Issue - meetings

The Assembly received the BAD Youth Forum’s 15^th Annual report, introduced by Erik Stein, Group Manager for Youth Services who was accompanied by representatives of the Youth Forum.

The Forum was made up of 60 young people who were elected from schools and youth groups in the Borough in January 2016.  Amongst the initiatives undertaken during the year was the creation of sub-groups, which considered the following:

Mental Health and Voluntary Work Sub-Group:  The Sub-Group focused addressing the stigma around mental health issues and how to get young people talking about the subject.  The Sub-Group developed a questionnaire for young people on a range of mental health and, arising from the results, made an infomercial to raise awareness, break the stigma and get young people to talk about mental health.  The infomercial was then shown to the Assembly.

Young Mayor’s Sub-Group:  The Sub-Group focused on the activities of the Young Mayor for 2016.  Various events were attended by the Young Mayor during the year and fundraising activities included a stall at the summer festival, attendance at the Youth Parade, non school uniform day, a bucket shake at ASDA and a Halloween Movie night.  In total, £1363.17 was raised by the Sub-Group for the Young Mayors chosen charity, Richard House’s Children’s Hospice.

Young Inspectors Sub-Group:  The Sub-Group looked at sexual health and undertook inspections to pharmacies within the Borough which had signed up to the “Come Correct” scheme.  The Young Inspectors undertook 125 visits to 29 pharmacies looking at the environment, whether a demonstration was received on how to use condoms, information about STI’s and guidelines for those who were under 16.  Feedback from each of the visits was given to the pharmacies and follow up inspections were undertaken.

Following the presentation, a number of Councillors paid tribute to the hard work of the Forum during the year, particularly in relation to addressing the stigma around mental health.  The mental health infomercial made by Youth Forum members was found to be very powerful and the Assembly asked that the video be placed on the Councils website and other of social media platforms. In response to questions, the Forum advised that the infomercial was filmed and edited by members of the Youth Forum.