Sue Berelowitz, Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England’s Visit to Oxfordshire
4th June 2010
Sue Berelowitz was welcomed by the Director of Children’s Services in Oxfordshire, Meera Spillett. She then met with three groups of children and young people (C&YP):
§ Pupils from St Gregory the Great School Council
§ Members of Oxfordshire Youth Parliament (OYP), Oxfordshire members of the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP), members of the Children in Care Council (CICC) and the C&YP’s Sounding Board
§ Young people with experience of youth justice systems, through the Youth Offending Service and the vtalent year programme
Sue was keen to hear about ..
§ What achievements are C&YP most proud of?
§ What’s working well and making a difference?
§ What are the challenges and barriers for C&YP?
§ How does society/media’s negative attitudes of C&YP impact on them?
§ What would you do if you had a magic wand to wave?
1. In the first group the St Gregory the Great School Council members talked about the development of their school council, its impact on them, as members, and its effectiveness in the school. They described the journey they had made from a school where students didn’t care about the Council and didn’t want to get involved, where staff didn’t support the work of the Council and parents and governors didn’t know about it; to a school where teachers and pupils are working together to make a real difference. Together they re-launched the Council by involving senior staff, holding full elections and investing in team building and training for members.
They have set up 4 sub-committees:
§ Eco-Schools sub-committee – to gain the Eco-Award and build a garden for pupils in the school who have died
§ Ethos sub-committee – for charity work, anti-bullying week and building links with the community and other schools
§ Teaching and learning sub-committee – working with teachers to find out what helps learning through a survey in school, presenting findings to staff at an INSET and working together towards making changes
§ Publicity sub-committee – to ensure everyone knows what going on.
The students explained that they know they’re making a difference in the school “because the school feels different, people want to join the Council, and people feel they have a voice so it’s worth getting involved.”
They all said that being involved in the school council had helped them understand politics more, but that they would welcome more political education in school – a view that was echoed by other groups that Sue met.
St Gregory’s School Council plan to look at vertical tutoring, summer uniforms, behaviour policy and lunchtime experiences over the next few months.
Sue was particularly interested in the survey on teaching and learning and is asking a colleague to make contact with the Head Teacher at St Gregory the Great.
2. In the second group, C&YP talked about their achievements, including:
§ Interviewing adults for jobs and feeling their views had made a difference
§ Getting campaign groups started (UKYP members)
§ Saving Oxfordshire Youth Parliament from being cut
§ Doing the Directors speech at a conference on Takeover Day
§ Making a motivational DVD for C&YP approaching GCSE’s
§ Teaching adults about Children’s Rights and training staff
§ Getting young people a voice in Transport issues
§ Increasing C&YP’s voice through talking to leading people
§ Creating the CICC Pledge and work plan
§ Being members of, and contributing to, the Children’s Trust and Local Area Trust Boards
§ Running and speaking at conferences
§ Strongly influencing the way new services are commissioned, like supported housing, Connexions and Therapy services
§ Attending and contributing to national/regional developments
§ Peer mentoring other C&YP
What would make a difference if you could wave a magic wand?
§ More mentoring for C&YP – especially peer mentoring and ‘study buddies’
§ More career advise/looking at future options earlier on – NOT just academic routes
§ Better/more information about leisure – where to go/stuff to do
§ More sexual health, drugs awareness education – delivered by people with experience of issues and using true life stories
§ More focus on/support to achieve & aspire for ‘middle-of-the-road’ C&YP
§ Labelling is really, really unhelpful
§ More life skills – especially money management – budgeting, APR rates, mortgages, tax, job applications etc
§ More support for mental health problems
3. In the third group, young people who had experience of youth justice systems talked about:
What helps them …
§ Courses leading to qualifications e.g. Music Technology A Level, First Aid Certificate, Maths and English GCSE, Beauty level 1 and anger management training
§ Positive activities like joining a gym, “seeing there is a different life and world out there”
§ Practical support for housing, budgeting skills, jobs: “at the moment employers aren’t going to give you a job if they can choose someone who has got no criminal record”. For example, 1 YP worked voluntarily with a nursery for three years and had to leave after receiving a criminal record. Sue was particularly concerned about this and said she would raise it with the Government.
§ Supporting families early on –“ to prevent things getting bad later”
§ Getting consistent professional support from one person
- “My YOS worker helped me see that I’m better than that and helped me grow out of it, and that I don’t have to be doing that sort of stuff forever – that there are choices”
- “Helped me see you can do it for yourself, you can change your life”
- “They keep it to themselves and are confidential”
- “They are actually interested in what you’re saying … they don’t judge you”
- “My IRS worker was good – helped me get back into a new group of friends and meet new people away from the group that got them into trouble in the first place”
- “Having one consistent worker over four years has been really helpful, they understand your background and life already and when things go wrong, you ring to explain you’ve had a bad day and why you can’t get to a meeting and they trust you and understand without you jeopardising your order or relationship with the worker”.
§ Police attitudes: “Some police will talk to you on a level and without patronising you … some police think young offenders are all the same, just trouble and wasting their time”
§ Positive unbiased media reporting which doesn’t demonise YP, especially those who commit crime: “We think elderly people might be scared of the youth today from negative reporting by media”
§ “Newspapers should spend a day in the life of YP and report on positive stories - about climbing out of the bad stuff”
§ “If they wrote it you may as well do it” … you live up to the expectations set out for you
Things that don’t help so much …
§ Meeting so many different workers, .. “telling your story AGAIN”
§ Building up trust with one worker and having to do it again with another
§ Lots of different appointments with different agencies (one YP said they had to meet 9 services and agencies each week)
§ “Too much information too soon. Too many different appointments. Too many names for different orders. Too many changes in staff who are in-charge of you”
§ Timescale of court hearings can be very prolonged (over a year). YP may have taken positive steps away from offending behaviour, but their offence hangs over them and the punishment is delayed, undermining the efforts of the YP to progress. “You’re just sorting yourself out a bit just to have it knocked down by the result of the court”
§ YP change a lot in the time that it takes to deal with their offence. One YP believed that short sharp shocks are necessary and quick punishments are better. Prison helped two of the young people to turn their lives around and stop committing offences. “Nothing stopped me until my freedom was taken away”
Sue Berelowitz thanked all the C&YP for taking time to meet with her and making such a positive contribution to the discussions. She said in a letter of thanks:
“I was interested to note that …all the young people wanted to learn about politics and the general election process. I am deeply heartened by this as it demonstrates that our young people are keen to engage in the democratic process and be active citizens. I was impressed by how thoughtful and confident these young people were”.
Alison Partridge - Participation & Play Team
10.06.2010