Young Wales Annual Conference #YWCI2017

On 21.02.17 the Youth Mayor and members of the Vale Youth Forum went to the annual Young Wales conference at the Future Inn Hotel in Cardiff.  Around 120 young people from across Wales trekked to attend the conference but luckily for us we only had a half hour drive.

To kick off the day there was a presentation on all the work Young Wales had done throughout the year,this included the work on UK Youth Parliament and much more.  The event was hosted and organised by young people with help from support workers, young people even ran some of the exciting workshops we attended throughout the day.

There were four workshops on; the curriculum review; Well-being of Future Generations Act; anti-bullying; and resilience and well-being.  All the workshops were every interesting and sparked debates on a wide range of issues and it was good to listen to other young people's views on these issues.  After a delicious lunch we had a talk from the Children's Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, who updated us on her work and we created a hug paper chain full of pledges to promote the UNCRC locally which was great fun.  Also she mentioned the Vale Rights Ambassadors during her talk, as an example of a way young people and youth services are promoting the UNCRC!!

The event ended with a Q&A session with four decision-makers in Wales which included two Assembly Members, the Chief Executive of Children in Wales and Sally Holland.  There were lots of questions posted to the panel from young people in the audience on a range of topics.  Overall it was a great day for everyone who attended!

District Commissioner Tir a Môr

At tonight's meeting the District Commissioner Tir a Môr for Barry and Vale Scouts gave us a presentation about Scouting and the opportunities available to young people living in Barry and the Vale.  We learnt more about the different groups available from Cubs to Explorers and the different activities young people can get involved in.  We are looking forward to working with the District's Young Leaders and would like to wish them luck with their #YouShape mission! 

At the meeting we also finalised the youth satisfaction survey which we will be piloting in different youth clubs and provisions over the next couple of weeks.  We also looked at the revised School Transport Code of Practice which will be coming out to schools soon!  And we are looking forward to meeting officials from Atkin Associates ahead of the Vale Youth Service's Bronze Quality Mark inspection in March. 

School Transport Update

Today we met with Councillor Peter King, Cabinet Member for Building Services, Highways and Transportation, the Safeguarding Officer and the Passenger Transport Manager of the Council to review our school transport report that we carried out in 2015. It has been just over a year since we made our recommendations and we reviewed our action plan with the officers responsible and were updated on all aspects.

We found out that since a new operator has been providing school transport, the transport teams who have been carrying out spot checks and introduced head counts on school buses, have noted improvements in cleanliness and punctuality.

Also, as we took part in the consultation on the new School Transport Policy we were informed that this will be implemented in September 2017. The main changes to the policy are; if you are in post 16 education you will only be supplied transport to your education provision in the Vale, Bridgend and Cardiff and if you are awarded free school transport in error you will only be covered until the end of term.

As a youth cabinet we have also been involved in the ongoing development of the Welsh Government Travel Behaviour Code which we shared with everyone. It is now updated and we have put forward our views that it should be distributed across the Vale and students should be actively made aware of it.

Finally we also brought up the issue about school transport to Llantwit High school from the Eglwys Brewis estate in St Athan which was recently raised at a Vale Youth Forum meeting. It was discussed that the route is available under the Welsh Government guidelines and a variety of options have been suggested to concerned parents.