Moves to build on city’s youth engagement in Wolverhampton

Council bosses have received a report on the city’s Youth Engagement Strategy (#YES), which sets out the activities and groups that are available for youngsters to get involved with and help to steer.

These include initiatives such as the city’s youth council, young MPs, anti-bullying charter – run by young people in conjunction with local schools – culture and diversity group and holiday activities programmes.

The council’s deputy director for commissioning and transformation Andrew Wolverson told members of the strong families, children and young people scrutiny panel: “Everything that we do falls under three main building blocks – being healthy, being you and being connected – and that’s what young people told us was important to them.

“Our theme of ‘being you’ around engagement and participation looks at a number of the ways in which young people can take part in things in the city, such as being youth MPs or joining a number of groups including our youth council, #YES Board, Care Leavers Independent Collective (CLIC) Children in Care Council and Culture and Diversity group.

“Some of the successes we have had through these very active groups include having over 140 young people engaged and conducting a survey with families on life in lockdown, which directly influenced our programme going forward – especially in terms of connecting with our green spaces and planning our holiday programmes.

“A real huge area – and I’m sure this will come as no surprise – is around mental health. Across the engagement and participation groups there has been lots of work done around mental health awareness, including engaging in a number of national campaigns.

“Our young people actually run the anti-bullying charter, which we’ve got two thirds of schools accredited to now. They do the assessments of the schools who put themselves forward.

“Also, across the city we had a turnout of 10,000 young people who voted for their youth MPs which is fantastic. Through our youth engagement participation board, to date they have given over half-a-million pounds worth of grants to local and voluntary organisations to run activities during the school holidays.

“We are really proud of what we have achieved. Just under 30,000 activities were delivered over the summer holidays compared to 12,000 last year.”

Chief executive of The Way Youth Zone in School Street – which is the city’s flagship provision for young people – Jackie Redding told members: “The Way is a fabulous building with incredible facilities. We offer a range of activities for young people aged 8-18 and up to 25 if they’ve got additional needs. We have junior, senior and family sessions and young people can do everything from football to rock climbing, cooking and music.

“The idea is that they come in and it’s a fun, safe and welcoming place to be and they get the opportunity to try lots of different things. At the moment we are seeing just over 100 young people an evening.”

Councillor Andrew McNeil said: “I think we all recognise the amount of work that has gone into youth provisions in the city, and this is to be applauded. But in my ward there are some very disadvantaged families and The Way is too far away so they can’t get there. It doesn’t feel like we’ve yet got to the point where everyone is getting equal access.”

Mr Wolverson said: “We are actively going out to our providers and asking them if they could consider providing in other areas, so we are trying to get that spread. We have just commissioned the October half-term and are now looking at Christmas and February,”

Councillor Lynne Moran added: “Within my ward we have far and away more children and young people living in poverty than any other ward. And what parents will say is that they want a youth club on their doorstep, which is what we had.

“The perception that I have from a lot of parents is that they can’t afford to let their children go to The Way, and I don’t think they would let them unless there was a minibus there.”

Ms Redding said: “Regardless of finance, we never turn anyone away. So please don’t let that be a barrier. It’s five pounds for membership – which we waive frequently – and 50p when youngsters come, and then they can do everything. But if they turn up without money we never turn people away.”