The National Youth Agency - Participation News, Issue 7, January 2008

Participation News, Issue 7, January 2008

8 Jan 2008
Participation News Bulletin highlighting events for January 2008.

Policy

The Children’s Plan, launched in December 2007, sets out the government’s vision for children, young people and families, based on putting their needs at the centre of integrated services. It identifies three areas where it wants to strengthen the commitments made in Aiming high for young people: setting a clear goal that all young people will participate in positive activities and access a broad range of experiences; making further investment to improve places to go in every community; and improving information about things to do and places to go. Specific measures within the plan include an additional £160m over two years (2008-10) to improve the quality and range of youth facilities, shaped by young people.
Beverley Hughes, Children and Young People’s Minister, had previously announced further details of how funding for activities and facilities for young people is to be divided up. Funding will include £198m over the next three years for the Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund, including £25m to expand YOF in the most deprived areas.

Representing Futures, the final report from the Councillors’ Commission, which was set up to look at factors affecting people’s decision to stand for election as councillors, makes a number of recommendations to increase the involvement of young people in local government. They include placing a stronger focus on local democracy in citizenship education, requiring local authorities to develop youth engagement strategies, and lowering the voting age to 16.

The Central-Local Concordat has been agreed between central and local government. The agreement commits central and local government to work together to give people a clearer understanding of what public money is spent in their area and to shift more power to local communities. It also sets out key priorities which they will deliver together - including tackling anti-social behaviour, delivering good local services and providing more opportunities for young people.

The Children and Young People Bill, intended to improve the lives of the 60,000 children in care, has been published. Its provisions include ensuring that the voices of children and young people are heard when decisions are made affecting their futures, allowing young people to stay in placements up to 18, and providing personal advisors to support them up to the age of 25.

Practice

Children and Young People’s Minister Beverley Hughes is seeking views from those working with young people on the current youth sector support arrangements. Specific questions include: how to encourage better collaboration between government, national and regional organisations; how to help and encourage young people to influence policy making at the national level; and how to improve awareness of and access to funding and grants. The consultation deadline is 9 April.

There are a number of consultations requesting input from young people. These include

An online consultation allows young people to choose their ideal team of leaders for a youth project. The results will feed into a research report that will influence the future of training and development opportunities for managers of services for young people.
The NYA’s annual Youth Work Week theme for this year will focus on decision making power for young people, particularly when in control over budgets. Young people are being asked to suggest a name for the week. Contact Tim Burke with any suggestions by 6 February 2008.

The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) has launched a competition for places on the children and young people’s delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. To enter the competition young people (under 18s) must tell CRAE why their right to be heard and taken seriously is important, and why they want to put forward the views of children and young people in England to the UN. Entries will be judged by a panel of children and young people and CRAE staff.

Research

The NYA, in partnership with the Carnegie Young People Initiative, has released an interim report from research being carried out with two Children’s Trusts. The report, Evaluating the developmentof young people's participation plans in two Children's Trusts, examines the critical success factors in developing and embedding participation, using the Hear by Right standards across the Children’s Trusts.

The NYA has commissioned research into young people’s use of buses to access positive activities. The research, Accessing Positive Activities: Innovative solutions to young people's bus travel found that cost, availability, reliability, safety and the attitudes of bus drivers are the main barriers young people face when trying to use buses. It also states the importance of involving young people in planning bus services and recommends that young people are routinely engaged in and form part of the stakeholder partnership involved in transport planning and youth plans. An executive summary is available, as is a summary report for young people.
A free launch event highlighting this research is to be held in London on 7 February 2008. Delegates will hear a presentation from the author of the report, and from young people who have benefited from a concessionary fare scheme. For more information contact: Rita Kotecha

Funding and Awards

Minister for Children, Young People and Families Beverley Hughes has announced £9 million over the next three years for youth-led media projects giving young people experience of creative industries such as film-making, online and print news, and computer game design. It will build on the £6 million Youth Media Fund, now in its second and final year, which is managed by the Mediabox consortium. Mediabox will distribute the first £2 million of funding during 2008-09 and a tendering exercise will be held to identify a managing agent for the remaining £7 million for 2009-11. Further information is available from the Mediabox website.

The Big Lottery Fund has launched the Young People’s Fund 2: national grants programme. Grants of up to £5 million (with an average grant of £1 million) are available for projects that work with young people across England. The fund expects to support 20 voluntary and community sector projects for up to five years. Projects must involve young people from start to finish, must help deliver the ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes, and must have beneficiaries from two or more of the nine English regions. The closing date for applications is 4 April 2008.

vcashpoint is offering grants of up to £2,500 to young people aged 16 to 25 in England who want to set up their own volunteering project in their community, creating at least three new opportunities for young people to volunteer. A total of £1 million is available. There are two further closing dates: 25 April and 18 July 2008.

The Sheila McKechnie Foundation is offering awards designed to support campaigners. Its Shout Out! Awards are open to 15-18 year olds living in London who have an idea or who have already started to campaign. Those receiving an award will meet other young campaigners, receive £100 towards their campaign, receive coaching and attend an exclusive awards ceremony. Young activist is open to young people aged 16-24, from anywhere in the UK who are campaigning on a community focused issue with which they have a personal connection. Support offered may include one to one mentoring, developmental workshops and shadowing. The closing date for both is 14 March 2008.

The winners of NCVYS’s Young Partners Award 2007, which recognise young people’s involvement in decision-making in youth organisations, were Young Minds, Jackass Youth Theatre, Respond Youth Group and Access to Play. The awards are run by members of the NCVYS youth forum, who use their own experiences to develop the criteria for the award, shortlist the nominations and make the final decision on the winners.

The winners of The Philip Lawrence Awards 2007, which recognise outstanding achievements in good citizenship by young people, were announced on 4 December. The nine winning projects have undertaken a range of activities, including improving life on an estate, running a nightclub for 11-16-year-olds, tackling bullying and child exploitation and developing a youth cinema.

Resources

A range of resources on the participation of children and young people have been produced by The NYA.

The Hear by Right book, covering standards for organisations has been revised and seeks to strengthen the message to safeguard against tokenism.
The Hear by Right website has been revamped and contains a wealth of information, shared learning, details on how to get started with Hear by Right, stories of how others are using Hear by Right and downloads of all the resources on the CD.
A new video presenting an introduction to Act by Right, a skills workbook for young people along with new briefings, are available on the Act by Right website
A ‘What’s Changed’ booklet showcasing a collection of case studies focusing on a key element of the youth offer – Things to do and places to go - has been published. It is designed to showcase good practice and clearly demonstrates how young people can make positive, tangible change happen for themselves through participation.

Further information can be found on The NYA website.

The NYA has published two online leaflets for young people on the youth offer. there’s nothing to do around here and there’s nothing to do around here especially if you are disabled provide a guide on the statutory duty to provide things for young people to do, information on how young people can influence provision in their area and a case study on how young people can find out about positive activities in their local areas.

11 MILLION has launched its latest report for children and young people including a special feature on 11 MILLION’s Happy and Healthy project. This project has been working with children and young people around England to find out what makes them feel happy and healthy.

Events, Jobs and Training

CRAE is offering a training course for young people who want to find out about their rights. The Informed and Influential course will cover information about getting involved in Get Ready for Geneva, children’s rights and tips on being taken seriously by decision makers. The course will be held in London on 21 February 2008.

The British Youth Council, Governance Hub and the National Children’s Bureau are hosting two seminars, Board-er Control: Opening up governance structures to young people for organisations that want to know how to involve young people in governance and leadership roles. The seminars will be held in Leeds on 4 March 2008 and in London on 18 March 2008 (this is a new date). Please contact Paul Taylor at ptaylor@ncb.org.uk for more information.

Participation Works are offering free training to young people aged 16-25 to learn more about governance and trusteeship. Participation Works will pay for young people’s transport to and from the venue. The events are on 2 February 2008 in London and 8 March 2008 in Newcastle.

The Democracy Coalition for Children and Young People is hosting a Breakfast Briefing on: What does the Government need to do to engage with young people? with Government Minister Bridget Prentice MP and young people from the British Youth Council (BYC) and the English Secondary Students’ Association (ESSA). The event will be held in London on 5 February.

Participation Works is an online gateway to the world of children and young people’s participation. It includes access to information, resources, training and networking opportunities.

If you would like to find out more about The NYA’s work on participation, The NYA Participation Newsletter is available from the Participation Team webpages. It is published direct to the web every two months.