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| Key Themes Healthier Communities and Older People Economic Development and Enterprise Safer and Stronger Communities Children and Young People
The overall aim of this theme is to improve young people’s chances in life. Our outcomes relate to the five target outcomes in the Children Act, taking into account key local issues in East Sussex. These targets are also reflected in the East Sussex Children and Young People’s Plan which was developed by East Sussex County Council in coordination with partners in the East Sussex Children's Trust. The main outcomes we hope to achieve are to ensure children and young people:
Focus on... Unite Participation - supporting children and young people's involvement in decision making The current Local Area Agreement (LAA) aims to enable young people to make a positive contribution to their communities and society as whole. One way we hope to achieve this is by increasing young people's involvement in decision making (LAA target 4.2). We are also keen to ensure that the services and facilities provided for young people across East Sussex reflect their needs. The following resources and materials have been produced to support practitioners and managers to build on current work to involve young people in decisions that affect them. About Unite Participation The Unite Participation team facilitates the meaningful involvement of children and young people in developing the services provided for them. This involves a wide range of activity from recruiting staff, supporting young people on decision making groups to project based evaluation. The team also supports other agencies to involve children and young people in service development through advice, guidance and practical assistance. Work to date has included mystery shopping, supporting participation in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, Hear by Right across the Children's Trust, running the Big Vote 2006 (the largest-ever youth elections), developing a programme for the East Sussex Youth Cabinet and using arts to consult children and young people on the Workforce Development Strategy. The team is also helping to develop student participation in schools. Through a combination of Hear by Right mapping and planning, and creative approaches including video technology, photography, interactive workshops and arts facilitation, the team seeks to ensure that the views of all children and young people, and particularly those identified as vulnerable, are heard and acted upon. Background The Children's Trust Arrangements Participation Strategy establishes a clear vision for engaging and involving children and young people in shaping decisions that affect them. After extensive consultation the strategy was adopted by the Children's Trust Executive Group in September 2006.
Hear by Right Hear by Right mapping and planning offers tried and tested participation standards for organisations to self-assess and improve practice and policy on the active involvement of children and young people. Links to briefing papers, mapping and planning templates and supporting materials are given below. Briefing papers: Booklet and PowerPoint presentation: Mapping and planning:
Refreshing: Learner Voice Refreshing: Learner Voice has been developed to help schools and colleges in East Sussex map and celebrate existing learner involvement while identifying and planning for improvement. The challenge is to embed participation of children and young people in their everyday learning and in the life of their school or college. Links to briefing papers, mapping templates, interactive sessions and supporting materials are given below: Briefing papers: Mapping template:
Interactive Sessions. These have been designed to enable you to gather evidence of learner participation from staff and learners in an engaging and interactive way:
Supporting materials:
The 'What's changed?' factor Children and young people shape services on a regular basis, for example, by contributing to reviews, a youth work session, or the Children and Young People's Plan. It is very important that organisations can tell children and young people what has happened as a result of their time and effort. It is also important that organisations can demonstrate the impact of children and young people's participation has on achieving targets like those in the Local Area Agreement. IMPACT is designed to support this. A short guidance paper and a master copy of the main IMPACT form is available to download below. Knowledge The Essentials participation toolkit is packed with creative participation activities which have been successfully used with groups of young people and practitioners. This resource is based on national standards and policies from Every Child Matters to the National Youth Agency/Local Government Association's Hear by Right. Please read through it, use it and adapt it for yourself. This Essentials toolkit is the start of a series. The next guide will look at Recruitment and Selection. Schools: We have searched long and hard to bring you the best toolkits and techniques to support you when involving children and young people. They are all tried, tested and come highly recommended. But if you do not see what you are looking for, try the 'Need some help?' section. Democracy Cookbook This excellent pack was produced by the Electoral Commission. It is an extensive educational tool aimed at youth workers, teachers and other democracy practitioners for use with young people. It provides the ingredients and recipes to explain how our democracy works. It is not possible to download the whole document in one go, so we have included three sets of lesson plans for you below. You can download other parts of the cookbook; order a hard copy of the whole cookbook, and access further information free of charge directly from the Electoral Commission website. Ideas Factory This is the home for all your creative ideas for involving children and young people. We hope to build a bank of ideas for people to dip into and use again. If you have involved children and/or young people using creative techniques and want to shout about it, please let us know: unite.participation@eastsussex.gov.uk or 01273 476 185.
Need some help? Unite Participation might be able to help with developing ideas or providing you with new techniques. You can also commission us to deliver work for you. This could include:
If you want to engage with young people using creative techniques, drop us an email at unite.participation@eastsussex.gov.uk or give us a call 01273 476 185.
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