Category: #futurediff

Making Rights A Reality — Our Grand Council

Making Rights A Reality — Our Grand Council

Cardiff Youth Council

100 children and young people from across 26 schools came together to discuss the important issues of children’s rights at this months Grand Council event at Cardiff City Hall.

The high profile event was sponsored by Cardiff Council Cabinet Member for Democracy and Citizen Engagement Dan De’Ath who opened the event stating ‘We need you to tell us what a Child Friendly City looks like because you are the experts! All the work and ideas developed throughout today’s event will shape our thinking and inform the way forward for Cardiff’.

Delegates had a busy day-long programme including taking part in workshops on democracy and children’s rights then breaking into teams to develop their vision of a Child Friendly City.

Each team looked into 3 elements communication, governance and democracy. After a short lunch break teams then returned to the council chamber to present their vision with one team even righting a song!

One young delegate from Greenhill School said that ‘he enjoyed the day so much, he was buzzing’

Cardiff Council will now take the findings from the Grand Council and use it to develop their city wide vision to embed children’s rights across the city.

An application to form a partnership with global charity Unicef will take place by the end of the year hopefully leading to a range of programmes for 2017 onwards.

 

United Nations Universal Day Of The Child Celebration

United Nations Universal Day Of The Child Celebration

Cardiff Youth Council

The globally recognised day for children’s rights was marked by CYC with an event at County Hall on Monday 21st of November.

A range of key decision makers and partners joined CYC members including Council Directors, Senior Politicians, representatives from Welsh Government Ministerial Office, 3rd sector partners and the Children’s Commissioners Office.

As well as championing children’s rights participants were served afternoon tea and played a range of rights based games.

The busy programme included showcasing the positive impact of the work developed by CYC in 2015/16, learning about Rights Respecting Schools, announcing youth priorities for Cardiff 2016, and recognising schools roll in this year’s Make Your Mark Programme.

CYC Chairperson Xinyu Ye (17) said ‘We think it is important to bring together key decision makers to raise awareness of the importance of children’s rights and highlight examples of work which comes as a result of children being able to have their rights met’

Cardiff Youth Service launches pledge developed by CYC

Cardiff Youth Service launches pledge developed by CYC

Cardiff Youth Council

Cardiff Youth Council developed a series of workshops to be run with children and young people across the city. These workshops highlighted the importance of children’s rights and enabled participants to choose rights that were really important to them.

Youth Council members then developed these rights into a series of statements, these were then sent to Cardiff Youth Service Management requesting them to consider how the newly restructured youth service could embed these rights into their work.

As a direct result Cardiff Youth Service has now developed a ‘Pledge’ to young people. They launched the CYS Pledge in the autumn term and now staff plan against the pledge and it forms part of the staff development process!

Well done Cardiff Youth Service!

All Aboard The ARC – Young Interviewers Programme

All Aboard The ARC – Young Interviewers Programme

Cardiff Youth Council

young-interviewers-arc9 Cardiff Youth Council members completed Young Interviewers training and have gone straight to working alongside colleagues from Children’s Services.

The Young Interviewers took part in 2 rounds of interviews for positions within the new Adolescent Resource Centre (ARC) based in Fairwater. The advert for the posts of Senior Support Worker and Support Worker received lots of attention with a range of great candidates being shortlisted.

Our team of Young Interviewers completed 16 interviews over 2 evenings. Each interview consisted of 6 separate tasks with candidates being asked to move from interview style activities to making a poster!

The scoring went on late into the evening but the team were fuelled by the local fish and chip shop.

ARC Team Manager Carys Davies said ‘The Young Interviewers were great, we couldn’t have done it without them!’

Young Interviewer, Rose Melhuish (15) said ‘It was great fun but it was also important to have young people involved as the successful candidates will be working with young people and their families’.

The ARC will provide integrated support for young people aged 11-17 years, who are at risk of becoming looked after by the local council (LAC). It will provide an outreach service for families in crisis and will work both within the Centre and at the family home if required.

We wish the team all the very best!

Second Grand Council event 23/03

Second Grand Council event 23/03

Cardiff Youth Council

Hey guys!

As some of you will know, as part of its plan to engage more with young people and CYC, Cardiff Council are working with us to produce three Grand Council events at the City Hall this year; the first of which that was held in December, on the theme of “What Matters to Future Generations”  was a great success.

We’re really looking forward to meeting young people from schools colleges and youth organisations all over Cardiff this March for our second installment, in order to discuss how Cardiff can achieve UNICEF “Child Friendly City” status. This status would recognise Cardiff as a city committed to fulfilling children’s rights.

You can find out more about this initiative here.

We’ll be looking at the criteria needed to meet this, and will have the opportunity to offer solutions from the perspective of young people to the challenges Cardiff faces in becoming “Child Friendly”.

Here are the basic points that have to be met:

Young people… 

  • know and understand their rights know about the services available and how to access them
  • have a say in the design, delivery and evaluation of services
  • experience connected, tailored and responsive services, even if their needs are complex
  • feel safe, nurtured, prioritised and are treated with dignity.

 

For those of you who have received confirmation of their place at the event, I’ll look forward to seeing you there! Remember that the event is being held at Cardiff City Hall, Cathays Park, 9:30-2:00, and light refreshments and a packed lunch will be provided. 

 And for those of you who are not attending the event- is there anything you’d like to comment on with regards to Cardiff becoming a “Child-Friendly City?” If you have any remarks, questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions regarding any of the above points, or anything else, don’t hesitate to get in touch! 

You can comment on this post, tweet us @cardiffyc, get in touch via our Facebook page, or send an email to me at maegandaviesjohn@outlook.com.

Thanks for reading guys, and remember to like and share!

Mae and CYC 🙂