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2011 Year Book

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Contents:

Elections Page 3

Campaigns Page 5

Other achievements Page 9

Evaluation Page 13

Statistics Page15

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Elections The elections for the 2011 Youth Cabinet

were held between 29th November – 10th

December, with the ballot count on 13th

December. In total, 1952 votes were

cast, this is approximately 12.4% of the

11-19yr old population, or approximately

34.7% of the Reading School population.

Counts from each school/group were as

follows:

Highdown 553

Reading Girls 326

Kendrick 315

Abbey School 315

Blessed Hugh Faringdon 197

Avenue School 79

South YES Team 65

East YES Team 23

DofE Group 23

West YES Team 19

North YES Team 18

CRED 15

Young Carers 4

Total = 1,952

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A total of 11 young people put themselves

forward as candidates. In the event,

there were as many spaces on the

cabinet as there were candidates, so all

who put themselves forward were voted

in (providing they gained a minimum of 50

votes). Therefore, the 2011 youth-cabinet

members were:

Newly elected: 2nd year: Aiden James

Aishwarya Lisa

Katrina Josie

Saraniya Faye

Alison Nicole

Sharon

Naeem

Changavy

Freya

Katie

Patrick

Those elected to roles were as follows:

Chair - Josie

Vice-chair - Aishwarya/Lisa

Admin - James

Member of Youth Parliament - Faye

Deputy MYP - Saraniya

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Campaigns

As in previous years, the cabinet decided

to run three campaigns. These were:

The following pages go through the

progress made through each campaign:

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Environment

Our Campaign Aim:

To raise awareness of environmental issues

amongst young people in Reading

Objectives:

1. Develop and roll-out an environmental ‘stamp-of-approval’ to retailers

and businesses, in order to encourage them to reduce their carbon

footprint & recycle more

Progress made - A great amount of progress was made with this objective

in particular; near the point of completion. The stamp was designed, with

an accompanying questionnaire to retailers completed. The advice and

approval of the Oracle was secured with everything prepared for a launch

in the new-year. A questionnaire for market research in support of this

launch was also prepared.

2. Use, and show support for, Earth-Hour, to promote the environmental

cause

Progress made - The environment campaign showed support for Earth Hour

through the radio show ‘SHOUT’ as well as through social networking

pages to promote the event around reading, and thus the environmental

cause. Therefore the objective was achieved.

3. Get the Christmas Lights turned-off as a way of raising awareness of

environmental issues.

Progress made - This objective was not met as we approached the Oracle

too late in the year (November) for them to consider it, however they did

show an interest for next year. We decided to concentrate our efforts on

the badge, as turning the lights on and off may have even used up more

electricity that leaving them on!

Any other comments about the campaign?

This year’s environment campaign was very successful, with a simple yet

important and effective idea brought to near completion. I hope that this

year’s cabinet see it through! Through our efforts concerning the objectives

and outside them (e.g. giving presentations on environmental awareness in

our schools and talking a lot about the campaign on the radio) the

campaign was made successful and we achieved to some extent the main

aim of raising awareness of environmental issues amongst young people in

Reading.

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Safer Reading -

With a Focus on Sexual & Mental

Health

Our Campaign Aim:

Improve access to sexual and mental health

services for young people in Reading.

Objectives:

1. Contact school-nurses in schools about the services they offer, and

deliver assemblies promoting health services.

Progress made: We used the cabinet members as a source of contact

between different schools in Reading. As a cabinet, each of us gave an

assembly to our year groups in our school about who we are and what we

do. We also included some information about health services which we

promote

2. Contact School-Councils, Head Girl/Boy Teams, and do other work, to

gather information about what young people want, and what is missing.

Progress made: We were able to compile a questionnaire to be sent out to

the school councils and the senior management teams in various

secondary schools in Reading. The aim of the survey was to see what sorts

of facilities were available to students and whether or not they were aware

of what was being offered at School. Although we sent the questionnaire to

every school within the region, we have only received two replies so far

and so were not able to make very much progress.

3. Ensure we have input and influence developments in these areas,

particularly around Juice and counselling services.

Progress made: We were able to have quite a significant say in the

redesigning of the ‘Juice’ posters and the ‘Juice’ website. Hopefully, now,

we feel that it would be more accessible to young people and hope that

they would be more willing to use their services.

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Things To Do, Places To Go

Our Campaign Aim:

Maintain and build on Things To Do, Places To

Go for young people in Reading.

Objectives:

1. Undertake research to establish what activities young people in

Reading would like to do, and what are the blocks stopping them

Progress Made: We completed this objective – we ran a survey in various

youth clubs and organisations, getting 121 responses back. We found out

that young people would like to do physical activities, such as Football,

Dance, Camping and Table-Tennis. The two main blocks to people

accessing activities are firstly, the cost of the activity, and secondly the

distance, or difficulty, in getting there.

2. Improve the promotion of current activities available for young people

Progress Made: The same survey told us that young people think the best

way to find out about activities is via social-networks. We have worked

with the Integrated Youth Development Service on this, and they have now

launched their own Facebook page for young people in Reading, to tell

them about activities which are happening.

3. Use links with Reading Transport to create new opportunities for young

people to travel to existing activities

Progress Made: We didn’t make much progress with this campaign, though

we did meet with the Chief-Exec of Reading Buses, and talked to him about

some of the issues with young people using buses, such as the price.

4. Work with Area-Forums and communities to assist them in creating fun

community projects

Progress Made: We used the Shout radio opportunity to talk about some of

the activities going on across Reading.

5. Work with organisations in the voluntary sector to establish and

promote their activities

Progress Made: We used the Shout radio opportunity to talk about some of

the activities going on across Reading.

6. Work with school-councils to provide Things To Do, Places To Go in

schools

Progress Made: We made some progress with this, in that young people in

schools were asked to complete the survey, resulting in hopefully a better

awareness of where to find out about the activities which are on.

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Other Achievements in 2011:

Radio-Station

The youth-cabinet were invited to appear

on the Reading4u community radio

station, to talk about their work and what

they hoped to achieve.

2 cabinet members, Josie & Aishwarya,

attended, along with Tom (worker), on the

15th March 2011.

As a result, the youth-cabinet were

offered a regular slot on the radio-station,

which they kept up until pressures of

exams etc made it no longer possible, at

end of September 2011.

Their show was called ‘Shout’, and

amongst other things, featured a regular

‘Justin Bieber’ based quiz!

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Childrens Trust Board Meetings

Youth-Cabinet members attended and

represented the youth-cabinet at three of

the five Childrens Trust Board meetings

in 2011.

Three youth-cabinet members chaired the

board-meeting on 23rd March very

effectively, including running a specific

activity around the Voice, Influence &

Participation Guidance at this meeting:

E-mail sent 24th March 2011: Dear Faye, Saraniya and Aishwarya, I just wanted to congratulate you on well you ran the Children’s Trust Board meeting last night. Your section on the VIP Strategy was the most interesting agenda point, and you did extremely well telling people to stop talking when time was quickly slipping away. Being as we started the meeting late, you managed to keep it to within 2 hours, which almost never happens! Well done and thank you. Esther (Esther Blake, Childrens Trust Partnership Manager)

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DVD

The youth-cabinet were asked to put

together a DVD around what young

people want from health-services, for use

within the new arrangements for

commissioning with GP’s:

The DVD has now been completed and

made available for use over the course of

2012.

Voice, Influence & Participation Guidance

The Youth-Cabinet have taken a lead-role

in the roll-out of the VIP Guidance

assessment. They have participated in

eight of the ten VIP interviews with

service-managers over 2011 (the

exceptions being West CAT, and Early

Years which was run by parents).

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Other Achievements/events

• Participated in residential with Area-

Forums and Children-in-Care Council,

on Isle of Wight

• Inputted into consultations for the

new Sustainable Community Strategy

and Children and Young Peoples Plan

• Attended the Children & Young

Peoples Plan launch event, and

delivered a section to the whole

audience as part of the agenda

• Developed links with other groups,

including hosting the West-Berks

Youth Council at a meeting

• Met with the Chief-Exec of Reading

Buses in an additional meeting, to

discuss the needs of young people

when using buses

• Held a public meeting as part of Get-

Involved week.

• Met with a range of visitors, including

a range of councillors, PCT staff,

Royal Berkshire Hospital staff, and

staff from within Reading Borough

Council.

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Evaluation

What can be Improved? The group were asked what they would like to see improved or

built upon next year, being brutally honest! These were the

responses:

Not everyone turns up for all

the meetings, so lacks sense

of continuity

Attendance has been rocky

No Local Democracy Day Get further with

[environmental] badge

Haven’t had good attendance More people should come to

cabinet and make it

interesting

Lack of progress in campaigns

(except environment)

Make it fun and interesting!

Make it so that, if you can’t

come, you have to e-mail Tom

More people need to turn up

The way dates and times were

sent out was not great – could

be done in newsletters, or

Facebook page.

Make it shorter!

Some campaigns took a while

to get off the ground

Some visitors took up [a lot of]

useful meeting time

In the middle of the year,

attendance was bad

Need to do more campaign

work

We seemed to lack some

organisation which meant

potential events had to be

cancelled, such as Democracy

Day.

As you can see, some of the priorities for next year must

include ensuring good attendance, that the group is well

organised and properly plan, and to hit the ground running with

the campaigns. The development of better lines of

communication are also needed, via Facebook for example.

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Skills Target The group were then asked to put sticky spots onto a target,

split into four sections – meeting new people, building

knowledge, developing skills and other. They were then asked

to place a spot on the target – nearer the middle (ie bulls-eye),

the better they felt that section had gone over the year. The

results were as follows:

Very

Good

Good Bad Very

Bad

Meeting new people 2 5 0 0

Building Knowledge 3 4 0 0

Developing skills 3 4 0 0

Other 3 1 0 0

The ‘other’ items picked out were ‘having fun’ (the three in

very-good), and attending other meetings (good). As you can

see, the group strongly felt that, on an individual basis, the

year had helped them develop skills and knowledge, have fun

and meet new people.

Diamond ranking The group were asked to pick the nine things which had

happened over the course of the year which they felt had had

the most impact. They were then asked to diamond rank them

– that is, choose the thing which had the most impact,

followed by the next two, followed by next three, then two,

then one. They had to agree on this as a group. This is what

they came up with (most impact to the left, least to the right):

Environment

badge

Shout

Make friends

& residential

Consultations

Making Videos

VIP

Interviews

TTTPTG

Survey

Reading Buses meeting

Climate conference

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Statistics

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Other Relevant Information from 2011

Total number of Youth

Cabinet Sessions

37

Total hours delivered 105.5

Youth Worker Face-to-Face

hrs

186.75

Some photos from 2011:

For any more information on Reading Youth Cabinet,

or to keep track of progress in 2012, visit

www.readingyouth.com, or e-mail ryf@reading.gov.uk