Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to consider whether they have an interest in any item on the agenda and if so, to formally declare that interest.

An update will be given at the Meeting.

Jackie Gower from the Children’s Trust board attended the meeting to give a follow up from the comments given around the Principles for Transitions. The comments given were incorporated into the Principles. These are being piloted in Education and Health and Social Care and are trying to establish whether the services are consistent. The Children’s Trust board will give feedback to a future Youth Cabinet meeting.

Jackie explained about the Peer Mentoring project and the Supporting No Smoking project which is being led by a peer support group. Jackie also explained that the feedback from the Circles of Influence will be being reviewed at the Children’s Trust Board meeting being held on 7 November 2013 to see what can be done to address the issues raised.

Jackie also spoke about the need to develop enterprise skills within young people and how the board can help to develop those talents within the young people.

Jackie invited Members of the Youth Cabinet to attend the Trust Board meetings and explained that were no young people present at them. She advised that the next meeting was due to be held on 7 November 2013.

It was agreed that the agenda from the Children’s Trust board meeting will be circulated at Youth Cabinet Meetings.

An update will be given at the meeting.

The Young Carers, Liam, Nya and Abby were introduced to explain to the Youth Cabinet what a young carer is. They played a game where they gave definitions of what a young carer could be, and the group had to decide whether they thought it was a description of a young carer or not. The definition given was ‘A person under 18 who cares for a sibling or a parent who has physical, mental, drug or alcohol issues’.

Liam explained that they attend the Young Carers group which has been running for a few years and meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. They have activities during the summer holidays, such as canoeing or rafting in the Lake District. They are solely funded by the Friends of Bury Young Carers charity.

Liam explained that it was a great stress relief and wanted to know what the policies for schools are regarding Young Carers. Liam explained his home situation and why he is a Young Carer and said that his schools do not understand his situation at all.

Parrenthorn School has a dedicated teacher for Young Carers and when raising money it fundraises for the Young Carers charity. Liam also asked if any schools the Youth Cabinet attended were looking for a charity to support that they considered the Friends of Bury Young Carers.

• Councillor Hussain asked how Liam fitted in his school work with his responsibilities at home.

Liam explained that it could be difficult and his school did not understand what his home life was like. He also stated that he was not comfortable talking about his situation at school.

• Councillor Hussain then asked how it affected his relationships with his peers.

Liam responded that it was very stressful and that it was hard to have friends as he has to be at home to help out a lot of the time.

Hannah Fisher, the Bury Young Carers Officer explained that the Young Carers group was vital for the young carers as it helps to have friends who support you and know exactly what it is like in their situation.

Liam explained that the Young Carers group was helpful in getting young carers to open up about their home life as they don’t feel judged by other young carers but they do feel judged by outsiders.

Cllr Vincent asked about how information could be better shared to schools about Young Carers who attend there.

Cllr Connolly said that he has met the Young Carers group before and that as far as he was aware the Council did write out to schools about Young Carers. He said sometimes a school might not know the full extent of a situation as the Young carer might not share information, but that he would make sure that all schools are informed about any Young Carers that attend their school.

The Youth Cabinet will discuss future meetings of the Cabinet, the attached Draft Terms of Reference and the Councillors’ role on the Youth Cabinet.

Kate Allam explained that Davina Hanley finished her role within the Youth Service and that Heather was still on maternity leave. She explained that there had been a review of the Youth Cabinet and that Davina had created a terms of reference for the Youth Cabinet and that Councollor Campbell had felt there was something missing about what the councillors role on the Cabinet actually is.

The members of thecabinet read the terms of reference and then gave feedback on questions that Kate asked.

The questions asked were:

1.    What is the role of councillors in Youth Cabinet.

2.    Could we make better use of their experience/knowledge? If so, how?

3.    Do we invite the right councillors to the meetings? Who decides?

4.    Do councillors need to attend every Youth Cabinet, or could we have some meetings more Youth focussed?

5.    Should Youth Cabinet invite specific councillors with particular responsibilities to ask them questions about council policies/decisions?

The feedback on the questions was:

1.    That the role of the councillors is to listen, take interest, and give opinions and advice. Other groups were not sure what the role of councillors was in the Youth Cabinet.

2.    There should be relevant meetings for councillors for specific topics e.g. schools, have a proper introduction to the councillors and develop relationships. Suggestions of a ‘meet your councillors meeting’ to get to know the councillors and their responsibilities within the council. The councillors felt like

3.    There should be decisions made for which councillors attend a meeting depending on the topic of the meeting. There should be more young people at the Youth Cabinet.

4.    Councillors are not needed at every youth cabinet; at least 1 councillor should be there, specific to a topic on the agenda. Being more focussed, having a set agenda for topics over the year, invite the right councillors. 1 group felt that councillors shouldn’t attend the Youth Cabinet at all. The councillors felt that the Youth Cabinet should be more involved in full council, that there should be a youth rep in full council meetings the senior leadership said no. They also felt the members of the Youth Cabinet should invite other young people to attend.

5.    Yes, it should have the same principles for council officers; they attend meetings that are relevant for their responsibilities. Councillors should help give solutions to issues raised.

It was discussed that Oldham Youth Cabinet has the freedom to campaign on issues and that some members feel that Bury is restricted in this sense. It was also explained that issues raised in Youth Cabinet are reported back to The Children’s Trust.

Feedback will be given regarding what decisions are taken at a future meeting of the Youth Cabinet.

An update will be given at the meeting.

It was explained what the Circles of Influence event was and feedback was given on previous events and future plan. An information pack was due to be produced promoting safe nights out.

The YPAS consultation has been completed and the young people had been involved with it.

Following the discussions relating to body image it had been agreed that labels be produced to stick to mirrors in public places to encourage good body image.

There will be an action plan made up for how to move forward with the feedback from Circles of Influence.

Emily and Laraib will report at the meeting.

Jamie Walker explained that the Youthforia debate was due to be held in November 2013 for all the Youth MPs. Emily Kay the youth MP for Bury will be attending the event and taking part. There had been a consultation of young people to decide which issues should be debated. There had been 250,000 votes cast in the consultation done in 2012, which had made it the biggest consultation in Europe. This year there had been 500,000 votes cast, with 62,000 coming from the North West region.

An update will be given at the Meeting.

Lizzie Cooke explained what the youth market would look like, and that it will be held in summer or possibly around Easter time. It will be fair trade. Barclays bank will provide trading training for all the young people taking part. A venue has not been finalised yet.

Kate Allam explained that the youth markets are part of trying to resolve issues of youth unemployment, and showing them the option of being self employed.

Emily Davidson suggested using ASDA as a venue, as she had previously had a good experience with ASDA being used to host a charity campaign.

Councillor Vincent suggested speaking to the Bury Business Forum for some advice.

Kate Allam invited the group to attend the poster making session which the planning group was holding. The leadership committee will be sending out invitations to the schools to encourage young people to take part. They are hoping for 20 stalls, and they will all be run by young people, who will have a business plan and profit margins.

India said they were hoping to have dancers and street performers at the market as well as stalls.

Feedback will be given at the meeting.

Lizzie explained that they had met up with the Bolton Youth Participation worker and they had explained how theirs worked, different schemes they run, and how they run a training session to teach young people to inspect youth services within the council. They have conducted a campaign on transport, and had sent out 6000 questionnaires. They also said they would like to see some joint working with Bury and Bolton, with some debates and joint campaigns.

Councillor Walmsley explained that she had sent out the meeting dates, and the feedback she had received was that the meetings had not been well attended by the Youth Representatives. She invited the young people to come to the Township Forum. She explained that Bury East had been debating how to make their township forum more approachable for a young person, they were setting up a subgroup, for the young people to attend to discuss what issues they wanted the youth representatives to bring up at the Township forum. Sandra said the Township forums are for everyone, and they want to improve the part young people play in them.

Councillor Vincent suggested that there should be an agenda item specifically for the youth representative to bring up any issues.

Councillor Walmsley explained that all chairs of the Township Forums have been asked to do that, to encourage young people to attend and take part.

Jamie asked about how a young person is selected to be a representative.

Councillor Walmsley advised that there was an advisory panel with one seat for a young person, but that the elections had already happened for this year.

There was some discussion about lighting in parks and safety.

There was also a discussion around a youth gym and the facilities provided at the fire station.

It was agreed:

1.     There should be a more focused inviting of councillors, and cabinet members.

2.     That the fire service could be invited to a future meeting to discuss the new fire training facility.