Issue - meetings

The Assembly received the BAD Youth Forum’s annual report for 2014, introduced by Erik Stein, Group Manager for Youth Services, who was accompanied by Chloe Kent, Adeola Ajayi, Sharon Obens, Ryia Bernard-Jones, Viroshan Gnanapandithan, Angel Olorode, Roshelle Mitchell, Faraz Hanif, Joe Fuller, Rao Khan and Danielle Mitchell from the Forum.

The Forum was made up of 70 young people who were elected from schools and youth groups in the Borough in January 2014.  Amongst the initiatives undertaken by the Forum during the year were the creation of two sub-groups to focus on ‘Raising a Positive Profile for Young People’ and ‘Teenage Pregnancy and Sexual Health’, alongside a third standing group, ‘Young Inspectors’. The Forum representatives gave a presentation on the work of each of the sub-groups as follows:

Raising a Positive Profile of Young People - A number of events were organised by the sub-group to promote a positive profile for young people, which included helping elderly residents at the Bennetts Castle Lane Care Home, a car wash in aid of the Mayor’s charity and a litter clean up day at Pondfield Park. The group also worked on a short presentation to raise awareness of World AIDS Day, creating information cards for distribution throughout the Borough’s schools.

Teenage Pregnancy and Sexual Health - Having had various discussions about the importance of sexual health education in schools, the group devised a range of activities, short films and exercises for students to participate in.  The group also worked with a Health and Personal Development Advisor to develop lesson plans for use by teachers alongside the other resources, to be delivered to schools during 2015.

In order to purchase some of the resources to be, the sub-group successfully bid for a Think Big grant from O2 for the bid limit of £300.

Young Inspectors - Following training led by the Terence Higgins Trust, the Young Inspectors sub-group was commissioned to carry out inspections of pharmacies, to check on correct condom distribution, and sexual health clinics.  A report was completed following each inspection on the positive and negative aspects of the services provided and recommendations made on how to improve the services.

Other key aspects highlighted during the presentation included:

·  Two members of the Forum had been elected to be representatives on the UK Youth Parliament and the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Forum had attended all meetings of the Children Services Select Committee, contributing ideas for the Select Committee’s work plan focussing on supporting more primary schools to become outstanding as well as giving views around the Council’s budget savings proposals.

·  All forum members had the opportunity to work towards the Youth Achievement Awards, mostly at bronze level, while Paul Cox, then Chair of the Forum, received a Gold Award, the first time this had been achieved by a young person working with the Integrated Youth Service. 

·  In December 2014 the Forum was awarded the “Inspiring Project Award” by the British Youth Council for its overall  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51