Children and Young People’s Partnership Board - January 2025 meeting presentations

Smiles for Miles told us about their priorities from the Rotherham Together Plan. They had picked Building Stronger Communities, Health and Wellbeing and Climate and Environment.

They told us that youth clubs were really important to making the community stronger, as it means there’s somewhere fun for young people to go that’s safe and comfortable. This can help to keep young people off the streets where things can end up being dangerous, providing them with a trusted adult to talk to. It’s good because young people can talk to these adults about subjects that matter to them without judgement, and it also helps young people mix with different people and learn about other cultures and religions. If they are local and available across Rotherham, young people don’t have to rely on travel which is often a barrier.

They told us about Health and Wellbeing, and how there should be a mixture of support in and outside of school so that there’s choice of who to speak to. It is important that the support is young person focused, and it could perhaps use other methods to help young people open up, like music, games and drawing. Parents should also get help, so they know how to support young people. Another thing is that young people feel the transition between mental health support for children to adults needs to be longer, as it moves at a time that is really difficult when everything else is changing too.

For Climate and Environment, Smiles for Miles told us that we should plant more trees. We need air to live, and trees give us air. If places are dirty, young people might not want to spend time out in nature, which doesn’t help young people, as spending time in nature and going for walks makes young people feel better. There isn’t anyone else that is going to help nature, so we need to stand up to protect it and be careful of destroying animal habitats.