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

On Tuesday 15 July 2025, we met in the Councillors Chamber of the Town Hall, and David from the Rotherham Young Inspectors 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 film, because we wanted to celebrate the Arc Cinema. We had lots of favourite films, like Deadpool, How to Train your Dragon, the F1 Movie, and Harry Potter.

We had attendees from:

• In Care Youth Group
• BME Young People and Carers Group
• Young Inspectors
• Smiles for Miles

Helen then told us about all of the updates from the last meeting when we spoke about what actions we would like to see from reviewing the Rotherham Together Plan.

She told us about the Safer Rotherham Partnership who are developing ‘Safety Spots’ in the borough, as well as CCTV and street lighting and existing youth clubs in the borough that engage in work to protect people from violence.

We heard about the Health and Wellbeing Board, the process of self-referral for CAMHs (child and adolescent mental health) support and the pathways for what happens when we transition from children to adults. Helen also spoke about the Business Growth Board, the rejuvenation of the Town Centre, how we can make libraries more welcoming and young people friendly and education and work opportunities in Rotherham.

We also heard about the Cultural Partnership, how we’d like to know more about different cultures and religions so that we can come together and share experiences, as well as making sure that there are enough safe outdoor spaces to help improve our Mental Health. Helen also gave us the update from the team who consulted with us about the Council Plan at a previous meeting.

We have asked the Young Inspectors to inspect some libraries in the area because of what Helen told us.

We moved downstairs to the Garden Room so we could all explore the options for what we wanted our own priorities to be over the next year, as we knew there were some gaps in what we wanted to see actioned from our last meeting.

After a networking tea, Helen spoke to us about the things that she wanted us to think about, and to decide what we wanted to agree to have as our priorities as the Children and Young People’s Partnership Board.

We spoke about whether we wanted to continue to scrutinise the Rotherham Together Plan and said that we think that it’s good that we can represent a range of different voices and lived experiences, getting our voices across and capturing all perspectives, because we know that things impact people differently.

We also think that it’s a good way for us to know about what’s happening in the area and help spread awareness of different things and be involved in questionnaires on important topics.

We spoke about the Children’s Capital of Culture and how we’d like to see more advertising for it and said it might be good to ask them to come back and present to us about what they have done and what they are doing next.

When we voted, 4 of us said yes to this and 1 of us said no, so it was decided that we would continue to scrutinise the Rotherham Together Plan.

We then had a think about whether we should develop a strategy to say what we are proud of in Rotherham.

We said that there were loads of things we could shout about, like:

• youth clubs
• leisure centres
• Clifton Park
• how Rotherham is culturally inclusive
• the green spaces available
• Grimm & Co.
• Clifton Park Museum
• our local accent
• Pride festivals
• Wow festival,
• Uplift festival
• the Arc cinema
• the food options we have
• historical buildings
• Gulliver’s Valley
• how there is plenty to do, like the splash zone and bike tracks

We then had a good idea of what we’d like to include, we thought it would be important to improve the communication of what’s going on and that it would be good if there were better ways of knowing what’s already happening.

Lots of us weren’t sure what was happening within the Children’s Capital of Culture, so we spoke about how it would be good if there was more awareness of this, because we want to see more events, festivals and different multi-cultural events in the area.

It was great when there was an event like The Reytons to bring everyone together because events make Rotherham lively when they are on so it would be good to see more of them. They don’t have to be big events as it would also be good to see more things in our local areas and communities, like the Islamic Centre has lots of things for young people, collaborations and things for the community.

We love that we have lots of green spaces, and these should be promoted as they are good for exercise, our mental health, and give us the opportunity to meet up and go out. We heard that Rotherham have done a lot to improve opportunities for young people when thinking about college and university, so we think that this should be promoted.

We thought it would be great if we could change the narrative, as we often only hear about the bad things and often say that we’re from Sheffield rather than Rotherham. People might not like Rotherham because there are some unsafe areas at night and some areas are dirty, but we think that these could be things that we can work on.

We also had a think about how we could communicate the strategy if we were to develop one, and how we could use social media (Instagram, TikTok, QR codes in schools, parks or bus stops) because we know that there are lots of helpful accounts on Instagram already.

We also spoke about how young people’s opinions will matter a lot as lots of things spread by word of mouth. We could use posters and leaflets that are bright and colourful, and even the strategy could be in the form of a big poster.

We could use bright t-shirts, pens, pins or other merchandise. We know we have access to lots of Youth Clubs so we can even promote the strategy there. It’s so important that we share why it’s good to live in Rotherham, and maybe even a website or survey could be used to collect other ideas.

When we voted, 6 of us said yes to this and 0 of us said no, so it was decided that we would look to develop a Strategy showcasing what Young People are proud of in Rotherham and why it is good to grow up here.

We spoke about developing a youth club curriculum and made a ‘shopping list’ outlining what we’d like to see. We brainstormed and came up with things like how to apply for jobs and use computers and social media safely, as well as how to show respect to those that are different to you and how we could deal with stress and improve our sleep.

When we voted, 4 of us said yes to this and 0 of us said no, so it was decided that we would look to develop guidance and support for Youth Clubs.

Suggestions on the shopping list included:

• How to apply for jobs
• How to use computers
• How to use social media safely
• Why you shouldn't smoke or vape
• How to respect people that are different to you
• How to deal with stress
• Better hygiene
• Improved sleep
• Improved mental health
• Different activities to be available and how to access them, like arts, crafts, games, and creativity for different age groups
• Doing fun things
• Teachers to be more practical
• Socialising
• Cooking lessons

Finally, we spoke about having part-time comms opportunities in the form of work for under 16yr olds and roles for 16+. We were really excited about this and thought that it would be fantastic to have paid work experience for older young people and that this is something that we would be interested in. We suggested vouchers would be a good alternative for under 16s for content creation roles. The content could be used on Council websites and school websites and schools could show it in assemblies. Lots of people would also see the content if we used TikTok.

When we voted, 8 of us said yes to this and 0 of us said no, so it was decided that we would look to develop part-time comms opportunities for all young people to access.