Salford Children and Young People’s Partnership Board

“Involving Children and Young People: what more could we do”?

Sally Withington October 14th 2005.

Challenge to the Board

• Why do we want to involve young people?

• Which young people do we want to involve?

• What will happen as a result of their involvement?

•Participation does not just mean “taking part” or “being present”

•It should mean having real influence over decisions and actions

•Feed back is essential – we need to be able to show young people how they have changed adults’ opinions and actions

“Sometimes when you ask for something to be changed they don’t do anything. They don’t give a reply. They don’t listen to you. They should at least give us a reply”

4 levels of Participation

1. The views of children and young people are taken into account

2. Children and young people are involved in making the decisions

3. Children and young people share the power and responsibility for making decisions

4. Children and young people make their own decisions and are helped to implement them

What level do we want in Salford?

Think about this situation:

Adults ask young people if bullying is a problem in schools. They tell them it’s getting worse but head teachers say they are stamping it out. The police say that they think things are improving.

What would we do if this happened in Salford?

Who plans the participation?

• How are Salford children and young people shaping how they will be involved?

• Who decided that membership of the Partnership Board was the best way?

• How can we make sure that their views really do shape what the Board does?

Best Practice

• Haringey, Kingston, Birmingham, Essex and Suffolk all held a “Have Your Say Event” where children and young people decided how they would participate.

What more could we do?

• A Shadow Board made up of young people that considers items and forms a view that is brought to the full Board by our young people. Sandwell is doing this

• Older teenagers could manage consultation with younger children. Southwark is doing this.

• Children and young people contributing at every level of council processes: Youth Parliament, Shadow Scrutiny Panel. Telford & Wrekin is doing this.

• Gateshead has a youth Assembly that links with Schools Councils and is chaired by ex LAC

•Lewisham votes each year for a Young Mayor – 7,000 young citizens voted for this year’s Mayor. He/she has a budget of £25,000 to spend on improving the lives of young people.

•In Lambeth the Youth Council carried out peer reviews and inspections of the library and youth services – they decided from what needed to be improved.

•In Haringey young people delivered presentations to Councillors- around the 5 Outcomes. One said afterwards “I hope you use our ideas because we are the future”

•Young people in Lambeth said that the Stop and Search practice of the police worried them. They were given the money and help to make a video about what the problem was. The video is now used to ask other youngsters what they think. The police also learned from the exercise.

Barriers to Participation

Young people said they needed to know:

• What kind of participation do we want?

• How much/ how often?

• Where and when?

How would we answer them?