Listen and Learn Youth Summit

23 February 2013, Brunton Hall, Musselburgh

Introduction

Listen and Learn events have been taking place in East Lothian secondary schools for the last three years. They provide an opportunity for students to identify and talk about the issues that matter most to them. Previously, these sessions have been conducted with the Executive Director of People Services during school hours, on site in East Lothian secondaries. However, after a report to the Education Committee on the 2012 sessions, elected members asked that the sessions be:

  • Consolidated into one event
  • Held on a Saturday, so that elected members would find it easier to attend.

With this in mind, Community Learning and Development and Children’s Wellbeing arranged the Listen and Learn Youth Summit on Saturday 23 February. The event was funded by CLD.

In the end, the Saturday arrangement did not appear to suit students. Some worked, some had sports, and some did not like the intrusion into their weekend. Around 30 young people took part; fewer than we had hoped. On the plus side, the young people who attended were very articulate and thoughtful and took full advantage of talking to Councillor Akhtar and members of East Lothian Council staff. The event benefitted from the involvement of East Coat FM’s School Bell programme, which promoted the event and turned up on the day to do vox pops and reporting.

The topic young people chose to explore was employment, which has been a key issue for young people at Listen and Learn sessions, East Lothian Youth Council and for the Scottish Youth Parliament. It has also been identified as a key issue for our Corporate Parenting agenda.

You can find out more about young people’s views by following this link to the Listen and Learn Youth Summit video -

What young people said

Home and school work opportunities

Young people at the event felt that there should be more work/work experience opportunities for 14 to 16 year olds. Areas that young people were interested in included care for the elderly, hairdressing and cafe work. They were keen to have opportunities to earn income, for example, more opportunities for ‘Saturday jobs’. They felt that the cost of travelling had a prohibitive effect on taking up opportunities for work experience, paid work and volunteering.

Volunteering

Young people were interested in volunteering and could see a range of benefits, for example:

  • It would improve the public image of young people as a group in society
  • It demonstrates that young people are a diverse group of people who what to do things like everyone else
  • It provides work experience and promotes independence
  • It shows employers that young people in the secondary-school age group can work
  • It would give young people the opportunity to be positive role models in work
  • It would address the issue of youth unemployment

Young Scot was mentioned in terms of role it took in promoting work experience for and employability skills to young people aged 14 to 16. They also spoke about the way in which at North Berwick High School you could access work experience opportunities on a special web site. They felt that more should be done to promote this web site. Their key conclusion was that young people wanted to work and more should be done to promote work opportunities for them. More should be done to get young people to volunteer – it could be the way into a job. There should be more information employability and volunteering in the Curriculum for Excellence, or, if it is already there, it should be more widely shared. Young people felt that the Council’s IT security policy currently stopped them from looking at certain job-related web sites – this policy should be revisited with a view to loosening some of the current access restrictions.

Other issues

Although employment and employability were the key issues for young people, they also raised other issues, for example:

  • Young people in the Preston, Seton and Gosford Ward wanted updated leisure centres
  • There was a general call for reduced prices for leisure for people in education
  • How do we get young people more involved with politics?
  • More involvement in schools by councils – most young people had never met their councillors
  • They wanted more information on Drink Health and stopping smoking
  • They wanted someone to talk to and more support from teachers
  • Recycling boxes: can you get recycling bins instead of boxes – Fife Council swapped rubbish bins for recycling bins, and older people have smaller rubbish bins.

Communications

Young people felt there could be much better use of a wide range of media to engage with them and keep them informed about employment and other issues. These included:

  • E mail
  • Web
  • Teachers
  • Letters
  • Newsletter
  • Facebook
  • Texts
  • Apps
  • Better links – DIS notices.

They also felt that wifi should be open in school so that they could tweet and see tweets and access other social networking sites. The issue of open-access wifi and the option for student to use their own laptops, netbooks and tablets for studying in school was also raised last year.

Conclusion

Although the event was not as convenient for young people as the previous school-based Listen and Learn format, there was still a good representative cross-section of young people at the event. Their biggest concern was employment, both in terms of getting work experience and paid work, and they saw volunteering as a valuable source of experience, which would also enhance their employability later on. They felt that much more could be done in terms of making links for them and collating and advertising work, work experience and volunteering opportunities, online and elsewhere.

They wanted much more imaginative use of communications and communications technology; open access wifi and fewer restrictions on accessing job-related sites at school.

They also indicated that they would really appreciate more contact with their councillors and greater involvement of councillors in schools.

Recommendations

  1. Young people should be more engaged with the Council’s Economic Development Strategy and EL Works initiative
  2. Greater links should be made between young people and VDEL
  3. A dedicated job opportunity/work experience/volunteering opportunity web site should be investigated/developed
  4. An open wifi access policy for schools should be investigated
  5. A communication strategy devoted to communicating with young people, including effective use of texting and social media should be investigated at a council level, to be implemented in the council and in schools. This should be developed in conjunction with young people. This work would be timely, given the impending enactment of the Children and Young People Bill in 2014
  6. The impact of transport costs/availability for young people wishing to access employment, further and higher education and training should be addressed
  7. Councillors should have a greater presence in school, for example, holding surgeries, attending assemblies and making themselves available/contactable
  8. We make greater use of East Coast FM in future events
  9. Future Listen and Learn sessions should be held at school during school hours – councillors and officials should travel to young people.