Now we can have our say'
Teenager Scott Forbes is influencing the way children's services are being shaped in his hometown of Lincoln. Forbes, 19, is a Participation Works young inspector for an innovative scheme which engages children and young people in the commissioning of services. "We all travel on buses and trains, visit leisure centres and parks and use the local library," he says.
Participation Works is a consortium of six national children and young people's agencies, which enables organisations to involve children and young people in the delivery and development of relevant services.
Forbes, one of a group of 68 young people, across 8 local authorities, is paid to check up on local services and report back. After three days induction training, inspectors can be paid up to £75 per inspection (this varies from region to region and does not affect benefits).
Barbara Heron, deputy chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, one of the consortium members, says it is crucial to educate both users and service deliverers. Involving children and young people in the commissioning and feedback process can be invaluable. She says: "Children and young people offer a sense of dynamism and creativity for what may be in danger of being a bureaucratic process."
Southwark council, in south London, has developed its own way of understanding the needs of its users. A new project, introduced earlier this year, uses storytelling to get 13- to 19-year-olds talking about their life experiences, with the ultimate aim of helping the council construct its young people's plan.
At dedicated events - held in venues such as legendary nightclub Ministry of Sound - children are encouraged to talk about issues surrounding health, staying safe, their achievements, their contribution to society and their economic wellbeing.
"Locally, we see their views as a central part of our needs assessment," says Romi Bowen, Southwark's strategic director of children's services. The approach was born from the desire to "do something different to enable us to understand children and young people and enable them to experience the range of provision agencies in a holistic way," he says.
The council has gathered thoughts from a range of individuals, such as parents of disabled children, school councils, young people within the pupil referral unit, looked-after children, frontline staff in children's centres, teachers, social workers and foster carers to develop "spark stories" which are told at the beginning of sessions. Participants are encouraged to write their own story, share it with others, and then to write a different ending detailing what they would have liked to have happened.
Notable examples of spark stories include the story of a young father who had been excluded from school, imprisoned for drug offences and the victim of a stabbing. After passing his GCSEs in prison, he got involved with youth work and went on to share his experiences in the storytelling scheme.
Southwark has so far collected 1,000 stories like this and is in the process of analysing them and feeding them into the development of its new Children and Young People's Plan.
User feedback
Cheryl Eastwood is assistant executive director of children's services at Tameside council, Greater Manchester, which uses the symbol of the "Tameside rainforest" to show the way in which services and outcomes for children and young people are naturally connected and interdependent.
"It's about understanding the needs of children and then procuring and developing services internally," says Eastwood. The council uses feedback from staff on the ground and youth focus groups: "We might hold a special event for youth services to elicit young people's responses and we use national surveys such as Tellus." Tellus is the national survey which gathers children and young people's views on life, school and their local area.
One of Tameside's greatest achievements is its redesigned Granada Road playing fields. "The young children told us they didn't want to play there because they didn't feel safe," says Eastwood, "so when we rebuilt the playgrounds, we did it in consultation with them."
In Newcastle, the U Decide programme hands decisions on public spending to young people. Since 2006, children and young people in the city have decided where to allocate more than £3m to relevant projects.
This year the Newcastle Great Park U Decide project brought more than 100 young people together to vote on £25,000 of local funding. Local service providers and school, community and voluntary sector groups were invited to submit ideas for spending a share of the money resulting in 61 young people voting to fund 13 of the 20 projects. Initiatives like this, says project coordinator Nick Brereton, "mean young people can share some of the responsibility for what happens where they live and make some real changes."