage and were followed by the cars for each team. Garmin Sharp, Team Sky, - we liked them all! The sun was out and it illuminated all the bunting and decoration adorning the streets. Next came the unstoppable and infectious energy of the Caribbean Carnival with their dazzling display themed with Love, Unity and Peace, exactly the feeling that the day brought. Their white and blue ensembles and costumes were stunning and the music pulsed through the streets. The party continued for even longer!

Seeing the Grand Depart from such a great place only accentuated the experience. Winning my prize was a stroke of good fortune I could never had anticipated. It was unforgettable, and to say I loved it doesn’t even begin to cover it!

Charlotte Williams, Leeds Children’s Mayor This month I went to Silverdale and I got a Blue Peter badge!

Silverdale was very good fun and exciting! It’s a Leeds owned holiday centre on the west coast of England and provides children, who won’t get a holiday, with a week-long break by the sea. It has been open for 111 years this year and helps children who are young carers or as I said just don’t get a holiday. Silverdale gives the children proper meals up to 5 times a day and has a playground and indoor heated pool. The Civic Open Day was great to be a part of, and the Lord Mayor of Leeds and I met the Mayor of Lancaster.

In June I wrote a letter to Blue Peter telling them about my role as Leeds Children’s Mayor and asking for a prized gold Blue Peter badge. This week my badge came in the post. It may not be gold but alongside being Leeds Children’s Mayor, it is one of my greatest achievements!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Ciaran Morrison, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament In July I had my first meeting with the Leeds Have a Voice Council. Firstly, It was great to meet them and learn about their various backgrounds and what they actually do. It was important for me as I learnt about the work of the council and these truly inspirational young people who try to make the lives of all young people in past/present care as easy and stress free as possible. Furthermore, I was able to tell the have a voice council of my role as a deputy member of youth parliament and was delighted to be able to say I am going to work with them to help them and also to get their opinions on our campaigns this year and our Democracy event later in the year.

Francis Edwards, Leeds Youth Council PR Officer On 7th of August 2014, I attended the Breeze on tour event at Round hay Park as a representative of the Leeds Youth Council. Breeze on tour is an annual series of recreational events which take place at various public parks across Leeds. Alongside such activities were also are a wide array of stalls that were either dedicated to particular causes, representative of certain organisations or providing forms of entertainment for passers-by.

I was there as a member of the Leeds Youth Council and along with five other fellow Youth Councillors, I endorsed our role as the representative body for children and young people. Over the course of six events: 

14 young people volunteered over 160 hours of their time.



Representatives from the UK Youth Parliament received 475 signatures on their Curriculum for Life petitions, followed by another 220 Make Your Mark votes.



The Leeds Youth Council gained 32 potential new members who all requested additional information.

Nadia Saeed, Leeds Youth Councillor I volunteered at Breeze on the 5th and 6th August at Round hay Park with the Leeds Youth Council. I was apprehensive about going up to people and asking them to sign petitions and forms because I had never done it before, but as soon as I got into it I really enjoyed it! The people were friendly and happy to sign, making me feel at ease. I enjoyed spending time with my fellow youth councillors and the VIC team outside of meetings and getting to know them better. We were also able to enjoy what Breeze had to offer, making the work easier to do as we were able to relax and have fun whilst doing it. The people of Leeds were extremely friendly and made the volunteering far more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I would definitely do it again!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Nicole Sabau, Member of Youth Parliament The annual sitting was an amazing experience. There was a lot fun and amazing things to do, for example the big vote. The big vote gave all MYPs the chance to vote on issues that would go into our manifesto.

Over all the big vote was the highlight if the weekend. It made me feel like I was part of something that truly represented young people.

As well as the big vote the other highlight was the summer party. It gave me a chance to get to know everyone as well as make connections with others from all over the Britain.

After experiencing this weekend filled with passionate young people, I too wanted to make a difference. It showed that politics is something I would like to continue on doing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend.

When we came back we had a week full of the breeze tour. We promoted curriculum for life as well as telling the public what else we stand for as a youth parliament. All in all Breeze was a huge success, which was also a glance into his politics works.

Shamim Miah, Member of Youth Parliament The last month has been the most eventful month so far!

The annual sitting taught me many new skills, from presentation skills to how to gain sponsorship for UK Youth Parliament. The annual sitting gave me my first youth democratic vote “The Big Vote� and stretched my independence. I made new friends and it also gave me the ability to improve my dance moves.

In this past month I have also been contributing in Breeze. Breeze if a festival for children and young people and is run by Breeze (part of Leeds City Council), we spoke with people about the UK Youth Parliament, made future contacts and most importantly we gained a huge amount of Curriculum for Life petition signatures.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories August has been a great month for the UK Youth Parliament in Leeds!

North East Lincolnshire Javid Hassani, 16, Member of Youth Parliament This month has been centred on a big part of my life; although it doesn't have much to do with UKYP it is still very important to me- my exam results. Even though I didn't quite get A's and A*'s I still got great results and I got accepted for the sixth form that I was dying to get in and I am now going to Skegness!

Whoop!! Also I have been working on the target we have in North East Lincolnshire for Make Your Mark, which we will hopefully reach!

North Yorkshire Hannah Berzins, 16, Member of Youth Parliament and Youth Councillor In North Yorkshire we have been devising a promise between the young people and our Local Council. This allows the young people’s views can be acted upon when it comes to the council making key decisions which affect them. Young people should be seen and heard; and we believe the promise created emphasises this vision as it creates a connection between a shared purpose. This benefits the youth council as well as the council; as the youth council can get more involved in the democratic decisions within the council, and the council gain a variety of opinions to make their decisions more informative.

This new and beneficial agreement has been approved by all members of the Youth Council and we’re looking forward to what it may bring! Hannah Berzins MYP Age 16

Olivia Newton, 16, Member of Youth Parliament Make your mark, has started this month and oooooft, have we made a start. Emailing local schools, organising assemblies and trying to get air time locally. North Yorkshire is also organising a DVD to go out to all the schools in our county explaining the motions, we will also be recycling the DVD for when it comes to the re-elections for the new MYP's and DMYP's.

Rotherham Ashley Gregory, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament As part of the National Lottery’s Heritage fund, myself and Oliver Blake (Rotherham Youth Cabinet) attended a two night residential to South Wales with a youth group called the “The Women’s Front”. The purpose of this group is to research into how the miners’ strike of 1984 affected women in particular; they have been focusing on how the role of women specifically changed from housewife to earning the family

Youth Voice: Positive Stories income. The ultimate aim is to create an education DVD about women during the strike. The residential was to the beautiful town of Abergavenny and the magnificent scenes that surrounded it. During the three days in Wales, we took part in interviewing numerous women who had been affected by the miners’ strike – an interesting and valuable experience to hear their stories.

Rotherham UKYP met the week beginning 11th August to discuss what the local campaign for 2014 – 2016 will be. After previous research by myself, Oliver Blake and Hannah Kong at Sarah Champion MP’s summer school, we proposed the idea of ‘stopping the proposed fare rises for young people and implementing a £1-1 way scheme’. Canvassing the idea in the town centre, we found that the majority of people were in favour of our campaign, thus making it an issue for both young people and those older. I am also delighted to say that the campaign has the support of Sarah Champion MP, who very kindly aided us at her summer school in creating the base for the idea. Rotherham MYPs voted on three different campaigns and the bus fares and £1-1 way campaign was chosen. We look forward to beginning our work on the campaign.

After attending a Rotherham Youth Cabinet training day, myself and Oliver Blake took to the streets of Rotherham town centre to gain signatures for the Votes @ 16 petitions and Make Your Mark. Both of which were highly successful and had support from the majority of the general public. We look forward to canvassing again very soon. Finally, I am delighted to write that Rotherham’s MP Sarah Champion has signed the Votes @ 16 petitions.

We look forward to hopefully working with her office on the campaign and seeing sixteen year olds get the vote they deserve!

Olivia Blake, 16, Youth Councillor This month has been busy in Rotherham with the deadline for Make Your Mark looming, Rotherham Show and the Rotherham Youth Cabinet Annual Manifesto Launch looming. Starting with Make Your Mark, a press release has been sent out to all local press outlets asking if they could publicise the campaign, where young people can vote and the fact that the Rotherham MYPs will be out in force at Rotherham Show, canvassing the views of young people in a bid to reach the target of 4,500. Along with the press release a letter was sent to the 3 MPs in Rotherham, Sarah Champion MP, Sir Kevin Barron MP and John Healey MP. They all expressed their support to the campaign and agreed that they would try to publicise it as much as they could. Recently an item was posted in Sir Kevin Barron’s columns of the Dinnington News informing readers of the Make Your Mark ballot, something is also going to be going into other publications by MPs.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories We are also going to be working on a joint release with Sarah Champion MP at some point in the near future for Make Your Mark. Myself and Ashley Gregory, Deputy MYP for Rotherham, took the opportunity between a meeting of Rotherham Youth Cabinet members and an event with Sarah Champion MP to get ballots filled in around Rotherham Town Centre and signatures for the Votes @ 16 petitions, run

by BYC. Secondly, Rotherham Youth Cabinet has chosen what it plans to do at Rotherham Show which is taking place on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th of September in Clifton Park. RYC members will be consulting young people on politics, if they can vote, would they vote if they could and asking them if they would know which party to vote for if they can / could vote in elections. The results from this will then be analysed, the next steps are to be conducted by a sub group within the Youth Cabinet. Finally, on October 16th, Rotherham Youth Cabinet will host its annual Manifesto Launch where local councillors, MPs and Youth Service officials will come together to see what the Youth Cabinet has done in the past year and what it is planning to do next year. Currently, press releases have been sent out to local media, and invitations have been sent out. Alongside this, the main presentation for the day is near complete, with just a few tweaks left to make it perfect for the day!

In UKYP news, the local campaign for the group in Rotherham was decided on, it is around stopping the annual cost increase for young people and an implementation of a scheme which will allow young people to be able to travel from A to B for just one fare, no matter the number of connections that they take.

This links nicely to something that I have done personally.

I took part in Sarah Champion MPs Summer School. The aim of the school was to teach politically minded young people the different things that an MP does, we took part in debating workshops, presentation workshops, which required us to present campaign ideas to local councillor, Mahroof Hussain MBE and how best to communicate with the media. The main thing for me was having to create our own campaign, then go out into the Town and get petition signature from local residents, showing their support for our chosen issue. My group created one around bus fares (which ended up becoming the UKYP local campaign) and the second groups campaign was around the conflict going on between Israel and Gaza.

Overall, a fantastic week, I really learned a lot from the experience! UKYP Rotherham is on Twitter @UKYPRotherham Rotherham Youth Cabinet is on Twitter @Rotherham_YC - please give us a follow!

Emilia Ashton, 15, Member of Youth Cabinet Even though summer has come the work hasn't stopped for all of the members of Rotherham Youth Cabinet, it started with the first meeting where there was a lot of positive work done. In the morning there was a publicity and promotion meeting where the basis of our publicity video was discussed. Then came the afternoon where we discussed out manifesto aim for this year and what we want to work on as well as planning the agenda for the next meeting. The meeting after that is where we made our publicity video which we will be debuting at our manifesto launch in October. The following meetings have been planning and finalising all the work we have done for the manifesto launch and Rotherham show which has been great. I have really enjoyed this summer and I have meet many new people and learnt so many new things. We have done some really good work done. I can't wait to see what work and progress comes out of our manifesto aims and work round it. It should be a great expire nice.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories We are having a manifesto launch on October 16th where we will be launching this year’s manifesto aims which we will be working on throughout the next year. These have been decided on by what we think matters to the young people of Rotherham.

Sheffield Eleri Kirkpatrick, Member of Youth Parliament Well, the most important thing that happened this month was of course the launch of Make your Mark!

Though I have not got many votes so far, I am in the process of calling youth clubs and in September, I will be trying my hardest to get as many students from the schools and clubs in Sheffield West to vote. This month I have also been doing some work experience in the office of my local MP, Paul Bloomfield. While I was there, I learned how to do a number of different office tasks and I also helped organise a youth annual consultation which will be taking place in September. I really enjoyed the whole experience and I learned so much from it. I really felt that the work I was doing was productive and the staff at the office were all very friendly and helpful.

Wakefield Adam Lofthouse, 16, Member of Youth Parliament In august, I have been up to quite a lot. One thing I have done is start to organise a stall at the Normanton gala so we can raise awareness for the make your mark ballot in September, and collect petitions for curriculum for life. Also I have begun to plan out what my make your mark ballot plan and decided what I will do to collect the ballots and when I will do it.

Alex Pennington, 13, Member of Youth Parliament I was recently invited to the opening of the Crofton Academy Sixth Form, which is to take place in September. This has been a development supported by my school's Pupil Leadership Team, which visited the construction and development of the two new blocks. It has been a huge project for the village, and has been in partnership with Wakefield College. It now means that students will no longer need to travel to Wakefield or Pontefract for college, and in a few years, the Sixth Form will offer all the courses available at Wakefield. It is a major event, and England Rugby Coach Stuart Lancaster is expected to attend. Overall, this is a major development, and the opening is something which I am proud to be a part of.

I was recently invited to the opening of my school's new Sixth Form, which has been a huge development by the Pupil Leadership Team, which I am a part of, alongside the Senior Leadership Team of the school.

The event takes place in mid September, and England rugby coach Stuart Lancaster is to attend. The project is in partnership with Wakefield College, and provides a huge bonus for Crofton, as students will no longer have to travel far to attend college education, and the range of courses available is to expand for the next four years. Overall, this is a major event which I am proud to be a part of.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Morgan lois Binnersley, 14, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament This month I became the deputy member of youth parliament and I have been over the holidays doing a lot of work to so with a newspaper magazine called News4YouTHS west and east of Wakefield and I have also been working on my Wakefield anti bullying charter mark which all of these thing are progressing Nicely and support is been offered from many school I have also received my make your mark ballots which I am very excited about and I will be despairing them the first week in September.

On the 23rd August at the Tetley challenge cup final of rugby league Castleford tigers vs. Led rhinos I was an official dancer if anybody saw a girl dancing with pink hair that was me I was in blue it was the best experience I have been to in my dancing career I have also now been eligible to do my duke of Edinburgh at least turning 14 on 20th August

Simran Jandu, 17, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament On the 20th and 21st of august I have been in a two day workshop in Bradford with the Media Trust doing a media workshop. It was a fun workshop, teaching us how to make professional videos using just our iPhones!! So I picked the topic of votes at 16 for my video and made an interesting 2 min video. This was just a way of me to share the campaign without doing the usual petitions and so forth! Every bit helps!

And if this video is good enough it could appear on Sky and MTV Voices!!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

York Ethan Redmond, 15, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament A great success in York was to finally meet up with our closest geographical region, North Yorkshire. For years, there had been minimal youth-empowered action between our two regions, which share young people who commute between home and school as well as many other public services. We are now able to plan our work together - hopefully for the best of all our young people!!

Katie Ward, 18, Procedures Group This month, I have been working on meeting my Make Your Mark target, so I have been working on trying to get people in York and East Riding to get involved! Also I have been working on planning Convention 2 and gathering ideas to take to the Steering Group Meeting on Saturday 30th August. We do have 1 confirmed Guest Speaker, but it's a surprise!!

I also attended a NSPCC Y-Party event in Leeds, in which I was invited along to take part in meeting the new Director of Children's Services and to engage with the young people from Hull, Grimsby, Leeds and Bradford! It was a great day and I look forward to going again to catch up with the team!

I also attended a NSPCC Y-Party event in Leeds, in which I was invited along to take part in meeting the new Director of Children's Services and to engage with the young people from Hull, Grimsby, Leeds and Bradford! It was a great day and I look forward to going again to catch up with the team!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Northern Ireland Belfast North Member of Youth Parliament I attended the annual sitting in Lancaster University where we voted on motions that would ultimately make it onto the UKYP manifesto. The weekend was brilliant and I had the opportunity to meet people from across England. Progress on my manifesto issues have been slow this month as it has been the summer holidays but hope to hit the ground running come September.

Belfast West Member of Youth Parliament This month has marked the beginning of my Make Your Mark campaign. Using social media and face-toface interaction, I have distributed leaflets and started to collate the appropriate data from the ballots. I plan to set up meetings with local youth forums and local schools to spread the word about Make Your Mark and distribute the ballots as widely across my constituency as possible.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone Hollie Morrison, 16, Member of Youth Parliament These past two months I have been working on a variety of things. At the end of July I attended the UKYP Annual Sitting which was held in Lancaster University. It was an amazing experience, and one that I would love to do again. I learned key skills such as how to write a press release, and how to make appealing and eye-catching banners, which will be helpful for getting word out about Make Your Mark. There were also inspirational speakers such as John Bercow, Maggie Atkinson, Kamal Hyman and Caroline Criado-Perez.

These talks were amazing and the Q&A sessions at the end of each were a great opportunity to get advice from people who were successful and could relate to us in a way. I enjoyed the Big Vote sessions as they enabled us to make the decisions on what we wanted to work on, and allowed us to work as a democracy, while we debated the pro's and con's of each motion. Us NI MYP's even got an NI policy into the UKYP manifesto! The most amazing experience, however, must be when I was able to lead the debate on the Equality motion, which after a bit of debate, was passed!

As the schools in my area start back on the 2nd of September, I have plans in place to visit all the schools in my area and getting their votes on the MYM ballot, which will then be brought to our October meeting.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Lagan Valley Ryan Simpson, Member of Youth Parliament Well I must start by congratulating all those who were involved in the running of the Annual Sitting. I extend my warmest thanks to the Procedures Group and personally thank Ryan Cairns for looking after the Northern Ireland group. I could write a saga about my time spent there, but in short it was certainly one of the best weekends in my life and I had the great pleasure of spending it with a fantastic lot of people. Since the annual sitting, I like many others in the country have received Make your Mark ballot papers and after formulating my strategy as to how to reach my target, I am now prepared to instigate my plan with the help and encouragement of others. For me to reach my target, set by UKYP of 1,700 ballots, would be a great achievement. Although, I have a personal target. A target that if met, would be a grand and sentimental feat for me. I want to beat my constituency's voter turnout of 56% in the general election by giving more than 56% of the youth being educated in my constituency a voice on the national stage. I wish everyone the best of luck, whether you are a youth councillor or an MYP, in reaching your targets this year. Over the past month I have continued to keep my constituents up to date on domestic and foreign affairs.

North Antrim Christopher Harkin, 17, Member of Youth Parliament Our annual sitting at Lancaster University last month has started a storm called make your mark. I have been setting up a system to successfully make my quota, and have been working towards getting my fixers fix together for integrated education. I'm looking forward to encouraging young people to vote on what is important to them and show everyone through my fix the usefulness of integrated education.

North Down Joe Higginson, Member of Youth Parliament Last month was the annual sitting of UKYP, in Lancaster University. The annual sitting is where every MYP/DMYP comes together over a weekend and participates in workshops and a big vote on our manifesto. Another reason for the annual sitting is to brief MYPs on Make Your Mark. Starting from this month I will be working my hardest to get as many ballots completed as possible, every MYP was set a quota so that we reach one million responses. For me, I have to collect 1887 responses from young people all over North Down.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

West Tyrone Michelle Hamilton, 17, Member of Youth Parliament This month as representative for West Tyrone I have been busy getting Make Your Mark ballots filled out from the young people in my constituency to determine what issues will be debated in the House of Commons Annual Sitting in November. I was also not able to attend the Lancaster Annual Sitting in July; however I was delighted to hear that my motion was successfully passed and transferred onto the Youth Parliament official manifesto which was a huge and progressive step forward and achievement with my campaign.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Wales Conwy Ted Simonds

The beginning of August saw the end of CATS, Children as Actors for Transforming Society, an international conference whose focus for 2014 was "children as advocates". A group of 4 young people from Funky Dragon travelled to Caux in Switzerland to help to run and also participate in the conference.

The conference brought adults and young people together to talk about and explore what children's participation means to them. The young people used the event to bring the current Funky Dragon campaign to #ProtectFunkyDragon to an international platform. Also, a young person co-facilitated a workshop on youth advocacy over the duration of the conference.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Scotland Glasgow and West Scotland Ewan McCall, Member of Youth Parliament On Tuesday 12th August I met with Council leaders in East Ayrshire to discuss a circulation of MYM Ballots across secondary schools and colleges. We agreed to have a trial period in the first week at my own school and then replicate the system across the councils 10 Secondary Schools and College. From this we hope to give every young person in the area the opportunity to have their say. I’m getting in contact with other councils within my area to make sure all of Glasgow and West Scotland can enjoy a high quality of youth democracy in such important political times. After a productive series of meetings with local MP Cathy Jamieson she will join me in schools to promote the MYM ballot effort. I am very passionate about the Vote at 16 campaigns and so adopted a Lord at the July SYP sitting. Along with this I plan to bring this campaign back to the area by speaking to schools and youth groups about it and how to get involved. I am also working with other young people on the local youth council to write a constitution to establish a greater independence from the council. We believe this will bring the area closer together and give young people an amplified say in local government. I intend to remain active, never lose sight of real work and grasp all the opportunities I can to make my term in office a successful and meaningful one.

John Gillies, Member of Youth Parliament During my term in office I will be planning to campaign for more activities such as classes, outings etc for young people in partnership with my youth complexes, schools etc. I believe that in doing this more skills will be gained by the young people in my area. In my area where I live it is known as a deprived area where there is serious drug abuse along with alcohol. I want to reduce that as much as I can and not only give young people another chance to attend the likes of college and university to follow careers in their new found interests but to give the area more role models to show that with hard work and respect to others people can live better lives.

Furthermore, I aim to improve Pupil Council's from standing in elections I feel as if the true message and lesson of these elections is overlooked resulting in people voting for the most popular in class. Not also that but I do not feel as if a lot of the councils are working to full capacity and it is seen as a 'Get Out of Class Card'.

To add I aim to achieve Votes @ 16 as this is something I feel very passionately about and something that will keep generations engaged in politics and breach the gap between young people and politics in today’s society.

To finish, I have been given a fantastic opportunity here with the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP). It is an opportunity not many get and it is true honours to be have given it. I intend to bring the qualities I hold to

Youth Voice: Positive Stories the UKYP and furthermore grab it with both hands.

To contact me: Email - john.riley.gillies.msyp@sypmail.org.uk Facebook Page - John Gillies MSYP/ John Gillies MYP

Thomas McEachan, Member of Youth Parliament Since I have been elected I have been in discussions with members of Glasgow City Council about what the city wide policy is on school bullying and how effective it is.

I am currently creating a survey to send out to a number of school pupils and teachers to find out what they think about school bullying policy and whether or not it works. I'll use this information to lobby councillor MSPs and MPs to gain their support for zero tolerance on bullying.

Nicole Dempster, 17, Member of Youth Parliament I was recently elected as an MYP for Glasgow and the West of Scotland, over my time as an MYP I am looking forward to focusing my time on the votes at 16 campaigns. I hope to engage with young people in my constituency on this issue. It has been great to see this debate so broadly discussed with the referendum so close in Scotland and I am really excited to have seen so many young people caring passionately about the opportunity they have to vote. I feel a key part of persuading decision makers to back this campaign will be based on the turn out in the Scottish referendum. For this reason I have spent the last month talking to 16 and 17 year olds about using their right to vote. I have spoken at the Scottish Women's Convention's youth conference. This was a chance for me to encourage young voters to register and also to inform them about why they should use their vote- not persuading them on how to vote. I was also involved in facilitating an event in East Renfrewshire engaging women through conversation. This was another chance to speak to young females (particularly young mums) about participating in democracy and using their right to vote. I so passionately believe young people's voices should be and need to be heard in politics. I want to both encourage young people to use this chance in the referendum, but I also hope to persuade decision makers to have this in place for all elections over my time as MYP.

Highland and Islands Katie Burke, Member of Youth Parliament There are so many issues for young people in my constituency with it being such a vast rural area.

Firstly, whilst in office I plan to focus on increasing local provision for youth clubs and forums to ensure all young people can be active and feel valued in their communities. As a start to this I'm taking part in the visit Scotland 'youth active expo' in our local areas which is a street fair style event showcasing what there

Youth Voice: Positive Stories is to do in our surrounding towns and villages. Rolling something like this out across my constituency is something I would be interested in pursuing.

More nationally I think votes at 16 are a major focus with the independence referendum so close and young people more politically engaged than ever before. We're nearly there, it's time for the final push!

Registering young people to vote is a big priority of the Scottish youth parliaments 'aye,naw,mibbe' voter registration project and will be a focus of mine also. Furthermore ensuring that on September 18th every young person makes an informed choice is crucial to me. Let's show decision makers that we ARE aware and care enough to use our vote!

Overall, I am very excited about my term ahead and would encourage anyone with queries to get in touch via email (Katie.burke.msyp@sypmail.org.uk) or like our local authority youth parliament Facebook page (Argyll and Bute MSYPs) to see all of our recent work.

Scott Simpson, Member of Youth Parliament My main priority is to continue with Votes at 16, which I believe the UK Youth Parliament is best to campaign for.

I'm also working on issues around isolation, public transport and lack of work opportunities, and I'm currently due to meet Rt Hon Charles Kennedy MP (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) to discuss these issues, which is a very serious problem for the young people in my constituency.

I'm also working with the Highland Youth Parliament on getting young people registered to vote, and I'm currently working with elected members of the Highland Youth Parliament to get young people engaged in the Make Your Mark ballot. I'm also trying to organise a meeting with Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) regarding Make Your Mark and youth politics in general.

North East Scotland Emma Farquhar, Member of Youth Parliament I would like to use my time as an MYP to push for Votes at 16. It just seems fair and I believe that it would be beneficial for all. It shows young people that they are valued members of society and it also gets them thinking about what is best for their communities.

I will work hard to get every school in the North East of Scotland voting in the Make Your Mark ballot. It is a great way to get young people involved in politics and to help them realise the issues that they really care about. Voter turnout in this country is worryingly low, especially among younger voters, introducing young people to voting at an early stage and getting them enthusiastic about it is something that I believe is crucial.

We have the opportunity in the Independence Referendum to show that Votes at 16 can be a great success. I have already heard so many conversations from young people that start about their vote in the

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Independence Referendum and goes on to discuss how to make our country better. It's great to see young people enthusiastically engaging with politics and looking to make the country a better place. I have held, along with the other MSYPs for Angus, an Independence Referendum debate for all the Angus secondary schools. This was to introduce them to the arguments from both sides and at this event we also worked to make sure everyone had the information needed to make sure that they could register to vote.

Eilidh Collins, Member of Youth Parliament During my time in office I hope to campaign on improving the quality of political education for young people. At the moment, there is a massive gap in the curriculum around politics - the result of a fear of politically influencing the voters of the future. I believe this needs to change, as it has led to a generation of apathetic voters. The only way to begin to engage young people in the democratic process is to provide them with the skills they need to make informed decisions. I have already started to engage with schools in my area, and explored the idea of the introduction of modern studies in my area. I also helped arrange a debate on independence for the young people of Angus, alongside the other Angus MSYPs. This helped inform a lot of young voters' to both sides of the argument in an impartial way.

South Scotland Mason Rowan, Member of Youth Parliament While in office I plan to campaign on careers advice to back up work experience.

Currently in my local authority, the set up for work experience is that each S4 Pupil will receive 1 week's work experience at a place willing to offer this opportunity - places may be provided via the school and chamber of commerce or by self-placements; i.e. at your dad's own company etc.

This opportunity is usually really enjoyed and well-documented by those who take part in it.

However, as much as we may enjoy it, is it really relevant?

The first work experience I had was in an insurance broker's. I have no intention of working in insurance and, even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I didn't feel I benefited directly from it.

I was then fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have work experience with the Fire & Rescue Service; which was great. Again however, I have no intention of joining the Fire Service and felt I didn't do anything that would directly benefit me in the area of work I want to pursue.

So, where do I go from here? How do I make the experience I gained relevant to what I want to do in the future? Not to worry. Careers advice will be available to help me, right? Wrong...

Careers advice in my school is offered inconsistently and a lot of the feedback I've heard from the select few who have received it is that it is really ineffective and a waste of time out of class.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Knowing that I'm not the only one who hasn't had careers advice; it is my belief that every school should implement it shortly after a pupil has been on work experience. This would almost force the pupil to think prior to work experience about whether or not the work placement they have chosen is relevant to their future career paths and it would subsequently help the person offering careers advice be more prepared with information in order to give the pupil what they need - advice.

As a result, it would also help the pupils to see how they can get onto their career paths with provision of possible college/university courses, and entry requirements, for their short term goals and what roles they would need to cover in order to climb up the job ladder to their desired destination in the distant future Last Friday I met with my local MP, Sandra Osborne who has agreed to help promote the Make Your Mark ballots with her colleagues in South Scotland. She will also issue a press release within the next few weeks.

I have got my Social Subjects department helping me and I will hold a lunchtime stall in my school to encourage as many voters as possible. If this goes well this week then I will be contacting all secondary schools in South Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway and the borders to ask them to do the same.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Support Worker Stories

East of England Hertfordshire Jasmin Payne, Youth Support Worker Hertfordshire UKYP; August has been another busy one, in between all the holidays and sunshine, MYP’s have been focusing on collating the last of the surveys that we have received from young people across the County. See Herts1125 for info.

Make Your Mark ballots have been received and some are already are busy getting young people in their local area involved and voting. They have set their targets high so fingers crossed for them that they get there!

Hertfordshire 1125; The second Herts 1125 meeting in July will forever be known as ‘Real Lives. Real Stories. Real Impact.’ A presentation by a member of HCC Community Safety team talked about the changes to the law surrounding domestic violence and this resulted in two of the 1125 members feeling safe enough to share their stories with the group. An emotional and insightful meeting that raised some very real issues faced by young people in their relationships.

Data has now been collated from the massive 4,442 surveys received back from young people in Hertfordshire that will form the Young People’s Manifesto 2014. The increase in YouthVoice in Herts is amazing; our very first Manifesto in 2012 received a total of 600 young people participating. In 2013 we saw it climb to 2503 and now, in 2014, nearly 4500 young people have had their say. Massive thanks have to go to teachers and youth workers for supporting young people to take part each year.

Herts MYPs have held writing sessions to discuss and evaluate the evidence received and are now starting to write the document itself.

The top five priorities that the 2014 Manifesto is focussing on, as voted for by young people in the HertsUKYP elections, are:Preparing young people for work Cheaper bus fares for young people during the school holidays

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Improving mental health services and education for young people Engaging young people to get their voices heard Tackling youth unemployment Launching in October – watch this space  We also have some bloggers amongst us. Some of our 1125 members have been busy blogging about issues that they feel strongly about. Alex, DMYP 2013 recently wrote about his experiences at the first day of evidence to the Youth Select Committee on this years national campaign, ‘Votes at 16’. You can read his experiences here, along with Marco, MYP 2013 and Samaya, a Herts1125 member at: http://hertsvoice.tumblr.com/.

Peterborough Jenny Humphreys, Support Worker We're having a very busy summer in Peterborough with engagement activities for our Looked after Young People as well as organising our In Care Awards for September and the launch of Make Your Mark! Make your Mark has got off to a flying start and on the launch day of 12th August we met with 80 young people participating in the NCS program and persuaded most of them to sign up as make your mark champions!

40 of them have pledged to get 50 votes each which will put us well on our way to achieving our goals.

Our Children in Care Council are looking at how they can revamp themselves with a new name and logo as well as helping me to plan the in care Awards and we have had some great ideas which I'm looking forward to make happen. We've also enjoyed a day trip to London, taking in the sites and catching a show, a beatboxing workshop, laserforce, ice-skating and theatre workshops! Who says summer is for resting!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

London Enfield Youth Communications Officer Enfield's Area Youth Forum is where young people aged 11-19 (and up to 25 with learning difficulties or disabilities) can get their views about local issues heard, discussed and acted upon. Enfield is split into four Forum areas. They were keen to find out what young people across the borough considered to be their top priorities for their local areas. They developed the ‘What do YOUth think?’ campaign aimed at giving young people the opportunity to make a selection from the following key topics: Area Youth Forum 4 kicked off the campaign a few months ago and ran sessions at Chace Community, St. Anne’s Catholic High School for girls and Enfield Grammar for boys to capture their top two priorities for the Enfield Town area.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories As members of Area Youth Forum 4 explain: “We wanted to have a fun and interesting way of capturing the main issues for youth in the area.

We therefore designed and created interactive survey boards as a quick and easy way of providing feedback. Participation was fantastic and we got views from just under 1000 young people.

“We discovered that the top two priorities for the young people in Area 4 are: Providing Jobs and Training opportunities for Young People; and Improved Sex and Relationship Education” “As a result we arranged to speak with Enfield Council staff responsible for services around public health and also Council staff supporting young people with jobs and training opportunities. These meetings were very informative and we also discussed ways in which improvements can be made” “One direct result of the campaign was working with the Council to create a very visible jobs and training presence on the Youth Enfield website (www.enfield.gov.uk/youth). There is a page dedicated to providing advice and raising awareness of jobs, apprenticeships and other learning opportunities for young people aged 16-24. The Jobs and learning opportunities page (http://tiny.cc/juf9fx) can be found under the Advice and Support menu on the Youth Enfield site and to increase its visibility there is a quick-link tab on the homepage too” “We are proud to have taken the lead with this campaign and will be supporting the other Area Youth Fora (Areas 1, 2 & 3) in conducting surveys in their respective areas too. Once all the surveys are done we will have a complete picture of what the main issues are for young people across Enfield. We will then join up and deliver more projects that will address these specific concerns. So look out for further updates which we will tell you about in future editions of Youth Voice: Positive Stories. .

Islington Raj Jalota, Support Worker Education and Career Planning and Youth Employment are two of the priorities which the Islington Youth Council is focusing on during their term in office. A substantial piece of work which the youth councillors have been involved in during July and August has been to make a formal submission to the Islington Employment Commission. The purpose of the submission has been to provide evidence in the form of case studies around the importance of impartial careers information advice and guidance and how this can positively impact on young people in terms of their employment and transition in to post16 options. The youth councillors have been determined that the voice of young people is heard and by making a formal submission, commissioners linked to the employment commission will be able to consider the recommendations made in the report. Islington Youth councillor also formed part of the panel which was responsible for the recruitment and selection and appointment of a Participation Officer.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North East Sunderland Support Worker To celebrate the success of the voice of children and young people in Sunderland we decided to host an away day at Moorhouse Adventure centre as a thank you. Over 30 young people came together from Sunderland Youth Parliament, Sunderland Young Inspectors, Children's Trust Advisory Network, Change Council and City Equals to work together on a number of team building tasks. The day allowed young people to mix with others from across the groups and to find out what decision making they have been involved in recently. All the young people thoroughly enjoyed the day of rock climbing, archery, bush craft and the best of the entire cube!!!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

North West Rochdale Support Worker MYP Rochdale Borough Leon Hollinrake took part in the “Tour De Pennines” event in Rochdale to celebrate the “Tour de France” coming through the area. He was part of a team which included Elected Members and Gail Hopper (Director of Children’s Services). The event was also to encourage young people to ‘get on their bikes’ over the summer to increase active sports and healthy lifestyles. The Youth Cabinet along with a representative from Oldham Youth Council were invited to meet with Full Council to discuss the League of Young Voters Campaign currently being run jointly in Rochdale & Oldham. The young people gave a presentation and asked for any help the elected members could provide. Following the meeting the young people were contacted by the Electoral Office to discuss how they can work together to move the campaign along and encourage young people to register to vote – and then participate in local and national elections. The League of Young Voters Campaign has now moved along with other areas regionally. The Greater Manchester Young Campaigners has been formed so that areas can work together across Greater Manchester to support each other to promote being involved in democracy at every level. Chris Marland (Youth Cabinet Member) also attended a meeting in London looking at how things were going nationally and to discuss good practice. He also established contact with Uprising, Bite the Ballot, NUS and the Intergenerational Foundation. Leon Hollinrake MYP represented the voice of young people in the Borough at an event held at Rochdale Town Hall to celebrate Pakistan Independence Day. He was just one of a number of dignitaries asked to support the event. Leon said that it was his pleasure to attend and to show support from young people in the Borough. He said it was a momentous occasion in history that should be celebrated and he was glad that Rochdale had recognised the day and helped celebrate it in this way.

I wanted the opportunity to help young people have a voice in my area. Rochdale is very good at listening to young people and I wanted to part of the process in a more active way.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Yorkshire and Humber Leeds Harnek Panesar, Youth Worker New Commissioning Advocacy Pilot Twelve young people gave up some of their valuable time over the summer to be involved in a new Pilot Commissioning Advocacy Group!

The voice influence and change team (VIC) are working with the councils Commissioning team to have young people involved in the tender for a new advocacy contract Young people from Leeds Childrens Society’s Asylum seeker group LEAP; young people from a local children’s residential home; local youth group and care leavers all convened at Leeds Civic Hall to give their opinions on what an excellent advocacy service should entail!

Their comments will be included in the specification and hopefully a few of them will be involved in assessing the applications and presentations for potential bidders! We hope this is a start of a successful partnership with the commissioning team, for young people to assess other service providers tendering services!

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Youth on Board Awards The Youth on Board (YOB) Awards are an exclusively youth-led rolling award scheme that Recognises innovative and exciting youth participation, both from young people and the projects And organisations that support them.

BYC's membership of young people wanted to celebrate the benefits of involving young people And encourage more organisations to engage young people in their work.

For more details and how to nominate, see here: http://www.byc.org.uk/trainingservices/ Awards/youth-on-board-awards.aspx

Innovation Award Criteria for the award: You’ll need to demonstrate how an innovation has met at least THREE of these criteria: • Increased an organisation’s ability to work with young people and support youth participation in decision-making • Enabled young people to make a significant positive contribution at a local, national or international level • Allowed young peoples’ creativity to shine • Inspired, empowered and encouraged the involvement of young people from a range of backgrounds.

• Increased youth leadership and given young people a voice in how the organisation is run

Name of Organisation/ Project: The Be… Initiative Between August and December 2013, a number of activities were undertaken by The Scout Association (TSA) to ensure that the content of the new Strategic Plan for 2014-18, Scouting for all, was shaped by young people, as well as to test different ways of involving them in strategic discussions.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories This involved physically consulting through existing local youth engagement forums, creating a dedicated micro site for young people to discuss ideas and an online survey focussed on Community Impact (social action).

In total, over 3,300 young people were directly engaged in discussing how our Strategic Objectives could grow, become more inclusive, create a positive impact in our communities and be shaped by young people in partnership with adults (TSA strategic objectives). The application outlines what was learned in terms of engagement of young people in strategic conversations, what they said when we did and as a result of both, what the Scout Association is going to do about it.

Name of Organisation/ Project: 2gether NHS Foundation Trust Children & Young People’s Board – Social Groups The Children & Young People (C&YP) Board meet regularly and feed into local and national developments in children & young people’s mental health. They have been involved with the national CYP IAPT Pilot and have made videos for You Tube, spoken at the national conference and held regional seminars, completed the ‘15 step challenge’ for all our clinic sites, developed leaflets and information for and about the service.

The idea of developing ‘Social Groups’ came from C&YP Board. They wanted to enable and empower CYP who have used or use specialist mental health services to have more of a social life. Having mental health problems can be stigmatising and very challenging to individuals who are anxious or depressed. They may need a lot of courage to walk into a room full of people and engage with friends and activities. The C&YP Board wanted a place where young people could meet and have some fun where they would be accepted and not judged about their difficulties and also which was away from the service. Members of the Board came up with the idea, planned what they might do, developed a programme, completed a leadership course and now run the groups with support from staff. The groups meet regularly in Gloucester and Cheltenham and they are open to all children and young people in the service. The initial ideas were greeted cautiously by the managers and clinicians in the CYPS service…that groups of young people could manage and develop the programme and also deal with any risk issues/relationship issues that emerged.

The CYP Board members put together a bid for a small amount of pump priming money and presented this to the Service Director. The funding was agreed and with support from the Participation worker the groups have been a success. The C&YP Board members are involved in their evaluation and will present their findings to the service in the future. The social groups are the first group network in Gloucestershire run by C&YP who have experience of mental health difficulties for C&YP who experience mental health difficulties

Name of Organisation/ Project: Redbridge Youth Cabinet Redbridge Youth Council established in 2004. The Youth Council offers a unique opportunity for young people aged 11 – 19 to be involved in local democracy. Over the years in Redbridge the role and creditability of the Youth Council in promoting youth involvement and advocating young people’s needs has increased. As a result, there have been increasing demands on the Youth Council to be the young people representatives on different forums in Redbridge including the Local Safeguarding Children’s

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Board, the Clinical Commissioning Groups Patient Engagement Forum, the Safer Neighbourhood Board, the Metropolitan Police’s Youth Panel and others.

In June 2013 the Youth Council created an innovative new structure called the Young Cabinet which mirrored the structure of the council’s adult Cabinet. The Young Cabinet was made up of a Leader of the Young Cabinet and finance, Deputy Young Cabinet Leader and resources; and Young Cabinet members for Children’s Services, Culture and Leisure, Environment, Transportation and Crime, Planning and Public Protection, Adult Social Services and Health, Housing, and Regeneration, Business and Communities. The existence of the Young Cabinet allows young people the opportunity to have directed, strategic, engagement with their shadow adult Cabinet members. The Young Cabinet has achieved increased funding for young people.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Roehampton and Putney Student Parliament The Roehampton and Putney Student Parliament are youth voice collaboration between every Primary School and ARK Putney Academy. Twice a term, the group meet to discuss local problems. Together, they find solutions and implement them. The group then feeds back to their respective schools the outcomes of their work.

Each Primary School supported young people to access the Student Parliament. Each young person volunteered to take an afternoon away from their core curriculum to attend these meetings. Peer educators led on the design of the agenda and session. They then led their individual sub groups. They gained leadership, communication and team work skills.

Each sub group are given tasks to do in the meetings and then asked to present back to the main group.

They gained presentation and team work skills.

In turn, they feedback to their schools, ensuring that as many young people as possible were involved in the local campaigns. Each young person has said they want to go onto: be a School Councillor, Youth Councillor, continue writing letters to their MP, feed into campaigns or be the next Prime Minister. The Roehampton and Putney Student Parliament has been such a success that all schools have pledged their continued involvement. Staff members for each school could see that youth participation is easy to implement. Through their proactive approach, they are now the lead workers in the consultation involving the redevelopment of Putney Train Station.

Inspiring Projects Award You’ll need to demonstrate how a project has successfully engage young people and has met at least THREE of these criteria: • Supported youth participation in decision-making • Enabled young people to make a significant positive contribution at a local, national or international level • Allowed young peoples’ creativity to shine

Youth Voice: Positive Stories • Inspired, empowered and encouraged the involvement of young people from a range of backgrounds.

• Increased youth leadership and given young people a voice in how the organisation is run

Name of Organisation/ Project: Arts in Fife The project aims to showcase local talent, exploring all forms of creativity. The idea was to support artists and creative people of all ages, giving them a platform to voice their opinion, talk about their artwork and also show their artwork in public. Target group is 18-30yrs.

Excellent project driven by Stuart with the support of other young artist from around Fife. While we are recognising the project it is very much the work of Stuart, with other young people assisting with its success over the year. Young people participate via the radio programmes or via the website promoting young people in a positive way. The project has given Stuart and other young artists the confidence to promote their work and continue to be inspired and keep going. The project is about getting the voices of fellow artist heard. Allowing them to shine.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Leeds South and East Clinical Commissioning Group Over recent years it has become clear that the pathway for access information about care and services in Leeds is confusing to a range of people including young people. In order to address this we decided to develop a web based service for young people in Leeds to provide them with information about emotional health and wellbeing and services that are there to support them. This was to be co-produced with young people. Young people have been actively involved in the development of the specification for the web based service. This has happened in several ways. Initially, a group of young people from a local school attended a workshop – where the chair of the CCG was present and were asked their views of existing websites. Subsequently, a group who have experienced mental health services (supported by Young Minds) were also asked for their views on what an emotional wellbeing website would need to contain and how it should look. Young people have been involved as co-authors of the project from describing what is needed, how the site should look, what information the site should contain and also been part of the management team deciding which parts of the specification suggested at the hack day move forward into the final specification. Young people will also be involved in the procurement of the web designer to produce the web service. Those that attended on the day were keen to be a reference group – as the web site and service develops to ensure it meets their needs and brief.

Young people have been involved at all stages of this development, from inception of the idea, to content, design and decision making; such a contribution enables commissioners to be more assured that the webservice will be accessible and used. Different ideas from young people have been incorporated along the whole process. Some of these have been around practical aspects of what the content should be but mainly this has been about creative ideas of how the website should look (for example the inclusion of You-tube videos, forums for group discussion etc.) and how they would want to interact with it and with the services that might be on the site in the future.

The young people who have been involved have come from a range of backgrounds. This diversity has been reflected in ethnicity, learning disabilities, gender, previous experience of engaging with mental health services, age and area of Leeds they live, (ensuring that areas of deprivation were represented) and also educational status.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories By involving young people at the very beginning, in co-producing the work and giving them free rein to input and challenge the managers running the project, we have aimed to ensure that young people feel that this is their project which we support and not the other way round. Feedback from young people has to be our bench mark for this piece of involvement and it has been encouraging so far. The young person who volunteered to be on the short listing panel tweeted, “had a fantastic day today at the Hack Day for a new young people’s mental health and wellbeing web site/service for Leeds”.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Young Project The whole YouNG project is about youth participation – getting young people up-skilled, letting them work on a range of relevant projects and getting them job- ready. On a wider level, by carrying out assemblies and spreading the word about the project to young people and adults, participation levels will be widened locally and hopefully nationally so reducing NHS costs. The Twitter campaign will also create a buzz on social media, again widening participation and engagement with this topic.

The young people themselves devised, designed and wrote all the ‘superhero’ material. This project engages their skills in terms of graphic design and improves their literacy and persuasive writing. Also this project is an example of corporate social responsibility and creating good citizens of the future. It will also hopefully help the NHS save millions of pounds and back-up the national NHS campaign which is educating people about where to go for the correct treatment.

It is a topic which they understand and is relevant to them. All the young people were very interested in knowing where to go if the felt unwell without wasting time and public money. The young people were inspired by creating something new and solving a problem, they enjoy the creativity side of the YouNG project and this was something they felt comfortable doing in a group. They could also see how they could get the messages out using Facebook and twitter which they use in their everyday lives. The young people have grown up admiring and following many superheroes from Batman to Power Rangers and so they have used the idea of familiar concepts to deliver relevant health messages.

In order to develop the young people’s presentation skills, at each assembly, one member of the young group will help deliver the presentation at a different school. This develops their confidence and selfesteem amongst peers. At the original design stage the group had to elect a team leader and decide amongst themselves what roles would best suit their individual talent and creativity, for example, one team member worked on the graphics, hand drawing their concept of superheroes, whilst another started writing copy and another decided on colours and possible Twitter messages.

Name of Organisation/ Project: NE1 Space2 This centre helps young people aged 11-25 with problems they may face. They have workshops designed by young people to help with finding job opportunities or help with housing, money, and education. They also cater for young homeless people by getting food from Greggs and finding them accommodation.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories This Centre is helped a lot because it’s easy to find, accessible to the disabled young people, and staff that listen to young people. They also have a mentoring and volunteering system to help as much young people as possible.

Spaces are getting involved in events such as pride and they are also setting up a stall for young people to run at their event and to take part in their parade.

Space to run a job club twice a week to help the young people get into jobs. They also run training opportunities and volunteer opportunities. This place also helps people with addictions by referring them to local places Space 2 has volunteers that decide on events every week by asking the young people what they want, which covers leadership and decision making.

There are over 1500 members and there is a huge amount of people from different ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Teenz Magazine A magazine from young people to young people. Different articles were written by different people. It has made young people around North Tyneside think that if the YP can write for a magazine, then any of them can. It has helped not just in local areas. The magazine has shown people that they can go out to free places rather than sitting in their house. It has again, given people the chance to get out and it easy for young people to read and want to write and contribute to it. All the Youth Council members had the freedom to write anything as long as the article reached the theme. It has opened up opportunities for young people to go to different clubs from cadets to football. Regardless of their interests, abilities gender or races. Contributions are often taken up by young people who are in care or had experience in care.

Talented young people from schools across North Tyneside have been expressing their views about the health and wellbeing issues affecting many young people today. Exam stress, self esteem, friendship exercise and health concerns are just some of the topics covered. The magazine can be read in local libraries and health centres as well as being available in schools and in the children and young people's section on the council website. Teenz is a free magazines written by children and young people in North Tyneside for children and young people. Sixth formers at St. Thomas More RC Academy were the team behind the autumn/winter edition of Teenz. Aimed at teenagers, they turn the spotlight on stress issues, how to relax and include top tips for improving self-esteem and living a happier, healthier and more positive lifestyle. There are features with the Young Minds charity, a school counsellor, the Bereavement Group and personal stories. Praising the publication, the Elected Mayor, Norma Redfearn said: "I've really enjoyed reading this fantastic magazine produced by such a talented group of young writers. They are a great platform for our young people to share their experiences, successes and unique view of the world with others. Although they're primarily aimed at young people, I personally found them very interesting and I gained a valuable insight, and a better understanding, of some of the many issues affecting young people today. “

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Name of Organisation/ Project: Sexual Health DVD It was a DVD to inform young people (and promote) a health service called the one to one centre.

The DVD outlines how to get there and what the service can help with. It was organised by the health and wellbeing group of the North Tyneside Youth Council.

It helps people not be afraid to attend a sexual health clinic.

We all helped organise where it was and what it entailed.

We worked together as a group to produce a very good and effective DVD to help young people around North Tyneside.

A few of us have been on the group for years (mostly 16-18 year olds) when some of us have different views and are younger.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Youth Forum The RMCH Youth Forum started in November 2002 and is now in its 12th year. Initially a one off engagement scheme it was a huge success from the beginning. Over the past years the Youth Forum has provided invaluable input to the development and delivery of hospital services for children and young people. Achievements included contributions to the design of the new Children’s Hospital, as well as active involvement in seeking feedback from patients so that we can keep improving the care we provide to young people. The Youth Forum is now working in close partnership with key staff in RMCH such as Matrons and Ward Managers. Members of the Forum have agreed the Priorities and Collaborative Working Proposal document which set out the priorities that the Youth Forum, in collaboration with the Trust, will focus on as we enter the Youth Forum's next decade.

The Youth Forum recognises that young people are best placed to tell us what it feels like to be a child or young person and if that comes with experience of receiving healthcare services so much the better. As a result of their presence and voice they now influence Trust Policy and procedure.

The Youth Forum now has meaningful links with decision makers both inside and outside the Trust. It provides a voice for young peoples’ thoughts on health issues and services provided not only within the hospital but further afield within the Greater Manchester conurbation.

Due to their well-publicised work other organisations have approached the Youth Forum for support.

Members have attended the RCPCH conferences and have contributed to and been members of the RCPCH Youth Forum contributing to the wider national agendas.

The key element that has contributed most to its success is the fact that the forum has received genuine representation by young people, with members of staff being present to support and guide the membership. In that respect, the members have been a vital pillar to the foundation of this Trust and for that reason they have succeeded in maintaining its existence and reputation, and also in receiving widespread recognition and respect.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Name of Organisation/ Project: ISYP Youth Service Youth Summit ISYP recently ran Sutton’ inaugural Youth Summit. In partnership with different Council departments, and the full participation of a young people’s working/steering group, a full day of interactive workshops, questionnaires, consultations and Q and A sessions was organised at Sutton Life Centre.

Attended by 46 young people from a variety of backgrounds across the borough, the event provided a platform for young people to shape council services through the different workshops provided, including CAMHS, Risky Behaviours, Sports and Leisure and Apprenticeships, the chance to answer direct questions concerning their fears and expectations, hopes and disillusions through an interactive digital questionnaire, and a full Question and Answer Session with senior decision makers from within the council, holding them accountable for their answers and responses.

The young people’s working group were crucial in determining the shape and inclusion of different organisations in the build up to the event, including short listing applications from workshops and choosing the agenda for the day. They were on the front line when the day of the event arrived, providing a significant resource to help the smooth running of the event, overseen by adult staff who were co facilitating it and organising the technical aspect of the Summit.

At a local level, young people have directly shaped and influenced the borough wide youth engagement plan for the next 12 months. Young people were given the chance to meet and share their opinions with people who make decisions regarding their futures. Young people have held accountable through questions and scrutiny, senior council decision makers, and used the event as a platform to express their views and opinions regarding issues in Sutton from a young person’s perspective.

The decision to ensure the event would be as inclusive as possible was made very early on by the Youth Service, and every effort was made to try and achieve this. The working group was made up of participative young people from Sutton’s Youth Parliament, members from Limes College who are from a hard to reach background, and disabled members of the group from Jigsaw4U, and young people from the Children looked after team. This allowed a wide range of ideas and opinions from a broad range of young people with different agendas and needs and wants, and allowed the aims and objectives of the event to be shaped by them.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Walking in their Shoes Walking In Their Shoes a continuing heritage themed project influenced by and aimed at young people in the county of Dorset after the success of its predecessor, Dorset Young Remembers, which celebrated the legacy of seventy years of the youth club network in the region and young people’s achievements. This project addresses the challenge of engaging the interests of young people and the history of their community in two distinctive eras. The first is the trail of an Anglo-Saxon monk, St Aldhem and the journey of a First World War soldier in a more contemporary period. The group worked together with an inclusive and diverse array of young people from various backgrounds and abilities that allowed them to work collaboratively on activities and as a result enjoy the work they were doing. The project also works closely to integrate young people with additional needs and develop their skill set in order to support their future prospects.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Other contributions included volunteers making presentations at supporting organisations, such as ‘Care South’, to inform the goals of the project and its successes. Walking In Their Shoes has also been given access to write a monthly column for the local newspaper of the area.

Volunteers have been able to lead sessions in the meetings to facilitate First World War themed workshops in order to achieve their Arts Award, where a young person was able to create activities that enabled others to participate and also demonstrate leadership skills in such a workshop. The project also conducts visit to relevant museums and centres to collect local evidence in relation to the historical aspects of the project, where volunteers who have a particular interest in areas such as military history are able to utilise their knowledge for the output of the project.

Make a Difference Award Criteria for the award: You’ll need to demonstrate how the individual has met at least THREE of these criteria by: • Making a positive impact to the running of an organisation or project.

• Contributing to an organisation or project over a period of time (minimum of six months).

• Inspiring others.

• Being inclusive to others and allowing others to have their say.

Organisation/ Project: Change Ur Mind (North Tyneside) Award: Make a Difference Award Winner: Kurt Atkins Kurt is a volunteer at Change Ur Mind, which tackles the stigma around mental health. Kurt attends different events and informs people of the campaigns. Kurt came up with the slogan “Labels are for products, not for people.” He has had meetings with people from the NHS and he has also met and worked with designers to create an information booklet on self harm.

Change Ur Mind has won a national award at the NCYUS awards. Kurt has always encouraged young people to get involved with mental health campaigns. He has inspired others to build their confidence and has encouraged others to be more open about mental health.

When Change Ur Mind meets monthly, everybody at the meeting gets to have their say on everything on the agenda. Kurt has helped others on many occasions to fill in mental health surveys. Kurt is friendly, approachable, kind, funny, open, diplomatic, considerate, a good leader, creative, mature, doesn’t discriminate, and is good with technology. Kurt stood for UKYP in North Tyneside taking part in the democratic process. Kurt is active in the North Tyneside Youth Council.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Organisation/ Project: Change Council (Sunderland) Award: Make a Difference Award Winner: Kieran Boyce Kieran worked hard with others to get the “leaving care grant” from £1400 to £2000, for when young people leave care and need funds for their household needs. Kieran has given young people who leave care, a better start to provide for their independent start at life.

Kieran is an active member of many groups in Sunderland including CTAN (Childrens Trust and Advisory Network) SYI (Young Inspectors – Sunderland) and the Change Council.

While being involved within these groups, he has encouraged his peers in getting involved in extra work and projects that are to the benefit of other young people.

Kieran represented the views of young people in care by participating in the “state of the city debate” several times over the last few years. He took the views of the young people from the Change Council and presented them in this debate supported by and supporting other young people.

Although he has recently experienced stress due to GCSE’s, he still keeps smiling and has encouraged others to engage in new/ongoing groups involving young people, making sure that they have their say in the Sunderland community. He finds this extremely important and he is acceptable to different ideas and opinions of young people

Organisation/ Project: Alcohol Policy Youth Network UK (North Tyneside) Award: Make a Difference Award Winner: Rebecca Moore Rebecca is the general coordinator of Alcohol Policy Youth Network UK. She coordinates the rest of the volunteers and meets with the decision makers to ensure young people’s issues are taken into consideration and a working on an appropriate campaign around being responsible with alcohol.

Rebecca has attended important meetings with university students around the UK and other members where she has organised and planned agendas for the meetings. Rebecca has encouraged others to drink safely and promoted safe levels of alcohol use.

She has looked at ways of inspiring business owners to create alcohol free social spaces. Rebecca has sent out group e-mails asking for opinions on a broad range of matters. She has worked with people from all backgrounds with no discrimination and has always consulted young people through surveys etc. Rebecca is friendly, approachable, kind, funny, open, decisive, considerate, mature, a good leader, considers people’s feelings, doesn’t discriminate, and good at public speaking. Rebecca was elected and is the current North Tyneside MYP.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Organisation/ Project: Darlington Children in Care Council Award: Make a Difference Award Winner: Liam White Liam is a representative of the Darlington’s Children in Care Council as well as a member of Darlington Youth Partnership (Youth Council). He is committed to every role he takes up and has recently written a manifesto for child poverty.

He has worked with the DCC for around 8 months and is starting to work with the new Darlington Youth Partnership and the Darlington MYP so young people can have their voice heard. Liam always faces new challenges with a positive attitude and strives for the best for youths. He has overcome personal and structural difficulties to ensure young people’s voices get heard. He works with different groups to support their voice being heard for the better in today’s world. Liam is a tireless advocate for young people and always approaches every task with a positive attitude.

Organisation/ Project: Teenage Cancer Trust Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: Stephen Sutton Posthumous Award During Stephen’s life, he was a blogger and a charity activist, committed to raising funds and awareness for the Teenage Cancer Trust, rising well over £4 million for the charity.

In January 2013 Stephen started blogging, Stephen’s Story and participating in events, encouraging a great amount of fund raising and highlighting the charity in the media, getting the support of celebrities and gaining a world record for ‘the most number of people making heart-shaped hand gestures’ in the name of his charity.

He was truly an inspiration, spreading much awareness of living with cancer, seizing the day and being a beacon of hope to people. He stood on media platforms and raised the profile of young people and those living with cancer. In his short life, he made an incredible contribution to society, inspiring people and gave them hope.

Taking a direct quote from this application to finish, ‘Stephen may not live on, but his legacy will and he is absolutely deserving of a posthumous ‘Make a Difference’ award.’

Organisation/ Project: Sheppey Matters Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: Travis Illsley Travis has been volunteering/working for Sheppey Matters since January 2013. To begin with he became involved with their community radio station, overcoming his shyness to become a radio presenter. Gaining

Youth Voice: Positive Stories technical knowledge Travis also supported keeping the station running and maintaining the reception area.

Taking an interest in fundraising he moved into the office and started applying for small pots of money to fund several small events for young people.

Over the last eighteen months Travis has shown himself to be a reliable and essential part of the team, working with old people, sorting out internet problems, solving storage issues and office cleaning. He has also come up with ideas and plans, persuading others to help him. He has gone on to launch his own community group (Swale Communities Together). He has a ‘can do’ attitude. As a mentor Travis works hard to help other young people achieve, taking any opportunity to pass on his newly acquired knowledge.

The funding Travis gains is made available to young and old alike, ensuring everyone has a say. He will find ways for people to express their selves, including using images and vocal recordings.

Travis is described as ‘a volunteer who goes above and beyond the call of duty.’

Organisation/ Project: Derby City YPSS Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: Kelly Heffy Kelly has been chair for the participation group for over one year, with the responsibility for coordinating a number of projects. She has instinctively encouraged peers to engage and take on leadership roles, as well as encouraging good attendance. Stepping down, she has mentored one of her peers to take over as chair.

Continuing as a volunteer, she now supports young people in developing their social skills, building their confidence and supporting the work being done within CAMHS. She has help to organise events which support individual therapy for young people, empowering them to make a change in their own life and others. She has met with potential service users and dispelling myths about mental health.

Kelly has contacted Trust members in order to get support and have a voice within CAMHS. As well as this, she has contributed to holding the organisation to account and establishing the participation project into the governance framework, by maintained the projects core function though a professional approach and modelling these expected standards for other young people.

Kelly will adapt her approach to ensure that she includes others and they are able to get their views across, while being considerate of individuals needs. Her work has also included attending events outside of the Trust and encouraging young people to do the same, again to expand the scope for young people.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories Organisation/ Project: Derby City YPSS Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: Leanne Walker Leanne was one of the founding members of Derby’s Participation group three years ago.

She is the Co-Chair of her group and has gone on to design an app which supports routine outcome measures. She has coordinated on her own design and worked in collaboration with others, including Clinical Managers, Directors and Chef Executives - NHS. Leanne has been an ambassador for promoting routine outcome measures. Her work has impacted on staff, locally and nationally, which has increased numbers using routine outcome measures.

Leanne has encouraged her peers to get involved and have a voice about their own care within the NHS. Through her work she has become a ‘key inspirational figure’ leading to the empowerment of other young people to engage in their own care plan/treatment.

Leanne has developed a film about self harm, with the intent to train staff and raise awareness. She has also filmed a project by young people for young people, proving feedback about CAMHS/Services. She is also coordinating a celebration conference in 2015.

Organisation/ Project: East Devon UKYP Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: George Downs In his two year term of office, as a member of UK Youth Parliament, George works to represent all young people, raising issues on their behalf, at district and parish council meetings and with other appropriate decision makers.

He has negotiated with his school governors to improve the PSHE curriculum and been nominated by his peers to represent them on the Government Young People’s Scrutiny Committee.

During his involvement with UKYP, George has learned how to engage with political protocols and how to engage Councillors at all three tiers of local government, as well as MP’s. He has also developed his confidence, presentation and negotiation skills.

George has led a Devon wide campaign, enabling young people to raise their concerns of cuts to Devon Youth Service, meeting with senior management and County Councillors. He has help organise a silent protest, a protest march and for young people to speak at meetings. As a result Devon County Council is keeping open eight Youth Centres and increasing the number of staff in the new structure. Taking on a peer educator role during the campaign, he has motivated, encouraged and enabled less confident young people to speak out. George also ensures he feedback on what he has done to the young people he represents.

Through his involvement, George has enabled young people to become more confident, learn new skills and be more engaged with their communities. He has taken every opportunity to give a voice to the young

Youth Voice: Positive Stories people who voted for him and those who didn’t, ensuring that decision makers heard about the difference youth services made on young people’s lives.

Organisation/ Project: Foundation Generation Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: Andrew Taggart Andrew founded the organisation The Found Generation in 2012, a campaign group ‘that aims to tackle to current unemployment crisis...’ His volunteer role is as Director and general campaigning having led the organisation through a number of successful campaign projects, including campaigning for an All Party Parliamentary Group on Unemployment.

Andrew has actively recruited and managed the other young volunteers, developing and managing the website and Twitter account as well as supporting and responding to youth-led inquiries on youth unemployment.

At events, Andrew has spoken to and encouraged young people to take practical steps to improve their chances of getting a job, provoking discussion and inspiring young people to think about a problem relevant to their future. He has also challenge the employers, politicians and other panel members at events, with his feedback helping to contribute to an improved level of involvement of young people at the 2014 Youth Employment Convention.

Andrew is open to all perspectives on the young unemployment issue and encourages others contribution.

This is demonstrated by the fact that The Found Generation is a cross-party youth-led organisation which also includes members who have no political affiliation. He is also keen to represent young people’s views more generally too by supporting them through other events and inquires.

Organisation/ Project: Staffordshire County Council Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: Joe Porter Joe is a Member of Youth Parliament, Youth Action Kouncil (YAK) and his District forum since before 2013.

Having initially been in agreement with his local County Councils plans which would mark the end of the Youth Service, he reflected on this and decided to oppose this plan and support any campaigns to keep the Service.

As part of his decision to support this campaign, Joe visited schools, colleges and youth clubs with petitions, consultations and posters, attended demonstrations, a ’silent protest’ march, and met with his local MP, District and County Councillors. He talked to local residents, gathered views form young people and attended full Council, Cabinet and Scrutiny Committee meetings. In addition to this Joe also wrote articles and participated in interviews, raised awareness with many community leaders as well as encouraged others to get involved.

Joe acted as a representative and advocate, championing the concerns of his peers, also sharing his experience and knowledge from other campaign work, to encourage and inspiring them to get involved.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories He was able to remain positive and ‘rallied the troops’ when others became disillusioned. While the decision has been made to end the Service, It has been agreed that UKYP and YAK will remain in the Council – Joe is still working hard to ensure this happens and to hold the councillors to account.

Organisation/ Project: Action for Children Award: Make a Difference Award Young Person Nominated: CYPS Participation Group A group of young people, who are joint leaders, originally came up with the social group idea in summer 2012 – the groups actually started in April 2013. All being passionate about young people with mental health difficulties not suffering in silence, they came together.

Having all gone through their own emotional difficulties, they can relate to how a newcomer is feeling, and doesn’t put any pressure on the new person but by being friendly and approachable can offer support. They have inspired young people by showing others who come to both the social groups, and participation group that young people’s voices can make a difference.

Although it took the group a lot of time and courage to develop the social group plan and present it to managers to ask for funding towards the running of the group, this paid off. They also regularly meet with project staff and managers to reflect how well the groups are going offering ideas as to how to improve the groups. They have all been involved in the development, implementation and continued evaluation of the groups for almost two years and they are continuing to make a positive impact at every stage.

They help make sure that the social groups are kept inclusive, by being accessible to all young people who wish to join the groups, and are in locations that are easy to get to. They support all members of the groups to have their say, asking them for ideas as to what activities they would like to do, and making sure everyone is involved in the planning. They have also helped create flyers to give out in waiting rooms of mental health youth services, so that young people are aware of the groups, and know they can join if they wish.

Youth Led Award Name of Organisation/ Project: Sunderland Youth Parliament Sunderland Youth Parliament acts firstly as an information flow between the wants and needs of young people and the Sunderland City Council. An example given is that the young people requested the parliament to tackle discrimination in 2014, over the year the young people worked through NCS and others promoting positive images and labels in doing so represented young people’s views and request.

Their work on behaviour has been used by the Police Commissioner, and clearly has had an impact on social representation and become wide spread in credit. The organisation is entirely organised by young people as young leaders, Daniel Alceen, is democratically elected and chair of the team, setting the agendas for work concerning the parliament’s welfare and representation.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories The parliament’s behaviour survey, which was conducted by young people, concerning the police and young people, was adopted by the Police Commissioner for Northumbria. The parliament will continue to work and plan to help reduce crime.

Young people are encouraged to debate issues that are major to them, especially involving education. The parliament has close relationships with the NHS, City officials and others.

The Parliament is entirely open to all in terms of gender and ideology, ethnicity and class, and sexuality.

They work hard to maintain a close relationship with groups like city equals leading with mental health.

Working in this manner makes the parliament of young people socially representative to the greatest extent.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Wansworth Youth Service Consultation Wandsworth Youth Council has grown from strength to strength in the last two years and have a 35 member strong group. They choose what capaigns, events, accreditations and projects they want to run and take part in, as well as the designing, delivering and evaluating them. They have a number of mecanisums in place to report back their successes and failures to both young people and the local Cabinet.

Following a recommendation that the Youth Service be put out to tender, Wandsworth Youth Council asked to lead the youth consultation, to inform the specification and contract management. The project was then implemented by the young people. They created a film, designed questionarries, organised school assemblies, spoking directly to young people. They then colleted the information gained and ensured the every young person know what was happening next. As a result the final specification has been tailored to the needs and wants of young people within Wandsworth. They also recommended that they lead on the inspection of the contract, which has been accepted by the leadership team.

Given freedom and creativity, they designed a process that gave young people the space to say what they wanted, in a way that was comfortable and convenient for them, resulting in over 4800 young people being able to participate.

The Youth Council itself, has a diverse membership and age range.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Fully Focused Community (Productions) Fully Focused Productions is a youth led media organisation that uses the power of film to raise awareness, challenge perceptions and transforms lives. The project has been around since 2010, offfering disengaged and marginalised young people oppertunity to deveolp life skills enabling them to positively take controll of their lives and find a way into successful employment. It is made up of 19 young people from across London, leading all activities, and taking on key roles.

This project includes directing,producing, camera operation and editing as well as marketing, promoting and campaign creation. They are also involved in all aspects of projects management, lead on events, speaking at screenings, meetings and interviews.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories The young people are involved from start to finish in the production of their films as well as leading on workshops within schools, pupil referral units,prisons, colleges and other youth organisations.

They take a lead role in the all screening of ‘Riot from Wrong’, discussing the Tottenham riots in 2011, across their local area, the UK, Europe and other contries around the world. Through their work and by being role models and peer to peer mentors to other young people, the project is able to demonstrate how it has made a positive impact at a local, national and international level, directly reaching over 500 young people.

There is a rolling recruitment process with a maximun of 19 young people at any one time, with members mentoring new recruits. Members come from a wide range of social, cultural and economic backgrounds, with no criteria set to joining apart from an interest in the media and a willingness to take part.

Name of Organisation/ Project: Youth Scotland – Young people Taking the Lead Since October 2013 Young People Taking the Lead has been building and forming relationships with Young People to establish many new opportunities, which are being developed in full consultation with young people and born of young people ideas, needs and being reactive to their suggestions.

The project has worked and consulted young people in the creation and formation of its structure, for Young People Taking the Lead, new framework, guidance and organisation policy is being developed by young people for young people, in a "true" youth work manner, as equal partners.

As young people take up roles as young consultants, advisors and mentors, already young people are shaping new opportunities to become young spokespeople, peer mentors, peer educators, young grant makers, and now with the opportunity to work at local, regional and national level.

A Group of 12 Young Advisors and Mentors, created, planned, organised, delivered and reviewed a National Conference for Young Leaders and Volunteers, where over 150 Young People attended the projects. The organisation actively seeks and works with Young People from across Scotland, many of whom live in Urban and Rural environments, including Island communities and is open and welcoming to any young person who wishes to get involved.

Name of Organisation/ Project: The Found Generation The Found Generation has been youth-led ever since it was founded in 2012, to campaign on behalf of young people for national and local government to implement a range of polices to reduce and prevent unemployment. They also campaign for greater cross-party consensus. As a group they have provided written evidence to the BYC Youth Select Committee, attended numerous events and spoken to many employers, experts, charity and voluntary sector organisations and other young people about how to tackle youth unemployment.

The group actively consults with its own volunteers and actively reaches out to young people. They hold being ‘...youth-led decision making, creativity, endeavour and youth voice has been at the heart of all we do...’

Youth Voice: Positive Stories They actively go out and recruit a diverse range of young people as volunteers. They aim to consult as diverse a range of young people as possible.

Youth Voice: Positive Stories

Thank you for your submissions this month, we look forward to reading more positive stories next month.

Also we have The Youth on Board (YOB) Awards which is an exclusively youth-led rolling award scheme that recognises innovative and exciting youth participation, both from young people and the projects and organisations that support them.

Deadline for submissions is quarterly.

To apply see more on: http://www.byc.org.uk/training-services/youth-on-board-awards.aspx