Bath Youth Conference Report
A participant from Off The Record’s Youth Forum, Thomas Garner, gives the lowdown on a groundbreaking Bath youth event…
‘As young people, we are the future’:
BANES Youth Groups Conference
17th February 2022, 5pm-7pm
CONTENT WARNING: substance abuse, mental health conditions, domestic violence, and suicide are mentioned or alluded to but not in significant detail
On the evening of 17th February 2022, a wide range of fantastic youth groups from across Bath gathered at BRLSI to share with each other what they do. All of the presenters were participants or service-users of the groups they were representing. Here's what we learned.
#1 Room 627
The first presentation was from the Oldfield School Wellbeing Ambassadors, who form Room 627. They began with a fabulous quote regarding the environment and society, and then gave a concise but in-depth summary of their pivotal activities to support pupils in the transition from primary to secondary school, including a creative writing workshop. They also showed a sweet animation that they made. Their project reinforces the psychology and biology regarding a positive mindset and mindfulness, and it would be incredibly useful for other schools to do something similar. Room 627 helped to organise the conference, including setting up an activity making mini campaigning placards, which led to these creations:
#2 Project 28
Project 28 provide free advice, guidance, and one-to-one sessions for young people in Bath And North-East Somerset (BANES) who are having problems with drugs
and/or alcohol. They were unable to attend the event in person but sent a video for us to watch. The video explored fairly tough subjects such as substance abuse and domestic violence in an honest but subdued tone. There was also a strong, contrasting message of hope and positivity for the young people helped by Project 28.
#3 Black Families Education Support Group
Black Families run exciting weekly and school holiday educational activities for children and young people of colour in BANES exploring Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic culture, heritage, and identity. Their engaging presentation went into impressive and precise detail regarding their members, the plethora of activities they go on, and their achievements. In answer to a question from an audience member about what schools can do to better support students of colour, one Black Families young person said: ‘Teach the positive aspects of Black History, not just the negatives.’
#4 Bath Student Parliament
The next presentation was from Bath Student Parliament, represented by three Year 13 students from Monkton School. The confident presenters (speaking without notes!) gave a detailed description of the objectives and interschool relations of this new initiative. Elections are happening in schools across Bath at the moment, and there will be working groups focusing on issues such as mental health and diversity. In future schools from other parts of BANES may be able to join the Parliament.
#5 Youth Forum (Off The Record)
Off the Record’s Youth Forum is a space for 11-18s in BANES who want to make positive change in their community. There was good focus on youth and our invaluable contributions to local and regional politics, with one of the presenters stating passionately that ‘As young people, we are the future, and it is vital that our voices should be heard and acted upon… We are most powerful when we work together.’ The Youth Forum has recently separated from the UK Youth Parliament because ‘we felt our role in the community needed to be more inclusive and diverse… we aim to elevate unheard voices’.
#6 Care-Experienced Council (Off The Record)
Off the Record’s Care-Experienced Council, 19-25 year-olds who have experience of being in care, gave a candid and precise presentation. This included showing a video which was exceptionally clear regarding an effort to rebrand “care” in a more positive narrative. The video was similar to Project 28’s in its gentle and upbeat tone when regarding what can be a difficult subject for young people to talk about.
There were also clear and powerful ideas projected in reference to reducing the negative stigma in relation to foster care, and in a larger sense, the care system itself.
#7 Youth Connect South-West
Youth Connect South-West’s Cookery Group stirred a change into the format of the presentations by doing a physical cooking demonstration. This summed up their much more precisely than a digital presentation could have done. The presenters had a confident and humorous nature of which was inclusive towards the audience, and made light of the moment when ‘too many berries’ were added to the recipe! This created a comfortable atmosphere in which to mention the benefits of the cookery group for young people struggling with mental health and other daily challenges.
#8 Boys In Mind
Boys In Mind; Girls Mind Too support schools, other organisations and young people with issues around male suicide and mental health. They spoke and showed a very effective video about things like combatting masculine stigma, encouraging men to take a more active role in feminism, and using ‘privilege’ positively to help reduce discrimination faced by all genders and sexualities. This presentation was vehemently supportive, inclusive, and clear in tone. Seven questions were asked at the end of their presentation, suggesting a particularly keen engagement from the
audience. The questions led to valuable insights into aspects such as the organisation’s policies around inclusivity.
#9 CAMHS BANES
CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) was represented by one young person, who describe their services. Some parts of the presentation were extremely informative, including a slide regarding autism, which conveyed exceptionally well, the difficulties of autistic people to communicate with non-autistic people. This was particularly moving and arguably the most cohesive and clear excerpt from the BANES CAMHS PowerPoint. The presentation culminated with a short video that helped cement the key ideas and points.
Conclusion and Summary
The friendly, calm, and confident atmosphere of the conference overcame what could have been stressful delays and technical issues, as did good teamwork and the warm and amicable tone of the organiser, Ailsa from Bath Mind.
The event was billed as a one-off, but the cohesion insinuated a potential for further collaboration Councillor Dine Romero - Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Communities and Culture - offered an interesting perspective which was in part a criticism of BANES Council for not listening to young people enough.
Ailsa rounded up the evening by referring to local higher educational involvement in preserving mindfulness and removing social stigma around mental health. The evening closed with a takeaway message which summed up each presentations perfectly: advocating social and political change through youth.
By Thomas Garner, Youth Forum participant