Youth Engagement Report
October 2015
Since starting my employment in this role at the beginning of August I have been making links and building relationships with SCVYS member groups across the county. This has involved explaining how my role can benefit local young people and raising awareness about the up and coming events. I have also been in contact with other partner agencies, such as Healthwatch, YES-S (Youth Emotional Support – Staffordshire) undertaking youth engagement as part of the IAPT project, district councils, Staffs FA, Youthbox ,Changes and both district and County Councillors. The aim of this networking was to raise awareness of what SCVYS were doing, how this may be useful to their organisations and to help promote the up and coming engagement events.
How we promoted the events:
The remit for the contract asks for two Double District Youth Engagement Events in each Double District annually. The districts chosen for the first round of events were as follows: Leek, Rugeley, Lichfield and Burton on Trent. As well as meeting with groups and youth leaders, other promotional activities were undertaken, leaflets were designed and posted out to our members. The flyers went onto our website with links to the registration page, as well as within our Newsletter and a special email out which goes to our database of 199 recipients. Social media was used to promote the opportunity to a wider audience. The development workers also personally identified and invited young people from the most engaged of our groups to the events.
Quite a few of our groups work with “hard to reach” young people and ones that may not feel confident enough or able to attend the events. Where possible I met with those young people and undertook a very similar exercise, to gain their feedback, these cannot be quantified in the same way, but will be addressed in the findings. The groups that agreed to take part were, Tamworth Cornerstone Housing Association and The Young Farmers. I have also started conversations with Harvey Girls in Burton and Tamworth Boxing Club, to engage with their young people at a time and location convenient to them.
Overall Attendance
Total attendance / 102Total young people attending / 78
Average attendance at an event / 19.5
Attendance by Venue
Venue / Total Attendance / Young People / Adults / Councillor District or CountyBurton / 23 / 15 / 8 / 1
Lichfield / 15 / 9 / 6 / 1
Leek / 25 / 20 / 5 / 0
Rugeley / 40 / 34 / 6 / 1
What happened at the events:
The young people were sat around tables, with a youth leader/adult/councillor with them, to assist if they got stuck or needed clarification. Starting off with an ice breaker of the “sun always shines on” to get the young people and adults a little more comfortable. Then set ground rules and outlined what these events were about.
The young people then started on the first part of the activity, this was to discuss between them and draw a poster outlining things that affected them within the area that they live. Once they had undertaken this, they were all given a sum of money (£3200 in total) and asked to discuss what they would spend their budget on to improve the issues that affect them. Although a lot of the groups ignored the total, it provided a useful way of those groups identifying priorities and providing us with insight about what is most important to young people.
The final part of the exercise was aimed at getting the young people to think about and identify who they can talk to, helping them to influence change. This was to get young people thinking about what impact they could have as individuals and to realise that they do have a voice and influence within their own social group.
Findings from the events:
The individual findings from the events can be found at the end of the document. Recurring themes across the county can be found below:
· Lack of safe spaces for young people to go to, especially at night. In particular, young people did not feel safe in their local parks.
· Lack of public toilets available and the hours they were open as well as security issues around using them.
· Not enough Police officers available and police stations not being manned were another concern.
· Cost of Transport and lack of bus routes.
· Improving facilities at local parks
· Not enough to do in the evening.
What will happen with these findings?
These findings will be fed back to the Leaders Advisory Body in November, emailed to the relevant district and county councillors (especially those that attended or expressed an interest) and other partner organisations that have the ability to influence or deliver on the young people’s suggestions such as Police, Schools and our members.
The recurring themes will be used to shape the agenda for the leader’s advisory board meetings held each quarter.
The findings will also be fed back to Eve Wilson at Staffordshire Council so they can in turn be used on the Youth Box platform to further explore each of those topics on a much wider scale.
How will the young people be kept informed?
I will circulate the key findings round to all the youth leaders and ask them to disseminate to their groups, where possible I will visit the young people on their club nights and update them face to face.
What could have gone better?
There are always aspects within events that could have gone better, overall I believe that the events were a success, however there are a number of key learning’s to be taken away from them, which are:
1) Spread out the events:
Have the events spread over a greater time period: Due to contractual constraints it was understood that the events needed to be undertaken in October, due to Half term it was felt that the first two weeks would be best. In future I would recommend that there be no more than 3 events per month.
2) One district events:
Have “more local” events in each district rather than double district events. From the feedback received both at the event and while promoting the event, it was difficult for young people to travel to events that were not in their local area. Even though we could help out with transport cost and hire minibuses, it required a lot of goodwill on the part of the volunteer youth leaders and/or parents to help get young people to that event. In addition to that, with the night’s drawing in it will be even more difficult for young people to travel any great distance. It is also difficult when looking at results to accurately convey the differing districts people come from.
3) Greater Promotion:
Although we had a reasonable attendance to the first event, it is felt with further promotion, and establishing connections and relationships with schools this attendance can be improved upon. As mentioned above it is felt that having the events “more localised” will also help to encourage attendance. A marketing plan will be drawn up to promote the up and coming events, it will include the use of social media including twitter and Facebook, direct marketing (email) and face to face visits.
4) Involve Young People in shaping the event:
I will cultivate a working group of young leaders to help shape the future of these events. The young people will advise on what they feel would make the events fun, well attended and will be offered the opportunity to co facilitate the event for experience. I have identified a group of young people who are willing to help me shape the up and coming events.
What are the plans for the future?
I will be working closely with Phil to create a timetable of events which will be made available to the council 1st week in December. This will include all up and coming local events, timelines for feedback and also some ideas agreed with young people for the future of the Leaders Advisory Body to ensure that the young people and councillors both get a lot out of the events.
I am also in early stage discussions with Big Local in Heath, Uttoxeter about some potential youth engagement work being undertaken there. I aim to support this within the remit of my role, and will explore the potential of a variety of youth engagement programmes to connect and involve young people in the future development of their community.
UK Youth Parliament
One of the actions that came out of the July Leaders Advisory Board for Fiona and Councillor Ben Adams, was to look at ways that the UK Youth Parliament could be reinstated. A working group was formed and consists of interested young people and two SCVYS team members to facilitate, Councillor Adams has also been instrumental in helping shape how the vision can become a reality.
There has been great progress made on how this can be as suitable and low cost as possible, with a view to making itself self-funding. As an organisation SCVYS can help the young people apply for grants and funding to help pay for the costs of the online voting system, travel and marketing costs. The role of facilitator and coordinator will be undertaken by myself as part of her Engagement role.
The current issue with this is the uncertainty around the SCVYS contract beyond July 2016 and whether the UK Youth Parliament will be supported by whoever wins the lead bid.
Fiona Squires
Engagement Coordinator
Tamworth Cornerstone Housing Association:
A slightly different event, there were 10 young people in total, varying ages. It was much more of an informal chat as opposed to undertaking exercises but the main issues that affected those young people were as follows:
1) Stigma attached to living at Cornerstone
2) Lack of job opportunities
3) Difficulty accessing information on line, especially jibs as they only have internet on their pay as you go mobiles, none is provided at cornerstone. They would like to be able to find out about job opportunities in other ways as access to the internet is a barrier to them.
4) Transport and cost of transport is difficult
5) Finding out about volunteering opportunities
6) Not enough for them to do
7) The difficulty of saving to live independently when the rent for Cornerstone is so expensive.
The Young Farmers:
Jane and I were invited to the young farmer’s regional meeting, where all the districts across Staffordshire were represented. The main items they identified were:
1) Lack of Broadband and mobile services in rural areas
2)
3) Pot holes in the roads
4) Leisure facilities are expensive and difficult times for young farmers to get to
5) Phone boxes only taking cards and not coins
6) Lack of street lighting
7) Lack of lighting on the Stone to Eccleshall road.
8) Poor bus services for those in rural communities
9) Lack of banking facilities in Eccleshall