Doncaster Youth Voice: Children and young people

“Making Doncaster the most child-friendly Borough in the country”.

Doncaster Council established the Children and Young People’s Plan to become the most child friendly borough in the country. Collectively, with support from Doncaster Council, Doncaster Schools, Doncaster Children’s Trust, St Leger Homes, South Yorkshire Police and the NHS, £364million was spent on Children and Young People in 2015/16.

There are approximately 65,000 children and young people in Doncaster under the age of 18, and the four themes established to enhance their lives are ‘safe, healthy and happy, achievement and equality’.

Doncaster Youth Council is a constituted diverse group of local young people aged 11-19, who campaign to ensure the voices of young people in Doncaster are heard. It works to ensure young people have a say in the decisions that are made within Doncaster.

The Youth Council also comprises two Members of Youth Parliament who represent Doncaster every year at the House of Commons.

In last year’s ‘Make Your Mark’ campaign, knife crime was voted in the top three as a national priority for young people. As a result, Doncaster Youth Council is working with South Yorkshire Police to tackle this as their first piece of work.

It is holding focus groups with young people in all secondary schools and colleges across the borough, where it is leading peer-to-peer consultations in order to identify young people’s perception of knife crime, what triggers their fears, and why they might deem it a priority for Doncaster when there has been a 12% decrease in the past year.

Doncaster Council have recently undergone a successful recruitment campaign to employ a number of Young Advisors aged 16-24 to bring unique expertise and knowledge about being young to influence strategic planning, decision-making and marketing within Doncaster’s Young People’s services.

The newly formed team of eight will help organisations and local services improve their products and delivery to make them more young-people friendly and will use a variety of methods to ensure that young people are given the chance to be meaningfully involved in service design, delivery and evaluation.

Children deserve to have their voices heard, and the team has been working to make Doncaster the most child friendly borough in the Country!

We recognise that historically we tend to approach our Youth when it comes to ‘voice’, but we believe that our children also deserve to have their voices heard.

The team have been working hard to establish a number of exciting projects, specifically for our Doncaster children. We will soon have a Junior Civic Mayor, who will represent all children in Doncaster and will serve a term of office alongside our Civic Mayor.

If you would like further information on Doncaster Young Advisors and the work they do, then please contact Mandy Burns on 01302 737061 or via email: YoungAdvisors@doncaster.gov.uk / Twitter: @DoncasterYAS

For more information, contact Amy Enwright on Amy.Enwright@doncaster.gov.uk

Twitter: @YourVoiceDonca1