This was Youth Parliament’s first in person meeting in a while, so we made the most of our day with another busy agenda.
Members met the day before they returned to school or college and were cautiously optimistic about the coming year, as they prepare for more mocks, exams and moving on to university.
There’s so much that has happened and that is happening in their lives – it’s amazing how they manage to contribute so much to representing young people, given that the demand for their time has increased significantly this year.
Recent members activity and achievements include:
- Hosting and facilitating a Somerset Youth Alliance Network meeting
- Meeting with Lord Lieutenant Mohammed Saddiq and his Deputy Nickie Gething
- Elected Members of Youth Parliament’s (MYPs) Annual Conference in Hull (see related article) And following the MYP’s hard work – we’re now very excited to announce Anti-hate Crime and Discrimination Education has been selected as the UK’s priority campaign!
- Attending a two hour practitioners’ workshop on ‘masculinity and men’s mental health, with a view to informing members and beginning a project on raising awareness and supporting better understanding of boys and men’s needs.
Check out this Violence Reduction Partnership link for information about the topic of masculinity, as well as a toolkit for working with boys for schools: Somerset children & young people : Health & Wellbeing : Rse Positive Masculinity Toolkit,
Somerset Youth Parliament support of conferences
Members have also been asked to attend and support several conferences throughout October and November, to represent young people’s interests and showcase their work and achievements
Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner
The Police and Crime Commissioner Clare Moody and Hana Tucker from Avon and Somerset Police visited the group, keen to engage with young people and talk about some rising policing and societal concerns relating to misogyny, gaming, social media.
Clare also shared the free schools Pol Ed resources and members agreed to promote this in Somerset schools and colleges.
Proposed changes to UK Youth Parliament
The group was given an opportunity to consider the proposed changes to the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) programme and potential implications for the group locally/ nationally but also Young People’s Voice in the universal context. Members were brought up to date with the fact that there has been little to no information or guidance from the Governments Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which leads on the UKYP programme. At first young people across the UK thought this could be delayed due to the potential for introducing Votes at 16 yrs, as this would force change to the process of Youth Parliament elections. However, there is still no word about an alternative, replacement programme and after national consultation with young people it seems that many are saying the priority should be introduction to political education before introducing votes at 16. This is an interesting shift in young people’s thinking.
Despite MYP’s writing to the Speaker of the House of Commons Lyndsey Hoyle and supporting allies and MPs, and pressing for urgency, unfortunately no decisions have been made.
In Somerset we have decided to continue to support the current MYP’s two year term of office beyond the predicted end of UKYP national programme from April. And the Advisory Group will continue alongside it. There are advantages of focussing on local priorities in that the Somerset Group will have more capacity to influence positive change and represent. The members will also have more time to re-consider the group governance, format and processes and shape the future of the group with more of a sense of ownership.
At some point early next year, we will start looking at Somerset MYP elections and examine whether we can/ should change or even improve the process based on local engagement with schools, colleges and young people themselves.
Roles, expectations, accountability and processes
Our final, but by no means least agenda item was a proposal driven by Archie and James to engage the group around revising our roles, expectations, accountability and processes.
The group then participated in a table activity to discuss what are the elements that ‘make youth parliament’ and to share what members want from being a part of it, including what they’d like the group to look like in the future. What works well and what could improve, change etc
Outcomes from this initial discussion are:
- Appointing a Deputy/ Deputy roles to support and motivate members for a fixed period of time, through an anonymous voting process
- Create and agree a mission statement on group values and principles
- Along with monthly articles- re look at member actions, roles and responsibilities
- Revising additional promotion opportunities and accountability, promotion
- Refresh group evaluation and reflection processes
- Elect members to specific roles within the group
- Redesign/ refresh the group logo
- Provide member biographies for the website
- Explore appropriate work experience and shadowing opportunities
- To create a young people friendly newsletter
This initial discussion is the start of a work in progress which will begin to take shape over the next few months.
Concerns over AI
The final activity to end the day was a debate on AI, to air the pro’s and cons, inform each other and raise concerns on the impact of AI on lives, safety, crime, industry and education.
Its clear that there is contradictory information floating around about some specifics, such as safety/ defence, the impact on climate and the ‘kill switch’ option but generally young people are concerned about the people behind funding the drive forward without restraint, the widening gap between the ‘have’s and have nots’ (in terms of access to the benefits of AI) and the fact that whilst it could be used positively in a responsible way, at the moment there are no safeguards in place or any sense of morals, ethics and equity. It could be a tool for a short cut to ‘using your brain’ and lazy thinking, cutting out the critical thinking/ problem solving human process.
