Draft minutes

Apologies: Cllr Anna King, Kamron Ali (KC), Sofia Mattacola (Campion), Tracy Wobil (NSG).

Aimee welcomed everyone to the Youth Forum and went over housekeeping. Everyone introduced themselves and which school they represent.

Cllr Fiona Baker, Cabinet member for Children, Families and Education is keen to engage with the Youth Forum but has had to send apologies for this meeting. Aimee to meet with and update Cllr Baker.

The forum split into two teams and John set a challenge to build the tallest tower using marshmallows and sticks. Both Teams created interesting structures and gave excellent arguments for why theirs was the best.

The second challenge was a lava game using paper to cross from one side of the room to the other

John talked about NAYC and opportunities for forum members to join the residential trips and emerging leaders programmes.
Action: Aimee to share details from John with group.

Aimee played the Youth Forum section of the Holocaust Memorial Day video to everyone. You can watch the video here!

Lissy and Morcea took the newer members on a short tour of the Guildhall.

Action: Aimee to pass the details of next week’s Cabinet meetings to forum for anyone who would like to join – Aimee/Morcea will be available to attend.

Flipchart activity: In groups the forum discussed what they think being part of the youth forum means, what their role is and what they want to get out of participating.

·       Making one change in Northampton

·       Make sure young people are heard - represent

·       Unify people in Northampton – doesn’t feel like a whole community.

·       Teamwork and leadership skills

·       Learning about politics

Morcea commented on the limit of schools engaged and will speak to those missing.

Agreed the Memorandum of understanding

Lissy took the group through last minutes after lunch and updates were given on the actions.

Lissy walked the Forum through the previous action plan and the group used flip chart to write down their priorities.

The forum split into groups to discuss their priorities for the action plan and what they want to focus on this year.

Action: Aimee to type up the new action plan. This is a working document and can be added to throughout the year.

Unfortunately, the consultation is not yet live. Aimee will circulate information and consultation link when available.

Group agreed they will want to feed through recommendations from the Perspectives report into the consultation. Action: Aimee to share the Perspectives report again to group for reference.

James joined us to explain the overview and scrutiny process. Scrutiny is a democratic process where a group of Councillors explore an issue and seek to understand; what services are being delivered, how effective these are, and any improvements that might be made. They will consider a range of perspectives with a view to producing recommendations to decision makers.

Scrutiny would like to engage the Youth Forum around the topic of Child Mental Health and Self Harm. The Forum will be invited to a virtual meeting with the 8 councillors to share their thoughts and views on the subject in March/April.

Forum agreed this would be a good piece of work to participate in and discussed mental health education and support at their own schools.

Action: All young people to speak to their schools/peers and gather information on the topic to feedback to panel. Please consider speaking to your teachers about this and ask for their support to collate any anonymous feedback from students.

Forum discussed the topic and raised a range of mental health issues for young people including disordered eating. They also spoke about teacher training around mental health and were interested to know more about Mental Health first aid courses.

Moved to end of agenda due to time.

Members discussed spaces in the town centre and where they live where it feels safe/unsafe and why.
Issues raised around inappropriate and scary behaviour on buses towards girls.

Aimee will continue to collate information from forum and other young people and feed into neighbourhood working groups/explore actions to help resolve issues and feedback to group over time.

·       Homelessness
Lochie raised the number of tents seen and what is being done around Homelessness. Aimee spoke briefly about the ‘Everyone In’ campaign that got people off the street and into hotels/housing throughout the pandemic but suggested an officer from the department come and talk more in depth about what is being done. Forum Agreed.

·       Food sustainability/Food poverty. Forum are interested in what is happening with food that is not sold and how this is being used to help homeless or people in poverty.
Action: Aimee to invite Robin (WNFSN) to future meeting.

Action: Aimee to explore opportunity to visit Sikh Centre in St James/voluntary work with Food bank.

·       Sex Education in schools
Nicole and Hannah suggested really good practice taking place in their schools. Others felt that it was down to the teacher alone and could be hit or miss and very heteronormative. The Forum would be keen to help create a resource/share good practice with all schools.
Action: Aimee to invite someone from Education to discuss further.
Action: Hannah and Nicole to ask school for Sex Education lesson information to share with the forum.

·       International Youth Day
Lots of initial ideas being discussed. Aimee to include a full agenda item for next meeting to plan the event.

·       Youth Social Media account as a place to share youth services/activities and events.
Action: Aimee to explore with council and comms.

Thursday 7 April, 10am to 3pm
Guildhall, Court Room.