YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Aberdeenshire’s Youth Participation Update

January to March 2019

This newsletter aims to keep you up to date with youth engagement, action and representation in

Aberdeenshire. Updates are provided by youth practitioners and our members of the Scottish Youth

Parliament, Year of Young People (YoYP18) Ambassadors, Aberdeenshire Youth Council, Community

Youth Platforms and Specific Youth Issue/Interest Groups.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Contents include updates from

The YOYP2018 Celebration Legacy Event Aberdeenshire MSYPs & MSYP Elects Pupil participation Forum Specific Interest Groups • Banchory Skatepark Crew • Kemnay High Hopes

The Young People’s Organising and Campaigning (YPOC) Group LGBTQ+ Groups

Community Youth Platforms (CYPs)

North Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

• Peterhead Youth Platform

• Insch Youth Platform

• Huntly Youth Platform Banff Youth Platform

• Mintlaw Youth Platform

• Banff Youth Platform

• Turriff Youth Platform and TDJ Youth Platform

Central Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

• Ellon Youth Platform

• Inverurie Youth Platform

• Kemnay Youth Platform

• Alford Youth Platform

• Meldrum Youth Platform

• Westhill Youth Platform

South Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

• Stonehaven Youth Platform

• Banchory Youth Platform

• Aboyne Youth Platform

• Mearns Youth Platform

• Portlethen Youth Platform

Aberdeenshire Youth Council

Aberdeenshire Youth Bank

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

The #yoyp2018 Celebration Legacy Event

On Friday night the 22nd of February 2019 the #yoyp2018 ambassadors and young

people from Aberdeenshire Youth Forum with support from the CLD Work With

Young People Team hosted the #yoyp2018 legacy event at Meldrum Academy.

Over 200 young people, adults including councillors and MSPs attended the event.

The event was in two parts:

• 6.30-7.30 – An exhibition of #yoyp2018

• 7.30-9.00 - #18 legacy event

The exhibition consisted of 5 spaces to showcase:

• #YOYP2018 Event Films

• 52 Youth Voices Clips

• #yoyp2018 Competition Entries

• Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms/Specific Interest Groups

• Partners and Organisation

There was also entertainment from

Stuart Vetch, Archie Petrie (both

guitar and vocals) and Callum

Geddes (piano and vocals)

The #18legacy event consisted of:

• #yoyp2018 Competition Winners

• Performances by Ellie Clark

• The #yoyp2018 in summary film

• The journey for Aberdeenshire #yoyp2018 ambassadors:

Ava, Taryn, Sasha and #humanrightsdefender Clara Gray

We were delighted that we painted Aberdeenshire purple on the night for

#PurpleMap #PurpleFriday for LGBT Youth Scotland and LGBT History month.

The Aberdeenshire Council tweet with Taryn Fletcher presenting was also a top

UKGOVTtweet (ranked 14th in the UK)– so it’s great that our young people are

making such an impact. The event was covered in the Evening Express and the

Press and Journal. Thank you all and your young people for supporting the event on

the evening.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

#YoYP2018  Competition Primary Aged Category Winners

• Sophie Cooper – Torphins Primary School

• Niamh Evans– Ordiquhill Primary School

• Eve Whitehead   – Fettercairn Primary School

• Keo Black- Kinellar Primary School

• P6 and P7 pupils -Dunnottar Primary School (Overall Winner)

#YoYP2018 Competition Secondary School Aged Category Winners

• Jenny Duncan & Beth Mackay– Banff Academy

• Ross Duthie and Jordon – Fraserburgh Academy

• Alford Film Group – Alford Academy

• Ellon Youth Forum – Ellon Academy

• Leah Findlay – Mintlaw Academy (Overall Winner)

#YoYP2018 Competition 18+ years category

• David Donaldson – Aberdeen University (Overall Winner)

Winning film entries are highlighted in BLUE,

Ctrl & Click to watch.

The Key messages from the OVERALL

WINNING entries were:

• Choose Kind –

Dunottar Primary School – P6/7s

• Listen (to young people) –

Leah Findlay – Mintlaw Academy

• End discrimination towards Scottish

Gypsy Travellers –

David Donaldson

Cllr Gillian Owen, Chairperson of the

Education and Children’s Services

committee presented certificates to the

winners who were present.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Aberdeenshire’s MSYPs

The Aberdeenshire MSYP’s attended the 68th SYP sitting in

Midlothian. During the sitting both Josh Macrae and Sasha

Brydon led a committee in partnership with the Aberdeenshire

Alcohol & Drugs Partnership. The discussion was around

concessionary travel for people in recovery, this was supported

by members of the SYP.

Sasha also deliver a key note motion on behalf

of the social security committee. This was in

connection with public ownership of housing

to tackle homelessness.

On the Saturday evening the SYP held their

Awards event which is is an annual

celebration, held at the March National

Sitting, which recognises the amazing work

that MSYPs and their Support Workers do to

represent Scotland’s young people.

Sasha attended the British Youth Council

conference where the discussion revolved around

the age of voting and how to support other parts

of the UK to lower the age to vote.

As March 2019 was the last sitting of the current MSYP’s we would like to say a big

thankyou to them all for all their hard work over the last two years.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

MSYP elects

During March 15 young people stood for MSYP 2019 – 21.

Aberdeenshire filled its seven seats during a twoweek

voting period. Two returning MSYP’s were successful who

will be joined by 5 new MSYP’s. Welcome to Ross Gibb,

Chloe-Louise Henderson , Kaylah Miller, Josh MacRae,

Shona Stuart, Sasha Brydon, Isla Young.

The MSYP elects have already attended

a training session at the Scottish

Parliament looking at subject

committees and members’ motion and

campaigning skills. We look forward to

working with them all in the near future.

Pupil Participation Forum have spent the last two meetings working on the

following: They have amended the Health and Wellbeing Young Leader

programme. This is a programme where young people in school identify a health

and wellbeing issue in their local school/community and work with their public

health co-ordinator on actions to address this issue. This programme was led by

officers in Aberdeenshire Council but the Pupil Participation Forum have been

approached to run it instead. They now have the launch event and the showcase

event organised and have simplified the criteria. This will be promoted in schools

from mid-June 2019.

We have also continued to work on our wellbeing resource. We have narrowed

down the areas we will be working on to the following: time management,

resilience, self-esteem/self-confidence, social media and coping with stress. These

were considered to be areas that young people can advise other young people

on from experience. We have brainstormed the content of each of these five

areas and will now consult with the Aberdeenshire Youth Forum on what we have

done so far.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Banchory Skatepark Crew had a very successful trip to

Edinburgh which included a visit to the Scottish Parliament

and sessions in 3 different skateparks. After a very early

departure from Banchory, having loaded up our minibus

with the skatepark crew and our volunteers and a van with

bikes, scooters and boards, we arrived in

Edinburgh in good time for our meeting

with our local MSP Alexander Burnett and a

tour of the parliament.

We then attended First Minister’s

Questions, which we had prepared for by

watching it live the previous Thursday, so

we knew what to expect.

Having checked into our apartments at Leith we had a fast food lunch and then

made our way to Saughton outdoor skatepark where a great time was had by all.

In the evening we visited Transgression indoor park in Leith and after a restful night

we set off for East Kilbride on Friday and

had a superb day in Zone 74.

Some of the funding for the trip was

from our own Tesco Bag Pack, but a

substantial amount was from

Aberdeenshire Youthbank and we had a top up from South Marr Community

Safety Group so many thanks to both of those organisations for making the trip

possible.

Thanks also to our volunteers, Russ and Debbie Crichton, Derry and Megan

Douglas, our wonderful volunteer minibus driver Graeme Hansley and also to

Banchory Academy for supporting the trip and allowing an authorised absence

from school.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Kemnay High Hopes have been working hard planning and promoting this

opportunity for other young people to get involve. The opening night took place on

Wednesday the 13th of March from 6:00pm to 8:00pm however all are welcome to

come to the weekly meetings every Wednesday night at Kemnay Community Hub

from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.

Looking forward to welcoming you!

The Young People’s Organising and Campaigning (YPOC) Group

Getting it right for looked after children

We have had a busy few months. We are still working on a DVD to go along with our

latest Guide on “Coming into care and moving placements – Getting it right”. We

are meeting with Paul from the media unit soon to talk about how we can present it

visually.

New champion

We have also interviewed and appointed a new Champion for Looked after

children and care leavers, Councillor Anouk Kloppert. Anouk will work with

Councillor Anne Stirling and the YPOC Group to support looked after children and

care leavers and to promote children’s rights and corporate parenting within the

council and its partners. We are really happy to welcome Anouk to the role.

Twilight session

We had a session in February where we welcomed the members of the corporate

parenting group to our YPOC meeting. They told us how they were getting on with

the pledges they had made about how they could support us and we told them

about our campaign. We had a fun acidity to start which was great fun. It was a

good event.

YOYP Legacy event

We also had a stall at the YOYP Legacy event which was very successful.

Here we are with the Acting Head of children’s services, Leigh Jolly.

We’ve been asked to do other

training for people who are our

corporate parents so it looks like we

will be busy for some time to come.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

LGBTQ+ Groups

Meldrum LGBT raised the flag for the end of LGBT month

and promoted purple Friday at the YOYP

Legacy Event and helped at a stall asking

young people to sign the flag in support.

The Mearns LGBT group have had a quiet term

mainly focusing on advertising their ‘Safe

Space’ and updating their main notice

board. They organised a ‘Purple Friday’ event within Mearns Academy where

everyone wore purple and handed out free #CATALYST badges. The film ‘Love

Simon’ was promoted to guidance teachers and was shown and discussed in all S1

PSE lessons. The group are now looking to show this through the Mearns Community

Cinema and Mearns Library, as a free event possibly through the months of

June/July, so that members of the public and other year groups can have the

opportunity to see this film too.

They have been asked to come along and do a

short presentation at Woodhill House to support

IDAHOBIT on Friday, May 17th 2019 where they will

be reading out a short poem, sharing their Artwork

and speaking about an influential person who has

made a difference to the LGBT community

through the work/actions they do.

They are looking at possibilities of attending

‘Grampian Pride’ at the end of May and would

like to see about getting some guest speakers from ‘four Pillers’ and an ex Mearns

Academy pupil who transgendered through their time as a Mearns Academy Pupil

and is now a part time model.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Community Youth Platforms

North Aberdeenshire Youth Platform

Peterhead Youth Platform

Pupils have spent the last two terms

promoting LGBT awareness in their

school. They applied for funding

from Youth bank to help with their

project and were successful.

They have run a lunch time group “EMBRACE” on a Monday and have gathered

the thoughts of many pupils by attending PSE classes.

Recently they planned and organised a LGBT awareness conversation café,

providing lunch and selling LGBT

Merchandise.

Conversations at this event would suggest

the group achieved their outcome of LGBT

awareness in the school. Pupils spoke openly

about their

opinions

and would

like to see more from S1 upwards and have more

groups.

Monies raised will be used for future projects.

Youth Voice Peterhead –

Peterhead WWYP team have been visiting some of the primary school pupil council

sessions. Some schools have representation from all classes and other’s P4 – P7’s.

Sessions vary from weekly to monthly, pupils are elected, and sessions are very well

attended, they cover many topics and encourage fundraising to buy new items

that pupils want in the playground. One pupil council successfully liaised with

Aberdeenshire Council to get signs created and erected to stop dog fouling in the

school playground. We will continue to meet with these groups and link with pupils

as they move to the academy.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Insch Youth Platform have been working on producing a powerpoint around

young people and mental health from a local perspective , as well as recruiting

more members , having fun and looking at the local and wider issues that affect

them and what they can do . They have also attended some Aberdeenshire Youth

Events.

Youth Voice Huntly - DAVE

Over the last term the group has explored a diverse range of subjects which have

been raised either through their own direct experiences (home and school) or

responding to current news stories. This has

involved participation and debate, voicing their

own thoughts and feelings, listening to others and

being respectful of different viewpoints etc. During

this time, they have worked with art interns from

Deveron Projects at various methods of raising

awareness for campaigns eg. zines, printed posters

and badges, one session was supported by Grays

School of Art.

The group is

developing an increased awareness and

understanding on how political decisions affect their

lives and some have

already become

active citizens in the

community (local

climate action

group).

Work has commenced to develop an

understanding of how communities change and

develop by interviewing residents at Scott’s hospital about their experience of the

town when they were teenagers.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Mintlaw Youth Voice

Some of the group attended an AYF Meeting in Inverurie where they heard input

from other groups in the county, and they also took part in various workshops. The

highlight of the day for them was the Ceilidh in the evening!

In school, the group have highlighted the issue of queue-jumping in the canteen

and social area at break and lunch-time, citing occasions when no food was

available when they were eventually served despite having queued for a while.

Prefects who are meant to monitor the situation were not doing so. The group

contacted the Head Teacher and arranged a meeting with her and members of

the Senior Pupil Senate, where they spoke of the problem and made suggestions as

to how it could be resolved. The Head

Teacher took all this on board and

promised to include the monitoring in the

training of new Prefects after the summer.

Two group members are running a weekly

activity as part of the P7 Transition

programme. This takes the form of a

discussion group where the good and bad

areas of a designated subject are

discussed, and it is hoped some of the

young people will come to the weekly

Youth Voice meetings when they go up to

the Academy.

Next week the group is presenting their take on

Body Image as part of Mental Health Awareness

week by acting out how social media can affect

young people via photos and text messages, and

how it can be dealt with. They are having an open

meeting with healthy drinks and snacks and hope

others will join them at this event.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Banff Youth Platforms

Banff Youth Platform are now meeting on a Thursday

evening from 6pm - 8pm in the Deveron Centre.

We have joined forces with

the Deveron Gamers and

have now met twice as a big group.

Last week young people were deciding what to call

themselves and did an exercise designed to get

them thinking about what a Youth Platform could

be.

Some our members are going on the Aberdeenshire

Youth Forum residential this weekend so I'm sure they

will come back to the group fired up with lots of new

ideas.

Turriff Youth Platform are currently working on a recruitment drive for next session

and are going to be holding a door open afternoon on May 21st at Turriff

Academy. In addition, are planning an event before the summer holidays. The

group have worked on an anti-bullying campaign within the Turriff area to raise

awareness. In a wider capacity, the Youth Platform continue to attend

Aberdeenshire Youth Forum Events and supported the YOYP Celebration.

TDJ Youth Platform continue to meet regularly and participated in one event last

term at Monquhitter Primary School. The group have several events upcoming in the

Summer term which they are looking forward to. Each event has enabled young

people in the group to develop their leadership and teamwork skills.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Central Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

Ellon Youth Forum

Ellon Youth Forum (EYF) attend the Year

of the Young People legacy event where

their Anti-Bullying Video was showcased

in the Secondary School Aged Category

Winners. The young people brought their

parents to the event and everyone

enjoyed the evening, it was great to see

the achievements made by young

people throughout the year.

The Forum have been working together

on a project with the school garden

project on campus to create a memorial

structure for the memorial garden

They have been working with a local

company to access funding to purchase

the materials to build the structure. (for

more information check out the school

blog at www.eagerbunch.blogspot.com)

EYF planned and organised a team

building trip to Haddo House and Country

Park where they enjoyed a walk and talk activity with the Visitor Services Officer,

this was followed by a picnic lunch at the Pheasantry building and an afternoon of

team building activities. We were lucky to enjoy beautiful weather which meant all

our activities were outdoors.

Inverurie Youth Platform

The youth forum attended the legacy event where members Josh and Kyle were

comparing the evening.

The youth forum helped with the MSYP elections and manned the paper ballots

during break and lunch and encouraged others to vote.

The young people attended Aberdeenshire youth forum meetings.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Kemnay Youth Platform

The big push for KYVM this term has been to promote the group and encourage

new members to join.

We decided to host an open night in the CLD huts and encourage young people to

come along and find out more about the group and what we do. With help from

our workers we planned a fun session of activities and informal discussions so that

we could get to know each other and share our experiences of being a young

person in Aberdeenshire. We used some of our Youth Bank funding to order pizza's

and snacks for the night. One of our workers went to the school assemblies to

promote the evening and we designed a poster to go out on social media in the

local area.

On the night 5 P7s came along from the new S1's and we had a good laugh and

enjoyed a feast of pizza! Several young people said they wanted to come back

and get involved. Three signed up for our team building Break Out Games session

on the 28th April and are now attending the group regularly, which is great news.

The group has lots of plans for the next few months leading up to the summer

holidays....so watch this space 🙂

Alford Youth platform is being refocused. Following a campaign to look for new

members we have a number of interested young people. We have come together

but have not yet decided on a priority.

88 young people completed the Aberdeenshire Youth Forum questionnaire in the

Alford network. The new forming Youth platform will use the results as a basis for

identifying the area’s priority.

The original Alford Platform members

successfully engaged with the Alford

Academy Health and Wellbeing event in

February. They applied their learning

confidently by displaying the health and

wellbeing resource boxes they produced.

Some of the Health and Wellbeing

Resources

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

All 9 members of the Meldrum Youth Forum helped to organise

and facilitate the end of the YOYP 2018 Legacy event at

Meldrum Academy. The members played a pivotal role by

greeted friends, family and visitors to the event and escorted

them around the school to various workshops and

demonstrations. They also helped to tidy up the event at the

end of the night.

They are now in the process of making a short film to be shown to the 2nds year

pupils and the new first years when they come to the school in order to keep the

membership active at the forum and have a youth voice within the school.

Members of the Forum travelled to

Stirling to receive their certificates for

their work over the last few months on

the Education Learners Panel .Meldrum

Youth Forum

Westhill Youth Platform

Unfortunately, no one has been attending, and staff are looking at alternative ways

to re-launch the platform next term.

Meetings 12noon - 1pm at Westhill Community centre.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

South Aberdeenshire Youth Platforms

Stonehaven Youth Platform

One of the members stood as a candidate in the Youth Parliament elections for the

constituency of North Angus & Mearns. She was unsuccessful on this occasion but

remains committed to equalities and promoting positive mental health.

Others in the group identified exam stress as being an issue. They researched the

benefits of spending time with animals to reduce anxiety and found out about the

use of Therapets. After contacting Canine Concern, pupils experiencing

heightened exam stress will have the opportunity to spend time with a Therapets

dog during the exam period. The group plan to run this as a wellbeing session

offering healthy drinks, mindfulness colouring and a place to talk.

Banchory Youth Forum has recently been formed and are

expressing their voice and demonstrating social

commitment by agreeing on how to address their priority of

an anti-bullying awareness campaign. Aberdeenshire

Youth Forum youth survey showed that 86 young people of

the 174 respondents living in the Banchory area highlighted

bullying as an issue.

The Forum have involved Banchory Achieve Group who

have kick started the

campaign by designing,

creating and displaying anti-

bullying posters. The Forum

have created their own youth

questionnaire to find out more

information from young

people on bullying, its effects and access to support.

They will carry out their

survey at the beginning

on next term.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Aboyne Youth Platform has been busy as always this term members and have been

taking part in two Aberdeenshire Youth Forum meetings. Two young people took

roles as speakers at the legacy event of YOYP18 in February, one member attended

as one of the representatives for Aberdeenshire the North Sea Conference in

March, as well as promoting their opening afternoon to recruit members for Aboyne

Youth Platform with two new members coming to the initial meeting.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Mearns Youth Forum have been working on their Drug and Alcohol awareness

campaign and have developed a questionnaire around Drugs, Alcohol and

Smoking. These will be handed out to Mearns Academy pupils over the coming

months to gather the thoughts of Mearns young people and to ascertain what

would be the best way to go forward with an awareness campaign that’s fits the

needs of the Mearns young people. They have also been putting final organisation

into their “food for thought” campaign which aims to help with exam stress and will

run throughout the duration of the exam

period in May. They have organised the

free water, fruit pots and cakes for those

sitting exams and bringing the relevant

resources together for their information

display table. They are currently also

developing a recruitment drive to gain

new members for after the exam period

in May.

Four members of the youth

Forum attended the #YoYP 18 Legacy event in

February, where they shared the work the

Mearns Youth forum had done over the

previous year and their contribution to

#YoYP18. They put together an information

display board and a short show reel to show

members of the public their work. One

member helped to distribute the wrist bands

whilst another supported a group going

around the display areas.

They also took turns to stand by their display and speak to members of the public.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

The chair person, Isla Young, has attended AYLT

and AYF meetings and contributed to the future

planning of these groups for the upcoming year,

as well as planning and developing the #YoYP

Legacy event. Through being a member of the

AYLT, Isla applied for and was successfully chosen

to be one of the youth representatives from

Aberdeenshire, at the recent North Sea

Commission – Youth has a Voice Conference. This

event was held In Norway and was for young

people to come together to discuss how youth participation can be a part North

Sea Commissions decision making processes

in the future.

Isla also put her name forward for the SYP

elections which were held in March. Isla

created her election campaign, posters

and election information. She ran a very

successful campaign, speaking with young

people of voting age in both Mackie

Academy and Mearns academy.

Isla won the election and was voted in as the new MSYP for North Angus and

Mearns for the 2019-21 term with SYP, taking over from her predecessor, Lauren

McGill.

During the Exam periods next term, the Mearns Youth Forum will

not be meeting to concentrate on their exams.

Due to a reduction in numbers, Portlethen Youth Platform decided to relaunch

themselves. Invitations were sent to various schools, committees and community

groups, looking for representation. Twelve new members were enlisted,

representing primaries, the local church and LGBT groups. The group are looking to

develop actions in response to the recent AYF youth survey.

Meetings days and times have been changed and are now every second Tuesday

4pm - 5pm at Portlethen Community Centre

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Aberdeenshire Youth Council (AYC)

(Formerly the Shadow Youth Management Team)

Aberdeenshire Youth Council (AYC) met on the 30th January and the 14th February.

At the meeting in January the group discussed

• Membership/Residential/Purpose/Roles/Expectations/etc

• Recent Requests for Youth Representation

• Selection of Winners for the #yoyp2018 competition

• #yoyp2018 Legacy event programme

• Comperes/MCs at the event

• Entertainment

• Leaflets – Info on CYPs/AYF info sheet/SYMT Info Sheet

• Update on Norway Opportunity

• #YOYP2018 Participation Certificates

February Meeting

The group met at Meldrum Academy on the 14th February from 5.30-7.30pm to see

the venue for the end of #yoyp2018 legacy event. The Meldrum Youth Forum

supported the group and discussed the plans for the event.

Members of the group were key to the success of the event with members of AYC

compering the event, entertaining, delivering inputs and displaying information on

the group and supporting #LGBT history month, #PurpleFriday and #purplemap.

YOUTH VOICE MATTERS ABERDEENSHIRE

Aberdeenshire Youth Bank

Aberdeenshire Youth Bank members and staff met in January 24th 2019 to evaluate

together their experience with young people reporting an increase in feeling

confident and empowered to make decisions also to make an impact in their

communities. Young people have made great suggestions to improve Aberdeenshire

Youth Bank 2019-2020.

Three members represented Aberdeenshire Youth Bank in

Glasgow at Youth Bank Networking day on the 26th of

January 2019 where young people had the opportunity to

share their experiences and knowledge with other peers at

a national level.

Acknowledgements

Youth Voice Matters Aberdeenshire would like to thank all those individuals who

have shown support to Aberdeenshire’ s youth representatives and #yoyp2018

ambassadors over the period, by coming along and getting involved or

contributing to the newsletter.