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Vale Youth Forum

Members of the Vale Youth Forum

The story of the Vale Youth Forum.

What has your group been created for?

The Vale Youth Forum was created in 1996 to meet with young people and find out what they think about the services provided by the Council.

There are four youth forum meetings every year in October, December, March and June. About 80 young people attend from schools in and around the Vale (aged 14-18) to talk about issues which affect them locally.

The agendas are planned by a working group of councilors and officers with the help of youth forum members and have included a variety of topics such as vandalism, litter, community policing, leisure, housing, drugs, alcohol, climate change etc.

How has it made a difference?

A youth cabinet was elected in Oct 2007 from members of the Youth Forum to take projects forward. They put in a bid to the Divisional Youth Forum in May and were awarded £14,335 to produce a youth magazine. The magazine called ‘VYM’ (Vale Youth Magazine) will be launched in October with two further issues in February and June. 25,000 issues will be distributed free to all young people in schools and youth clubs in the Vale and South.

A dedicated youth website was set up in 2004 for young people, designed by youth forum members. A new site was re-designed by youth forum representatives in 2007. The site is hosted by the County Council’s website at www.spired.com/vale

In 2007 young people were consulted about where to put the proposed skate park in Abingdon. Over 900 young people from Abingdon voted and selected the White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre for the site.

A youth strategy was adopted in November 2006 which is reviewed annually at a partner workshop which includes young people.

What do you do in your group?

The meetings are a combination of short presentations, question and answer sessions or group discussions in small groups with feedback to the main group. A variety of topics are covered in the meetings.

How do you make sure that every child or young person is heard?

A councilor or officer helps facilitate the group discussions to ensure that all young people are included.

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