Shrewsbury & Atcham
Borough Council

Report Of The Housing And Environment Strategy Manager To Culture, Leisure And Community Overview And Scrutiny Committee On 19th November 2002.

Involving Young People in Decision Making.

1.  Purpose of report.

1.1 To update members on how officers are working to involve young people in local decision making.

2.  Background

2.1 In February 2002 the Community overview and scrutiny Committee received a report on this subject that resolved the following:

• To support the Adoption of the Social Action Process as the model of good practice for engaging with young people.

• To continue to send out positive messages of support and encouragement to young people and to act as the champions for the engagement with young people within the council’s decision making process.

• To participate, where commitments allow, at an individual member level in the Social Action Process, with support and assistance from officers.

2.2  The need to engage young people is clear. In the 2001 general election voting among young people aged 18 to 24 was estimated to be as low as 39%. (The Electoral Commission 2001) There is also evidence to suggest that young people are not likely to get more interested in voting as they get older (British Social Attitudes 16^th report 1999). The Borough Council Community Safety Youth Survey conducted in November 2001 found that almost three quarters of young people felt that they should be involved in local decision making but nearly half did not actively feel part of their neighbourhood.

2.3  Whilst the national voting picture makes depressing reading it is at the local level that issues such as crime, housing and education can feel more real and relevant for young people. For example the Young Persons Community Safety Survey undertaken by the Borough Council is October 2001 identified that just over 40% of young people surveyed had been a victim of crime and 60% did not feel safe travelling around after dark.

2.4  Haroon Riaz started work for the Community Safety Partnership as our Young Persons worker in September 2002. Based in the Borough Council, Haroon has stared to research young peoples issues around drugs.

2.5  It is the importance of the local issue to young people that led the Council to adopt the Social Action Process as our preferred method of involving young people against for example establishing a Young Persons Committee. Officers have not however dismissed other projects to engage with young people and Council officers are currently working with the Shropshire Youth Service and Members of the Shropshire Youth Parliament to organise the forthcoming Youth Parliament Election in January 2003.

3.  Involving Young People.

3.1 Research suggests four crucial stages in developing initiatives to involve young people.

• Creating the right environment
• Planning
• Doing
• Follow Up.

4.  Creating the right environment.

4.1 Committees and highly structured meeting, controlled by procedures and rules of etiquette rarely appeal and to young people are both impenetrable and off putting. We have therefore sought to create the right environment for involving young people through much less structured and fun ways.

For example,

a)  A young person created the Youth Forum Web site, for young people and through the chat room and e-mail allows young people to raise issues and concerns. (anonymously if they wish)

b)  The Gains Park Make a Difference Day held during the summer involved young people with a video camera and others with tape recorders interviewing other young people. Similarly the research that has just been completed on the Foyer involved young people interviewing other young people on their housing and support needs. The information obtained through this consultation will influence directly the shape of any response to address community concerns.

c)  Young People where involved in the appointment of the two mentoring Co-ordinators on the Borough Council / Connexions Raising Aspirations Partnership, showing candidates around the school, speaking to them and feeding their opinions into the interview board.

d)  Consultation over new recreation provision at Shorncliffe Drive was designed to ensure that young peoples views were included through the use of participative on site consultation techniques and family/ youth events such as sports, kite flying and art.

5.  Planning.

5.1 Young people will not tolerate what they consider to be wasted time asking irrelevant questions or discussing banal issues. Accordingly planning interaction with young people is vital for success.

5.2  Arguably our best approach to this has been the Young People’s Community Safety Survey, through which we received the views of 340 young people on issues of community safety in the Borough that concerned them. This survey was planned as a young person’s consultation event from the outset. Accordingly the questionnaire used different graphics and fonts to brighten it up, asked questions specifically targeted at young people (tested through pilot questionnaires) and had the support from the youth service and other young persons workers who championed it and give it credibility.

5.3 Again as a result of this questionnaire the Community Safety Strategy gives specific priority to young people both as victims and perpetrators of crime.

5.4 As a matter of routine all relevant consultation that is now undertaken by Housing and Environment staff is designed to maximise the response from young people, central to the consultation rather than as an add on. Engaging with young people, particularly 18 to 24 year old men, does however continue to challenge.

5.5 With the Young Persons worker the Council has entered into a new area of engagement with young people and we are spending a lot of time at the moment planning how best to engage with young people, where, when, how etc on the very sensitive issue of drugs.

6.  Doing.

6.1 So what has all this targeted engagement actually delivered? As a direct result of involving young people in the decision making process the following has been achieved;

• The BMX track at Meole Brace has been remodelled based on the designs of the Young People.
• A West Shrewsbury Youth Forum has been established, which is well advanced on delivering a Saturday Drop In centre in Shrewsbury.
• Two Raising Aspirations Partnership Mentor Co-ordinators have been appointed and over 20 young people are receiving peer mentoring in North Shrewsbury.
• Property marking packs to reduce theft of mobile phones, and personal items have been given to every 12 year old at school in the Borough.
• A youth meeting point has been installed for the young people of Gains Park.
• A young persons drugs website has been developed which has received over 100,000 hits.

6.2 In addition the following are under development influenced in part on the views of young people,

• Quarry Park redevelopment
• Foyer
• Shorncliffe Drive recreational use
• Shrewsbury Environmental Youth Forum, to engage young people in debating and learning about a wide variety of issues from waste management through to citizenship and fair-trade, culminating in a "top environmental issues" youth action plan.
• The River Life 3000 project aims to actively involve young people. Through art young people will be involved in discussions concerning the past, present and future of the River Severn and its wildlife.

7.   Follow Up.

7.1 As with any rational decision making process the follow up is vital to close the loop and ensure the plan, do are appropriate and effective. I have to be honest in that it is in this area where we remain weak. Of the actions we have delivered the oldest is only 6 months old and therefore there remains time to follow up on the actions. The best feedback we have is the use of the drug website although it is impossible to know from the count how many of the hits are from young people.

7.2 It is a well used excuse but it is true that officers are so busy with plan do, being driven by community, councillor and council demands that we have little time to reflect and follow up, to our detriment. To be effective the follow up should be as planned as the initial engagement, but competing pressures and drive to deliver is affecting the time we can give to this.

7.3 It is only through writing this report that I have reflected on the inadequacy of our follow up, and I will begin to address this.

8.  Conclusions.

8.1 I continue to believe that the social action model is the most appropriate model for involving young people in decision making in Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council. The Youth Parliament, representation on the Shrewsbury Policing Board and other strategic groups have a role to play, but the use of the Council’s limited human resources can be best focussed on engaging with young people at a local level on issues that affect them, and through working together bring about change.

8.2 Delivering things for young people will not always be popular; the Youth Meeting Point for example has met with some objection. However if young people are to truly engage they must believe that their energy will bring results for them quickly and that it is not just tokanistic, overridden by older people’s views and prejudices.

8.3 In the last twelve months the Council has moved forward significantly in engaging young people with direct results. A lack of follow up however does bring into question the success of our approach, and this needs to be addressed.

9.  Recommendations.

a) That officers continue with the Social Action Model for involving young people in decision making.

b) That officers evaluate the effectiveness of this approach and report back to a future meeting of this committee.

A.T.Goldsmith

Housing and Environment Strategy Manager.

Annex A

THE SOCIAL ACTION MODEL OF YOUNG PERSON ENGAGEMENT

1  What are the issues, concerns, problems facing young people.

a) After talking and listening to young people in the places they like to be- favoured street corners, playgrounds and so on, set up a place and time to meet for talking and listening further. This could be a community centre, church or village hall, an out of doors venue such as a place in a park or someone’s living room or office

b) At this meeting use a variety of interactive tools to explore issues, concerns and problems.

2  Why do the problems and concerns exist

a) Having helped the young people express what they see as key issues, they need help to analyse why these issues are a problem. Their judgement forms the basis of subsequent work.

b) Often it will be found that young people will have a profoundly different interpretation of events than older community members and it is important that these views are not dismissed.

3 How can we change things

a) The young people will then need help to set out their agenda for improving things. Once they have established what they want to change, they need to test out the best means to achieve their aims.

b) For change to be effective it must be decided upon and put into action by the appropriate community members- the young people. This could often be the first time the young people have tried to take power themselves and therefore they will at times choose inappropriate methods and tactics to achieve change. They need to be helped to maintain momentum and to break big problems into manageable tasks. It is important however that things aren’t done for them or to them, or on their behalf. They must originate and control the ideas, issues, analysis, planning and the next stage action.

4  Action

a) The young people will need to be provided with a means for them to think through their agreed course of action, but ownership of the project should remain with the young people.

5  Reflection.

a) After each action create a forum for reflection which allows young people to review what worked and what didn’t work, why it didn’t work and how it can be improved. Then begin the process again.

5.1 This process, which has been shown to work, throws up some key directional pointers for the Borough Council as it seeks to engage better with young people.

• Engagement will not come in Committees but in the places young people want to be.
• Issues and actions may be very different to those believed to be the priority of the Council
• Delivery of projects for young people breaks social engagement. It is important to involve and support young people to deliver projects themselves.