Carnegie Young People Initiative

We are pleased to announce that the North East Regional Youth Work Unit has been awarded the contract to deliver the Regional Coordination pilot for the RAP Group.

The North East region has been selected to host an exciting pilot project to support the Regional Active Participation (RAP) to develop as a group, improve its coordination and networking mechanisms to support children and young people’s participation work in the region. RAP brings together professionals from across the region who work with children and young People in a participatory way, recognising their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The PWNE’s first national health conference held last month in York was a great success with more than 110 delegates attending the Patient Advisory and Liasion Service (PALS) event, focused on children and young people’s involvement in health settings. Delegates came from diverse backgrounds ranging from PALS advisors themselves to Participation Workers and local authority staff. The day began with a panel of experts debating some of the key issues raised in the PALS research, and ended with insights from young people about their own experiences in health settings. The conference successfully brought together a range of practitioners from across the UK who shared their experiences with the aim of improving practice and raising the profile of children and young people’s participatio

Following the PWNE survey which many of you contributed to earlier this year a report has been produced by the NCB Research and Evaluation Unit.

Calling all London Participation Workers!

Do you want to start some participation work with children and young people but don’t know where to start? OR Have you ever wanted an opportunity to share some of your mistakes and achievements in children and young people’s participation and support someone new to the field?

The Participation Workers Network for England is offering 20 London Participation Workers the unique opportunity to take part in a pilot Participation Worker Learning Community.

A free event for Young Londoners aged 7 to 18 will take place on Saturday 26th November from 10.30am-5pm at the City Hall. At this event young people can question the Mayor and get involved in changing London for the better. You can also enjoy music, poetry and performances, use the video diary room or go to creative workshops. Contact Donnalyn Morris on 0207 983 4521 if you’re interested in attending or bringing a group. This event will launch the Young Londoner’s Network, which will coordinate participation activities for young people in London.

An exciting opportunity to develop the next phase of en-vision, engage’s successful programme of work supporting galleries to engage with young people aged 14 – 21, outside formal mainstream education, with a particular focus on young people at risk.

Even if you are a registered memeber of the PWNE database, you need to sign up to receive the fortnightly electronic newsletter. This gies you up to date information from PWNE and the participation world, including job vacancies, news about government policy, and events and conferences.

Once logged onto the PWNE contacts database enter your e-mail address and click on ‘subscribe’ on the right hand side of the page.

There are many opportunities for Participation Workers and the groups of children and young people they work with, to contribute their views to the consultation process of the Youth Green Paper Youth Matters. PWNE plans to survey it’s membership later on in the summer, in addition, a few of the Regional Youth Work Units and Regional Participation Worker networks around the country are facilitating various events and workshops, so you can feed in your views.

Louise Driffill is a PhD student at Cambridge University, Department of Geography and is conducting research on the processes and outcomes of youth participation in decisions regarding land-use planning in England.

School Works is a groundbreaking national initiative that uses innovative participatory approaches to link the redesign of school buildings with programmes of educational, social and organisational change. click here.