LIVERPOOL CITY REGION YOUTH ASSEMBLY – STARTING THE CONVERSATION
Young people from across the Liverpool City Region came together to talk to the Metro Mayor and other senior decision makers from across the region as part of the UK Parliament Week.
November saw Apprenticeship Hub Team member Sue Ennis, take part in the ‘Starting the Conversation’ Young People’s Conference on the 12th November.
The event was organised by Youth Focus NW, which is a strategic hub with youth work values at the heart of every piece of work.
Across the North West of England and beyond their work is driven by a desire to improve the lives of young people.
This was a Liverpool City Region wide youth conference held at Black E, Great George Street, Liverpool.
Youth Voice
Over the past two years a group of young people from across the Liverpool City Region has been supported by their local youth workers and Youth Focus NW to explore the notion of youth voice, impact of Devolution and the formation of the North West Youth Assembly.
As part of the event the young people brought together young people, local policy makers and decision makers together to jointly explore and debate topics of interest from across Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral. The individual themes the conference explored included:
- Child Poverty
- Housing
- Skills (including a Curriculum for Life)
- Transport
- Hate Crime
- Mental Health
- Exploring issues affecting young people
The Hub sat with a group exploring the issues around Post 16 Education in the City Region, with young people asking questions to a panel of experts on the issues that matter to them either as a group or have affected them personally in their locality, and what was being done to address these issues.
Decision makers attending included, Steve Rotherham Metro Mayor, Cllr Liam Robinson Chair of Merseytravel, Lynn Collins Regional Secretary TUC North West, John Au Anthony Walker Foundation, Kate Farrell Mayor Advisor Homelessness, Steve Harding Director of Crisis Skylight Merseyside, Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram attended the event to take part in a question and answer session with the young people pressing questions on such issues as Devolution, funding for education, housing and transport.
Over the past year the North West Youth Assembly has been funded by Erasmus, working to include young people in the Liverpool City Region. The funding runs out at the end of next month, so as a group they will cease meeting.
A final report will be issued in early December to disseminate the results of the conference with the aim that organisations that took part will use the information gathered at the event as a launch pad to involve young people in the future to ‘start the conversations’
