Brighton and Hove City Youth Council

Congratulations to our Year 8 students Ruby and Akisha who have been selected to sit on the Brighton and Hove City Youth Council. They have already met with John Lewry - Lead Youth Participation Worker who came to meet them at Blatch for an introduction to their role.

During their time on the Council they will have a chance to support ongoing campaign work including:

• The Transport Campaign - Petitioning the bus company for a flat fare of 50p at all times on all buses and a review of routes that serve schools.
• The Mental Health Campaign - Organising a Mental Health convention in October educating young people on self-care, available services and how the system works.
• PSHE Listening Work - Understanding young people’s experience of PSHE.
• The Social Action Project which aims to run an afternoon of cooking to allow migrant women the opportunity to socialise and share culture.
• Plus other ad hoc opportunities that present, such as feeding into the redevelopment of the King Alfred.

As the year goes on, the Youth Council will be welcoming new members and reviewing some of their internal systems such as their Constitution, their website/online presence, groups that aren’t represented and meeting schedules and locations.

From January 2024 the Youth Council will have recruited everyone that will be part of the cohort for two years and will move into the formal two year programme. The first eight months of this will include:

• Induction
• Electing a chair and deputy chair
• Nominating to roles (E.g. UK Youth Parliament)
• Getting to know each other and team building
• Establishing their links with schools (hoping to formalise this to make it better than it has been previously)
• Starting their accreditation
• Starting their evaluation process (a distance travelled tool)
• Training
• Listening to their peers (they will be doing some mass listening exercises to inform their campaign work for the coming two years)

We're very proud to have Ruby and Akisha representing our school and we look forward to following their progress during this exciting venture.