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

On Monday 27 January 2025, we met in the Councillors Chamber of the Town Hall, and Ashaz from the Rotherham Youth Cabinet chaired our partnership board with Cllr Cusworth. We introduced ourselves and told the group our name, where we go to school or work and what we think is the best snack. We had lots of favourite snacks, like crisps, chocolate, fruit and cake, and even raspberry ripple ice cream.

We moved downstairs to the John Smiths room so we could all give our presentations on what our priorities are from the Rotherham Together Plan.

We heard presentations from:

• Youth Cabinet
• Young Inspectors
• With Me in Mind
• Smiles for Miles
• Guiding Voices

We then had a networking tea and had chance to talk to other children and young people at the meeting, as well as some of the adults.  

Whilst we were networking and having some food, Laura and Helen collated what we had said and put lists of the main points onto our tables for us to discuss. We then worked together to make a decision on the top three priorities on our table ready to feedback.

We all thought that there needed to be more support before crisis, and that mental health support should be easier to access, as support was often offered too late. If self-referral forms were taken more seriously, that might help.

We also spoke about some of the gaps we think there are, like for boys under 18 and when we transition from a young person to an adult, because we find the gap tough. We think it’s really important that schools are more aware of health and wellbeing, and that more councillors might help.

It would be good if there were safe spaces around the community with trusted adults, or within school, which is particularly hard now that schools lock the toilets. Sometimes it’s important for us as young people to leave the room when things are getting a little bit too much, and this should be facilitated.

We all know that the environment and climate are important, as things that happen now will impact us in our later life.

We would like to reduce pollution and make sure that we are re-wilding in Rotherham.

It would be nice if there was a bigger focus on keeping areas clean, so perhaps more bins could help, and we could plant more trees to make our green spaces nicer, as we know having spaces to go also helps our mental health.

Perhaps having smoke/vape free outdoor zones would also make being outside more pleasant.

We spoke about our communities and thought about what we would like to see within them to make them stronger. We thought it sounded better to think of this as ‘bringing local people together’, as this felt more accessible to us.

We want to make sure there are places young people can go to share experiences and have fun and thought Youth Clubs were extremely important for this and that it would be good to see more of them, they might also stop trouble and help to lower crime rates. It would also help us learn more about other cultures and religions and would help us celebrate different occasions together, like Eid and Diwali. It would be good if we could come together to improve our connections and friendships.

We want to feel safe in our communities to the introduction of safety spots in the borough could help where young people know there will be a trusted adult that they can talk to if they feel unsafe.

We know that it’s important for Rotherham to be inclusive and think that a lot of things we discussed interlink into other areas.

We want to bring people together and ensure there’s opportunity for everyone in Rotherham. There should be more work experience and better links to career paths which should create more jobs in the area, especially part time jobs. This would help people have a purpose and a role in the community and bring people together.

We spoke about how not all people have access to the same things, and how community spaces should be available, so everyone has the choice to use computers, Wi-Fi, stationery and books.

We’ve been told that there’s lots going on in Rotherham, like the Children’s Capital of Culture, and lots of events like music festivals, parades and film festivals.

There should be more promotion of these so we know what’s happening and can feel proud of the place that we live in. The socialisation will bring people together.

After we fed back our opinions, we voted to decide our collective three top priorities:

1. Building Stronger Communities
2. Health and Wellbeing
3. Climate and Environment

We ran out of time for Helen to tell us what we did after the last meeting, but we received a presentation afterwards which told us about the updates on our actions.

The presentation told us that colleagues in Public Health were feeding the information we provided about tackling vaping in school toilets into the next headteachers meeting where they were planning to see what responses the headteachers had to our concerns.

We also found out that the vandalised metal chairs at the bus station had been replaced with foam chairs, and new posters had been developed for information sharing and new processes put in place for improved support from South Yorkshire Police with a Mobile Anti-Social Behaviour Team being employed.

In terms of the Council Plan, Tanya has told the board that she will keep us informed about what decisions have been made and the impact that we’ve had on the council plan, and that both safety and children and young people having fun things to do are being considered as part of this process.

CAMHS are working on their Thrive Service Improvement work and will facilitate a launch. This will help us understand what CAMHS do. CAMHS have also launched a new referral form, ensuring there is an element of child’s voice, and CAMHS are engaging with the Young People’s Advisory Group around what a drop-in service could look like.