Agenda item

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 work throughout the year. 

A new Forum was elected in January 2015 and Angelica Olawepo was elected as the inaugural Young Mayor for the Borough. 

A number of Councillors paid tribute to the work of the Forum and what they had achieved in championing the cause of young people across a range of services which was clearly making a difference.  A number of questions were posed and responded to, which included:

Ø  Involving young people in decision making - The Forum felt that regular meetings with councillors would be helpful to promote more dialogue and understanding of young peoples’ needs. The Leader of the Council gave an undertaking to meet with the BAD Youth Forum Executive on a monthly basis. 

Ø  Further work on sexual health and Aids/HIV awareness issues - The Forum has done a video around sexual health awareness which is broader in its content than AIDS awareness alone and the Health and Wellbeing Board has commissioned several pieces of work through the Forum.  One area on which young people’s views are to be sought to help improve matters relates to the rates of teenage pregnancy which still remains relatively high in Barking and Dagenham. 

Ø  Further work in the schools - A newsletter for all students was proposed which would advise on the Forum’s activities and point students where to go to seek support and advice from their peers.

The Mayor expressly thanked the Forum for the money raised at the car wash day in support of her charity and commended the great work the young people were doing as the future leaders of the community.

The Assembly formally noted the Forum’s annual report for 2014 and congratulated all the Forum members who were present for their hard work and commitment.