Youth Summit Every Child Matters workshop summary

billb — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:34:25 +0100

The five workshops involving young people and a range of policy makers and practitioners were a highlight of this two day event. Here is the report from the workshops, giving a rich amount of information

Youth Summit Ten Commandments - from Bishop Roger

tim — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:17:15 +0100

At the closing of the Youth Summit - Chair of the NYA, Bishop Roger Sainsbury set out his 'Ten Commandments' for those at the Youth Summit. We've managed to track down a copy of them here...

YOUTH SUMMIT TEN COMMANDMENTS

Do not demonize or use young people as scapegoats for the social ills of society.
Do not be afraid of speaking out about the value of good youth work.
Establish entitlement for all young people to good quality youth services.
Involve young people in decision making at every level and give respect to their views.
Campaign both locally and nationally for sustained and sufficent investment
in services for young people.
Create youth centres / hubs in each community with access in respect of
transport, physical access , equality and diversity.
Work together with other public services to encourage young people to
choose health.
Campaign for a defined programme of continuing professional development
to increase the skills of all who work with young people and promote better multi-disciplinary working.
Recognize the right of all young people to locally accessible, free , confidential and impartial information, advice, counselling and support.
Encourage and enable young people to participate in buiding peaceful societies based on human rights, diversity and inclusion , in a spirit of respect , tolerance and mutual understanding.

BISHOP ROGER SAINSBURY
CHAIR - THE NATIONAL YOUTH AGENCY

Participation Works

tim — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:51:21 +0100

Web Link

http://www.participationworks.org.uk

Video

Righting wrongs - the implications of adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child

billb — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:20:42 +0100

Check out the Rights Stuff link where we have added presentations, briefings, a quiz and other resources for you on the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Youth Summit Live: Summary

tim — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:26:10 +0100

The Youth Summit has been a great success for all those who attended, bringing together practitioners, policy makers and young people to discuss the key issues affecting the implementation of the Government’s ten-year strategy for children and young people. A wealth of ideas, debate and dialogue were generated, the most relevant of which have been captured as video interviews, podcasts, powerpoints and transcripts downloadable from this website. We will ensure it informs our work as we move forward and hope you find it valuable as well.

Throughout the Summit we were recording workshops and plenary sessions through Youth Summit Live. Below are links to some of the key posts in each theme.

Staying Safe

Summary workshop notes from day 1: assessment of the challenges and a full list of day 1 workshop notes give an overview of the staying safe topics covered. The workshop was led by young people from Corby using an attitude finder activity
Discussions of the harm caused Mosquito devices played a big part in the workshop, as the young people from Corby tell is in this video interview and as a workshop participant reflects in this one.
Workshop notes from day 2: priorities for action give a sense of the issues that participants wanted to take forward.
Darshna from Churchfield Primary School also used the blogging feature on Youth Summit Live to offer an imagined advice column to young people on issues of bullying.

Being Healthy

The summary workshop notes from day 1: assessment of the challenges in health give an overview of where we are falling short for young people, with all the different issues identified covered in this post.
Workshop notes from day 2: priorities for action gives a wide-ranging list of priorities from the health workshops, focussing in particular on funding and investment, better sex and relationship education, and improved training and sharing of good practise.
A what's changed example and two videos from the Maypole centre help explore some good practise sharing
Plus - we captured the launch of Youth Access's new resources on commissioning mental health services for young people

Enjoying and Achieving

The workshop notes from day 1: assessment of the challenges build up a clear picture of where change is needed.
Young people from NACRO Newcastle who led these workshops put enjoying and achievement into practise whilst at the summit - by making the most of their London visit and working hard to build a presentation overnight including their photos from around the city that fed into day 2.
The workshop notes from day 2: priorities for action identifies a range of campaigning, spending, policy and practise changes required.
A presentation from Actions Speak Louder highly commended project Rolling Base

Having Economic Wellbeing

The workshop notes from day 1: assessment of the challenges set out some serious topics for discussion on day 2.
But as the woorkshop notes from day 2: priorities for action show - the group generated practical forward planning ideas and shared examples of where action to ensure young people economic wellbeing can work.
We also capture Anthony Lawton's three tests for good housing through Bill's blogging and a discussion has developed on this blog post about gangs placed in the economic wellbeing category.

Making a positive contribution

The making a positive contribution workshop notes from day 1: give a wider ranging assessment of the challenges, added to by points from the young volunteers helping lead the session
The notes from day 2 with priorities are here. The group had a particularly interesting set of discussions about compulsory volunteering.
Mike from Yomo, watching Youth Summit Live whilst working in Ireland, shared some background resources that might be useful for organisations exploring young peoples volunteering and participation.

Plus - outside the core themes of the Youth Summit we had lots of activity on Youth Summit Live. This poem started of a wave of creativity, surfed by Barney from conference organisers NSA with this poetic input. Holly Hill proved to be star blogger, regularly dropping into the media centre to share her reflections. Plus - Tom Wylie's suggestion that there be a national Youth Board sparked a lot of discussion, including an online poll and a couple of video interviews.

Where next for Youth Summit Live?

The Youth Summit Live website will continue to be available and open for contributions for another couple of weeks. After that, we'll pause the ability to add information - but will keep it available so that practioners, policy makers and young people alike can share the collected wisdom and insights of all Youth Summit Live contributors.

The National Youth Agency, supported by Practical Participation is starting a deeper exploration of how methods like this can help us to communicate with and deepen our dialogue with young people and other NYA stakeholder alike. We'd welcome your continued comments, reflections and input.

The Youth Summit Live model

Youth Summit Live was concieved, designed, developed and run in just under a fortnight by Tim Davies of Practical Participation, working with the organising team for Youth Summit live from the National Youth Agency and Neil Stuarts Associates. It was championed and supported by Bill Badham. The Roving Reporters team made the media happen by roving through the Youth Summit gathering photos, reports and more. If you have any feedback about Youth Summit Live; you're interested in exploring how a Youth Summit Live style model could work at an event you are running; or you are interested in wider explorations of how new media can work for your organisation or project, please do contact tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk.

Darshana's Spiritual Area 2

XtroblemakerX — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:51:41 +0100

Dear Darshana
Life may not always go as planned one day you might be happy and another sad. One day you laugh joke and be happy and the very next you cry sulk and go through severe pain. You see I have this friend she is one of my best friends we usto have the best time togetherPlaying laughing and making up jokes. After a year of being best friends she just suddenly changes and starts acting like a big bad bully I don't know what to do. You are my last hope please tell me how to deal with this situation.

My advice

Tell your friend how you feel don't hold in your feeelings. If you do not think you can face her write her a letter as detailed as the one you have written me. If after that she still continues to do what she is doing. Then tell a teavher and see what happens. However if none of these ideas work start to take things seriously and tell the deputy head or head your self.

Todays Spiritual thought
Though there are many hurdles in lifejump over them and continue the race of life.

Do you need any help with anything Email me Darshana and I will see how I can help you.

Young People in Malawi - Africa!

masyomo — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:25:13 +0100

The young people involved in supporting this project became involved by volunteering after they had attended courses themselves. They're from a broad range of backgrounds from different areas of the UK & Ireland.

Our work in Africa has largely been about a different kind of challenge for the young people that volunteer with us to deliver our training. In the UK we work with many of the "most deprived" areas and often hear about where communities we work with 'rank' on the indices of deprivation etc. Our volunteers are from these same areas - so this is a separate challenge working with people in 'absolute poverty'.

The average life expectancy in Malawi is just 36! It is by all measures one of the poorest countries in the world. And yet in the Zomba region we worked in two young men - Ernest & Giles are trying to make a difference. We're supporting them for at least the next 3 years because if people can make a difference in those circumstances they definitely can over here!

In this film Ernest talks a little about the Grace Orphan & Disabled Care Group and their hopes for the future. You can read more about the programme on the YoMo website at www.yomo.co.uk - just click on the link on the front page. You can also send donations by sms text message by texting 'YOMO' to 82070

If you'd like more info please use the forum on the YoMo site.

Life

XtroblemakerX — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:10:47 +0100

Life
Life is not a fairy tale
It does not always end happily
Fear may rise in you
And never find a way out
So you must live life joyfully
And enjoy what you have
Whilst it lasts
Because the last breathe you breathe is the breath of life in future
To do this you must
Search through your soul
Have the strength to stand up tall
The power of not knowing and letting go
You must find a way to reach happiness and to do that
You go through hard times and endure many tears
At the end you will be free from all the bad things and live a new life
The most important thing is
To believe in yourself and be you.

Remember live life and treat it as the greatest gift in life that you can think of.

Churchfields Soundwaves project

Roving Reporters — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:59:03 +0100

Pupils from Churchfield School have been interviewing attendees at the Youth Summit Conference describing their experience as “fun, exciting and amazing”. The pupils found interviewing the MPs a particularly special experience making them feel “like officials” as they questioned their understanding of the environment.

The group learnt a lot from their experience finding it interesting to see different people’s understanding on the word ‘environment’. “I got to learn that different people understand things differently”.

The school is part of the soundwaves project funded by the Ministry of Justice

In the end...

Tal — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:57:40 +0100

Soo.. only the last session left then the day is done. Its gone kinda quick and has been really intense, but Ive enjoyed it loads! Looking forward to seeing the outcomes of the outcome of the event be put into practice.