What matters to us – November 2005
Newcastle Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership
“What matters to us”
Children and young people’s priorities for Newcastle
November 2005
Report produced by:
Connexions Newcastle
The Children's Society Voices Project
Investing in Children
Play and Youth Service
Youth Voice
Sure Start Armstrong
Introduction
This report outlines the results the most comprehensive piece of work undertaken to find out what children and young people’s views are about the priorities in their lives in Newcastle.
Workers from six organisations in the city collaborated to ensure a comprehensive piece of work was undertaken to inform the strategic partnership about children and young people’s priorities. These were identified through a comprehensive review of existing information about what matters to children and young people followed by a series of workshop sessions agreeing and commenting on draft list of priorities.
Over 2000 children and young people’s views were represented in the review of information, and over 200 young people took part in discussions on the draft list of priorities. This included targeted work with under represented groups.
Through this process we have identified the agenda for change. The priorities list has been endorsed at group sessions with a wide range of age and interest groups across the city. If the partnership can deliver improvements on these issues, children and young people’s lives will be improved in Newcastle.
This report is not exhaustive, and there is scope for further work on any and all of these issues. In particular, children and young people are ready and willing to take part in discussions about how to improve things around these priorities.
The Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership needs to take ownership of the priorities and ensure that they are embedded in to planning processes from this point onwards, including the Children and young people’s plan.
Each Every Child Matters theme group and partnership service needs to decide how to involve children and young people in their decision making, and how to talk to children and young people about these issues. This is a starting point for discussions. Children and young people want to be involved in developing this agenda further, and through the participation strategy the partnership has the means to carry this through. Hopefully it will enable the partnership move beyond consultation towards real dialogue.
There are issues raised in this report that are the responsibility of services that deliver to the whole community, such as street lighting, parks, street cleansing and regeneration. These services need to take children and young people’s views into account and be aware of the impact of what they do on children and young people’s lives.
It is possible to engage with children and young people of all ages around the change for children agenda. Children and young people have an important contribution to make to discussions around these issues. We have started the process, and children and young people are waiting to get more involved.
If the partnership can make changes that improve things in relation to these themes, it will make a real difference to children and young people’s lives in Newcastle.
Process
Initially, a co-ordinating group was established through the Investing in Children Co-ordinator – drawing on services with strategic participation resources from all sectors. There were members from the following organisations:
· Children's Society Voices Project
· Connexions Newcastle
· Inline Newcastle
· Investing in Children
· Play and Youth Service
· Sure Start Armstrong
The review of existing information drew on the archive material of the organisations involved, and an appeal for information circulated across the strategic partnership and through schools in the city. Some projects undertook specific discussions around the every child matters framework to feed in to this stage. Over 50 pieces of work were involved, which were a variety of surveys, reports of group work, consultation events with children and young people and specific pieces of work around the every child matters outcomes. The key priorities raised in each were drawn together to identify issues that were raised consistently in different pieces of work.
This resulted in a draft list of 12 priorities. The co-ordinating group also mapped the sources of the information that was used, and identified where there were gaps in the knowledge –
· black and minority ethnic children and young people
· young parents
· looked after children and young people
· lesbian and gay young people
· children and young people in the north of the city
These groups were targeted for specific workshop sessions on their priorities as part of the next round.
The draft priorities were discussed with just under twenty groups of children and young people across the city, who were asked:
· are these priorities your priorities?
· do you want to add any other priorities that affect you ?
· how do you want to the strategic partnership to involve you in taking this agenda forward?
This report draws on these discussions and quotes from the review of existing information. There are still some more sessions to be held, and the report is still draft but has been produced quickly to aid planning for the Children and Young People’s Plan.
Where an issue particularly affected a specific group this has been highlighted in the text.
Loosely speaking, in the text the terms used for different age groups are:
Young children – under 6s; children 6-12; young people 13-19. However, these are not rigid definitions, and several of the groups involved in the work were of mixed age ranges.
What children and young people said
Twelve priorities
The following areas were agreed by consensus as the priorities to improve children and young people’s lives in Newcastle. They are in no particular order.
· Respect for children and young people from adults
o respect between different groups of children and young people
o fair treatment from organisations
· Space and opportunities to spend time with friends
· Outdoor play spaces
· Accessible sports and leisure provision – cheap, or free
· Road safety
· Discrimination including bullying, racism and homophobia
· Policing, crime and anti-social behaviour
· Decent neighbourhoods to grow up and live in
· Public transport
· Healthy lifestyle issues (around food, exercise, drugs and alcohol)
· Involvement in decision making
· More interesting lessons and fairer treatment in schools
While many of these issues fall directly into the Every Child Matters framework, some of them do not. It is up to the partnership to ensure that it takes all of these issues up, and that none of them fall between theme groups.
More detail of the content and some quotes from the children and young people who took part are given for each of the priorities below.
Respect
As well as the direct references, this issue was central to many of the other points that were raised. Children and young people do not feel that they get respect from adults in a whole variety of situations:
· Public transport, particularly from some bus drivers.
· Within schools by some teachers.
· Within their local community.
· From the police – especially when young people are spending time with their friends.
· From some shop staff.
· From services that they use – benefits agency, housing, medical professionals.
“We would have more respect for adults if they could speak to us in a way that they would like to be spoken to themselves”
[young person – Investing in Children group]
“Adults should ask young people what they want and not just assume” [young person – Investing in Children group]
“We can’t complain when the police have a go at us because we won’t be listened to.” [young person – Investing in Children group]
“They treat us like kids in there – do this, do that – if you don’t do it, get out! We want to go somewhere where we can have a say.” [young man, ethnic minority volunteers]
“I think they treat young people like scum, really. Just cattle” [young parent]
Many young people think that adults make too many assumptions about them being all bad, and don’t give them a chance:
“Not all young people do not care and are radgies” [young person – Connexions NVY group]
In other situations young people felt there were assumptions made about them due to their age:
“Doctors assume the pregnancy was an accident”
“Health visitors don’t think young people are capable of caring for babies” [young parents]
Young people would like to be given more opportunities to be themselves, for example in schools.
Some thought that the partnership should do more to challenge the negative image that children and young people have in the media:
“fund and run a positive images of young people campaign.” [Newcastle Homelessness Forum consultation]
Disabled children want adults working with them to make eye contact and be able to communicate with them. [Voices Project]
Young children did not raise this issue directly, but clearly expressed preferences between adults who work with them and wanted to spend more time with certain people.
[photos taken by children in Sure Start Armstrong]
Young people living in residential services wanted to know who the adults working with them are and to have consistency of contact, not agency workers coming and going all the time.
A further area raised was younger children feeling that they were not respected by young people - one group of children were concerned about ‘scary teenagers’. (See comments below relating to anti-social behaviour and discrimination).
some of the ideas raised:
- discussions between young people and the police
- a positive images campaign
- training for all staff dealing with young people
- promote the young people’s code of conduct developed by youth voice
- adults to treat young people as they would like to be treated and spoken to
- a choice of which worker you see
- involvement in recruitment
Space and opportunities to spend time with friends
This was an issue across the age ranges and for all the groups we spoke to in round two. Spending time with friends (i.e. people you choose for yourself to spend time with) is an important part of children and young people’s lives – as it is for adults. Yet children and young people feel there are too few chances to do this, and it can lead to them getting into trouble. Often facilities have restrictions on who can come in – for example only young people of a certain age.
Young children wanted to spend more time with their friends playing, particularly outdoors.
Children see time spent with friends as important as well as fun [children’s fund evaluation].
Young people were concerned about their privacy when with their friends:
“School does not count as being able to spend time with friends as you are in an “un-natural” environment and there are teachers and security cameras watching everything” [young person – Investing in Children group]
Clearly there is a strong link between this as an issue and access to somewhere safe, warm and dry. They don’t necessarily want to take part in organised activities when they are there.
· Many places to go are too expensive.
· Young people often gather in groups as this makes them feel safe, however adults only see this from their own point of view as a threat.
· Some young people felt less safe with friends on the street when the police were around.
· Young people also want their time with friends to be respected as important, and a valid choice of what to do with their time. They don’t always want to be ‘bombarded with information’ from services whenever they go to a youth club.
· Younger children are less able to spend time with their friends, as there are fewer places for them to go which their parents consider safe.
For those who are away from their family friends can take on an even more important role, and the disruption to friendships of moving school and home should be taken seriously. Looked after children want better contact with their friends, family and social workers. [Viewpoint]
Young children identified their friends as one of the most important things they enjoyed in their lives.
[photos taken by children in Sure Start Armstrong]
Outdoor play spaces
This issue was a particular priority for younger children. It was one of the top priorities for young children in Sure Start Armstrong – the children wanted more chance to play outside, in places that were safe and not scary and away from traffic and other dangers.
“Safe places to play” [Voices Project]
Young children in Sure Start Armstrong preferred open green spaces as somewhere to play to parks.
[photos taken by children in Sure Start Armstrong]
Within nurseries, playing outside was also seen as important and enjoyable, and something children wanted to do more.
Older children often talked about parks, playing fields and green spaces. This often included wanting to play in these places – ball games, swings and cycling in particular. Many comments were about the value attached by children to having somewhere to go and play that’s safe and open, although nature areas and trips out were also mentioned.
“More clubs, more parks, more exercise activities” [Play and Youth consultation event]
“We like riding our bikes” [Hadrian School].
A common concern was that play areas are often vandalised and poorly maintained. Parks often have broken glass and litter in them, and are not seen as safe either by parents or children.
“Keep the park clean” [Investing in Children Dinnington group]
Sports and leisure provision
Older children and young people tended to talk about ‘places to go’ rather than outdoor play spaces. Children mentioned after school clubs and hobbies as things they wanted more of.