Agenda item

The Assembly received the Barking and Dagenham (BAD) Youth Forum and Young Mayor’s Annual report, introduced by the Head of Participation, Opportunity and Wellbeing, who was accompanied by representatives of the Youth Forum.

This report detailed the achievements of the BAD Youth Forum during the past 12 months outlining the work of each of the sub-groups, their aims and the impact of the work completed. 

The BAD Youth Forum was in its 19^th year. Its purpose was to provide young people with a formal platform to express their views and be ambassadors for young people locally. In February 2020, the Forum held its annual election, followed by a full Forum meeting and team building session.

Despite the restrictions and difficulties presented to the Forum by the pandemic, the Forum continued to work together in 2020 and updated the Assembly on their achievements:

Community Action Sub-Group:  As the first lockdown began, the Community Action Sub-Group was discussing its focus for the year.  The Sub-Group decided to focus on domestic abuse, raising awareness amongst young people, highlighting what domestic abuse was, the different types and where to get support.  The Sub-Group were consultees for the Barking and Dagenham Domestic Abuse Commission.

Young Mayors Sub-Group:  The Young Mayor had picked Refuge for their chosen charity for 2020.  The Young Mayor attended many different events and spoke at the Women’s Empowerment Month Launch.  The Young Mayor held regular monthly meetings with the Leader of the Council to discuss issues for young people.  Despite the difficulties faced, the Young Mayor’s Fundraising activities continued to go ahead with items such as walking up Mount Everest in their own homes.  One of the forum members was a victim of a serious car accident in 2019 and it took him a long time to learn how to walk again.  As a personal challenge the forum member challenged himself to walk as far as he could to raise money for Refuge.  To date the forum had raised £1006 in 2020.

Young Inspectors Sub-Group:  Young Inspector training began in March 2020 however due to the first lockdown, it was cancelled along with any planned inspections.  Instead, the Sub-Group worked with Youth Councils in Havering and Redbridge to prepare a survey asking young people about their experiences in lockdown.  A second survey was undertaken during the second lockdown in November 2020.  The results indicated that there had been a significant impact on young people’s mental health- more than 1 in 4 young people said they were not feeling good and young people expressed concern about pressures in education, which was the biggest concern of all.  The Sub-Group wanted to discuss the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and met with Barking and Dagenham BLM group who were very inspiring and also attended a workshop they hosted.

The Forum took part in other events during the year, including eight consultations, held two Youth Independent Advisory Group meetings and was represented by two members on the London Youth Assembly.

The Chair of the Forum attended different events during the year including

-  Overview and Scrutiny Committee meetings;

-  Safer Neighbourhood Board meeting; and

-  Chaired the Youth Independent Advisory Group meetings.

The presentation concluded with Forum member expressing how vital the Forum has been during difficult times and because of the this, the Forum Members decided to ‘leave the door open’ to any new members this coming year.

Following the presentation a number of Members congratulated the Forum on their excellent work and inspirational projects during such difficult times.  The Chair thanked the Forum Members for their presentation.