"Identifying the Outcomes of the Mearns Youth Consultation"
Download the Follow Up Report HERE
The Mearns Youth Forum ask decision makers and service providers to respond to the Mearns Youth Consultation
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At a special event on 3 February 2009, Mearns Youth Forum told local council officers, members of the community council and representatives from local charities what young people had said in the Youth Consultation - and we asked them to respond.
Details of what they said have been published in a full report, available from Mearns Community Centre .
"A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess." A. Philip Randolph
The Mearns Youth Forum - representing the youth of the Mearns
MEARNS YOUTH CONSULTATION 2008
SUMMARY
26th January 2009
During December 2008 young people across the Mearns Community School Network Area were asked what they felt about their community. Although the consultation focused on the main communities of Arbuthnott, Auchenblae, Edzell Woods, Fettercairn, Fordoun, Laurencekirk, Luthermuir, Marykirk and St. Cyrus, responses also came from young people who lived outside the area but attended Mearns Academy.
There had not been any in-depth needs assessment of the young people living and going to school in the Mearns area since 2007. The main purposes of this consultation were to:
- Find out what young people living and going to school in the Mearns felt about their community;
- Establish a responsive approach to developing youth work provision in the Mearns;
- Engage with young people in the Mearns area and make them aware of services and potential opportunities available to them through youth work.
The young people who took part were asked about different aspects of life in the Mearns: leisure, transport, youth information, youth work and community safety and about their community. While most of the questions come from members of the Mearns Youth Forum, questions also came from Community Learning and Development, Arts Development, Health, the Police and Barnardos.
The consultation was delivered at Mearns Academy, at the Laurencekirk CO-OP store, at Mearns Community Centre and at different locations around the Mearns on the Kincardine and Mearns COMET (Community Outreach Mobile Education and Training). The response was excellent: 263 young people took part with ninety-one percent being school pupils.
Community Learning and Development staff, in partnership with the Mearns Youth Forum, are now working hard to respond to the views expressed in this consultation. We hope that together we can develop vibrant youth work provision that is accessible, responsive and relevant to the young people who live and go to school in the Mearns today.
“Youth work must continue to evolve to reflect the lives and needs of young people, their communities, and national and global society. Youth work must continue to look forward with focus and with ambition for its role. Modernising and changing, it will be right at the forefront of delivering the best possible outcomes for every young person in Scotland.”
(Moving Forward: A Strategy for Improving Young People’s Chances Through Youth Work, 2007: 2.2 Scottish Executive, Edinburgh: Crown Copyright)
Kirsty Smith
Community Learning and Development Worker
Aberdeenshire Council
Acknowledgements
I would like to congratulate the Mearns Youth Forum for all their hard work in designing this consultation and to express my thanks to the Head Teacher and staff of Mearns Academy for their assistance in conducting this consultation. Thanks also to the Laurencekirk CO-OP store for allowing us to conduct the consultation there.
The Mearns Youth Forum are:
Lyndsey, Will, Georgia, Kirsty, Jodie, Joe, Erin, Gayle, Niki and Matthew.
This consultation was funded by Aberdeenshire Council’s Community Safety Partnership
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