Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies received from Lissy, Hannah, Nicola, Kamron, Michaella

Kayla and Tracy attended in person at the guildhall with Jamie and

Joining us online: Honey, Jessica, Cllr Fiona Baker, Cllr David Smith and Cllr Anna King.

Cllr Smith suggested One Angel Square might be a good place to meet at a future meeting to resolve some of the issues with internet connection. Action: Jamie and Aimee to explore options and arrange access to OAS.

Reviewed previous minutes:

Aimee shared January cabinet reports

James Edunds provided the following update: The draft report will need to be presented to the People Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting on 21^st February for approval before going to the Cabinet on 7^th March.

If the Youth Forum wished to give any feedback on the content of the draft report it would probably be most useful to do so in writing ahead of the O&S Committee meeting as this will be when the final version is agreed. The agenda papers for the meeting on 21^st February will be published on 13^th February.

There would also be the option of Youth Forum member(s) attending the O&S Committee meeting and/or the Cabinet meeting to speak on the topic if they wished to do so. Which meeting they attended would depend on the purpose: comments intended to influence the report would be better given on 21^st February, whereas comments supporting the report or about the topic in general could be given on 7^th March.  

Aimee fed back recommendations on the survey to Public Health.

Aimee shared information to regeneration and invited them back to todays meeting.

·       Review decisions from January Cabinet

·       Upcoming reports for February - comments

Reviewed the decisions made in January and Cllr stook questions. Action: Youth Forum to raise any items they want to discuss next time and we can invite the relevant cabinet member to ask questions. Email Aimee with items to discuss.

Public Health – children & Young peoples health & wellbeing item – recommendation to extend contract approved. Cllrs Baker and smith explained that a number of contracts will need to be extended in order to give the council time to renegotiate appropriate contracts whilst dividing services between West and North.

Forum asked; is cabinet dealing with strikes and nurses wages etc?

Cllr Smith advised this is not a council matter but for the NHS and government to manage. WNC have no input but do see impact on local services. Public Health, which is in our remit as a local authority, is more about wellbeing and healthy lives in the community.

PFI  item approved – This basically approved the budget for doing the works needed in schools. Forum happy, no further questions raised.

Parking charges – Discussions still ongoing. Racecourse also proposed but no longer being taken forward. Charges will help fund park ranger work.

Forum asked; How are park ranger posts currently funded?

Cllr Smith advised this is funded through the budget but additional funding will mean money to support further park improvements and projects/work done by park rangers.

Forum reviewed upcoming items of interest for February Cabinet; item relating to sexual health contract. Another contract extension request. Cllr Baker advised forum there will be opportunities to feed into this following the extension and review of the service contract.

Cllrs suggested the forum review items on the Council agenda for more opportunity to give views. Action: Jamie to contact Paul Hanson for the upcoming agenda items to share with Youth Forum.  

The forum asked; In relation to recommendations made what is given more weight in terms of ‘clinically effective’ when making a decision? People or money? Quality or quantity?

Action: Cllrs Baker and Smith to take question back to Sally Burns in relation to the Public Health reports and bring answer back to next meeting.

Jamie Chalmers

Regeneration colleagues did not attend the meeting.

Action: Jamie to liaise with regen to bring updated designs to next meeting.

Jamie Wells

Continuing the discussion from the January meeting; the secondary school programme is a new project, which is looking to develop a set of resources relating to key safety subjects such as online safety, CSE, knife crime and more. Three key questions were asked to the forum members, which would contribute to the research of the project during its current phase. Below are the three questions with feedback highlighted within-

What subjects should be included?

Ø  Peer pressure

Ø  Healthy relationships

Ø  Sexual health

Ø  Personal safety/night out safety

Ø  CSE and online safety

Ø  Drugs and Alcohol

Ø  Gambling

Ø  Knife crime

Ø  Hate crime

Ø  Growing up/anxiety/mental wellbeing

What year group/age range should this be developed for?

Ø  Year 8. Members stated that the changed from year 7 to year 8 is more noticeable in regards to feeling more grown up and whilst also looking to “fit in”. This age group is where mistake can be made more easier.

What should it look like?

Ø  Drama performance

Ø  Drama performance with recordings of speakers/presenters providing key messages

Ø  Delivered by older year groups (either speakers or those taking part in the drama performance)

Ø  Personal experience e.g ex-gang members sharing their story and key messages.

As the project progresses Jamie Wells WNC will provide updates with other key project members from the police and other services.

Aimee shared a copy of the Sexual Health questionnaire to the forum for comments. These will be passed back to Public Health so they can improve the questionnaire before it is sent out to young people.

Action: Finalised surveys to be shared to Youth Forum for anyone wanting to respond to the survey.

Action: Forum members to share any topics they want adding to the next agenda.

Wednesday 7 March, 4.30pm at Guildhall and virtually via Teams

Wednesday 8 March, 4.30pm