Committee: | Full Council |
Date: | 24 July 2023 |
Title of Report: | Recommendation from the Youth Council WG |
Context: | The Youth Council WG has been meeting to discuss the opportunities for young people to have a direct line of communication with RTC to be consulted on matters which affect them, and to enable them to be involved in the development of specific projects, as appropriate. |
Report Author: | Liz Dutton - Administration Officer & Cllr Georgie Carter |
Full Council tasked the Youth Council Working Group to research and consult on starting a Youth Council with the aim of giving younger people a voice in the Town.
A Youth Council working group has been meeting regularly to move this idea forward. Members of the working group attended one of the IOW Council’s Youth Council meetings which gave an insight into how a RTCYC might operate.
A questionnaire was compiled and sent to twenty-two key schools and Youth Organisations in Ryde in order to help inform how the Youth Council should run.
The key messages from this research were:
Years 11 and 13 should not be included in the cohort as they have too many pressures with exams.
Young people should reapply for their position each year.
Home educated children need to be included.
A successful funding application has been made to the #iwill Community Ambassadors Programme as a result the Group will need to be called
‘The Community Ambassadors Forum’ however this may change, at a later date, after input from forum members.
The group will comprise of at least ten young people.
Network Ryde will be leading the project and Ryde Town Councillors will have no direct involvement with the meetings or administration of the Community Ambassador Forum unless invited to attend a meeting to provide relevant information on a project.
Risk assessments and data protection policies will be in place. Network Ryde will provide these and will use their secure database for record keeping.
The name of the group in the first instance will be Community Ambassador Forum but once the members are assigned, they will be encouraged to come up with a suitable name moving forward.
Grant funding has been applied for and we have been awarded £7500 from the #iwill Community Ambassadors Programme to progress this further.
This will make the first year cost-neutral for Ryde Town Council, and will allow us a pilot year to ascertain whether there will be ongoing costs connected to this project, and what they are likely to be.