Agenda item

The presentation accompanying this report, which will be shared by our Youth Council, outlines the strategy for evidencing and implementing young people’s priorities. It highlights the support provided by key strategic leads across departments and partners organisations, details progress made and next steps.

Brenda Whinnett (Youth Voice Co-ordinator, Education & SEND) introduced the four young people and highlighted that they had done a lot of work together in the last one and a half years which were detailed in the report.

Ealaf Malnajar (Member, Youth Parliament representing Hammersmith and Fulham) said her time with the Youth Council had enabled her to develop herself personally while striving to make changes and strengthen impact on young people.  She said that the Youth Council had worked to ensure youth voices were heard and policy measures targeting at young people were co-produced to meet their needs. She then introduced the evidence-based inclusive research project.

Albi Fenner (Youth Mayor) was grateful for the opportunities to enhance the youth voice at the borough. He elaborated the multiple methods used under the evidence-based inclusive research including hosting events like Summer in the City and reaching out to young people at different places like schools. 

Precisa Getsevich (Deputy Youth Mayor) said through her role, she had come into a lot of different opportunities. She highlighted that in deciding the actions needed based on the inclusive research, they had held many meetings in a long and busy year with the strategic leads and drive forward the priorities for further actions. 

Mahika Chandrashekar (Member, Youth Council) shared her aspiration of being a member of the Youth Council and making changes to many young people’s lives in the borough.  She, Ealaf Malnajar and Albi Fenner outlined the priorities and identified actions in the areas of mental health, work readiness, life skills and staying safe, enlisting the respective leading departments, strategic leads and key partners. Precisa Getsevich then shared the key performance indicators for each of the priority areas, followed by the progress summary outlined by Mahika.

On planned next steps, Ealaf Malnajar highlighted, among others, the launch of the co-produced Youth Hub and the roll-out of the healthy relationship podcast event on 5 December and invited all interested members to join.  She added that the Youth Council had a very busy programme of events over the next few months which would involve as many young people as inclusively possible and help them make informed decisions.

The Chair appreciated their impressive presentation in particular the display of emotional maturity and creativity in problem-solving.  Councillor Daryl Brown echoed and said being a teacher, she was impressed by all of them who should continue these amazing abilities of being fantastic speakers even after leaving the roles.   Nadia Taylor added that they earned the praise and were inspirational to their peers in displaying much confidence in addressing a formal forum this evening.  She encouraged them to continue in the journey which might be the beginning of a worth-pursuing career.  Nadia also sent credits to Brenda Whinnett who had coached and helped them develop.  

Appreciating the young people’s lots of effort put in preparing the report and this meeting, Brenda Whinnett said she had witnessed the progression in the past one and half decade and now it became a Council-wide approach for departments across to embed youth voice and engage in co-production with young people.

The Chair asked about their reflections on improvements seen so far. Ealaf Malnajar responded that having been a member for three years, the Youth Council which used to rely on itself and Brenda/the Youth Voice Coordinator was now having more interconnection with the rest of the H&F Council and interacting with councillors and key officers. It was encouraging and important to see that the youth voice had really been integrated within decision-making of different departments. Mahika Chandrashekar noted that members of the Youth Council also became relying less on Brenda/the Youth Voice Coordinator in developing independent ideas.  Albi Fenner agreed with the observation and said that now more members were turning up at meetings, with some even joined physically to express their opinions and make their voices heard.

Nandini Ganesh was concerned about the representation of young people with disability in the Youth Council. Brenda Whinnett highlighted the inclusivity approach throughout the process and the use of multi-methods to capture all the different youth voices including reaching out to young people in special schools and Action on Disability.  She stressed that some of the disabilities might not be visible and the Youth Council was becoming increasingly diverse as a result of the inclusivity approach.

Councillor Aliya Afzal-Khan congratulated all on co-producing such a fantastic and streamlined programme with focused and critical priority areas.  She also appreciated the young people’s passion, belief and ownership about their work. She sought elaboration about the “Best for You” (West London Mental Health Website). Mahika Chandrashekar explained that the co-produced Website had taken into account young people’s opinion expressed at the meetings and after some tweaking, the “Best for You” website would be easily accessible and simple to read and understand.

Councillor Afzal-Khan asked about H&F Works under the priority area of Work Readiness. Precisa Getsevich agreed with the importance of job access for H&F youth who could start to learn from H&F Works some basic skills like finding a job and preparing the CVs/interviews. Ealaf Malnajar highlighted that the young people could learn about local opportunities from the “Best for You” website and get online support tailored to young people for example mental health videos created in collaboration with the NHS.

The Chair believed the initiatives would form part of the industrial strategy and apprenticeships. Brenda Whinnett referred to the close collaboration with the Economy and together they had created a co-produced youth focus section linked to H&F Works with a view to ensuring that young people in the borough could access the lots of local opportunities around.

Brenda Whinnett noted that a Youth Hub page under development would be accessible from the Family Hubs webpage and linked to the four priority areas including mental health and work readiness (linked to H&F Works). The Youth Hub would be launched as part of the event on 5 December together with the healthy relationship podcasts series. The Chair was keen to ensure information related to the event on 5 December be circulated to the Committee and made widely known among the small and medium businesses and universities in the borough to get the biggest exposure.

NOTE: Flyers and invites for the event have been circulated to Committee members on 22 November 2024

RESOLVED

That the Committee agreed:

1. To note the efforts of the Youth Council and positive outcomes for young people toward the actions identified.

2. To note how the young people’s identified priorities are effectively integrated into broader council targets.