Agenda and draft minutes

Cllr. R E R Morris

Through the Basketball sessions on Blaby Road Park and the Boxing sessions currently running at South Wigston High School there are now individuals working directly with young people who can promote and signpost young people to the Youth Council once up and running.

The community usage of the Sports Hall at South Wigston High School was discussed as an extension of the Boxing sessions mentioned previously; it is believed that the school will manage the building during school hours and that a member of Everyone Active staff will be present for the afterschool and weekend activities taking place there. This is subject to change as the contract for the Sports Hall is currently being developed.

Roller skating previously took place at Parklands Leisure Centre but this isn’t necessarily viable now; the Sports Hall at South Wigston High School may well be a good venue for this project to restart. There are a number of existing community groups looking for venues to operate from on a larger scale than the Council’s current buildings allow for. The buildings would be good for ‘roaming’ Youth Council meetings but don’t lend themselves well to more physically active youth groups.

The Ritz building on Blaby Road was queried as a possible venue for Soft Touch Arts but this is now being turned into a pool hall. It may be suitable for a South Wigston based version of a youth pool project that had previously taken place at the Winchester in Wigston.

The Chair and M Smith highlighted their meeting a month or two prior to this evening’s meeting that took place at Elliot Hall discussing the Youth Council. It was hoped that more Partners would be present this evening to have input into the redevelopment of the Youth Council. Members heard that the Youth Council last successfully met in the February before the Covid-19 lockdowns commenced.

There needs to be buy-in from schools and existing youth groups to signpost young people to the Youth Council, but there needs to be an established plan for the Youth Council in order to ‘sell the product’ to young people who may wish to join. Typically the Youth Council has attracted ‘academically high-flying young people’ which does not lend itself to being full representative of Youth Voice in the Borough.

Previously the Youth Council met on a monthly basis at 7pm on a Monday evening. Part of the discussion the Chair and M Smith had is that this meeting time may prohibit some of the younger young people from attending. The Youth Council also only met in the Council Chamber at Bushloe House; taxis were utilised to bring young people to and from the meeting but this utilised the Youth Council’s limited budget. The initial intention is that the Youth Council, when restarted, meets every other month with the venue to alternate around the Borough to enable a larger cohort of young people to attend. For specific project work meeting times could be changed or extended to allow young  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

It was noted that a copy of the current draft Strategy document needs to be shared with CYP Forum Members to allow for them to comment on it. It is hoped that a final draft of the Strategy can be presented to the Council’s PFD Committee on 26 March, containing the 2022 Census data and allowing for any changes proposed by the CYP Forum to be incorporated into it between the CYP Forum’s February meeting and the date of the PFD Committee. M Smith will action this.

Soft Touch Arts have applied for funding for a project on Blaby Road Park; they are confident that they will receive the funding for an art and music project based on works they have undertaken in other areas of Leicester. The project will not run on the same nights as the Basketball sessions in order to allow young people to participate in both. The Basketball sessions and any outreach sessions will signpost young people to the Soft Touch Arts project once organised.

M Smith will double check the Mod.Gov mailing list for this Forum to ensure that the addresses it contains are up to date. The inclusion of Partners around the table at the Forum is key to seeing the Youth Council etc. being successful.

Cllr. Alam noted that one of the main issues facing young people now is mental health, and that there are now a lot of issues taking place with vaping amongst the youth population. It is hoped that through the development of a Youth Council it would be possible to put motions before the Full Council to support projects put forward by young people to address these issues.

It was suggested that as a further means to capture Youth Voice a number of focussed online forums could be developed to engage with young people on particular topics. Schools would be required to be a big supporter of these forums taking place as they would tie into PSHE and Citizenship topics within the National Curriculum.