Youth Forum

What do we do?

Northampton's Youth Forum is a sort of youth council, made up of elected representatives of young people who aim to speak up for and on behalf of the young people of Northampton. It aims to involve young people in taking an active part in decision-making about young people.

If you would like to download information about our annual elections please see our web page about Elections and Co-Options.

Our current priorities include:

• improving youth influence over Northampton Borough Council services. Ways we are doing this include talking to councillors, at Council meetings and working with services to get them to change how they work and to achieve the Charter Mark of Youth Involvement.
  
• challenging discrimination, bullying and breaking down barriers between people from different backgrounds and facing people e.g. due to their disability. Ways we are doing this include the Anne Frank Awards, creating learning resources based on interviews with older people who have war-time experiences or experience of the Holocaust and discrimination. We have been working with the HIV/Sexual Health Team, Service Six, schools and others to challenge the taboos and ignorance around HIV and AIDS through our work for World AIDS Day. We are setting up a new 'youth mayor for a day' scheme with the Mayoralty too.
  
• creating more things for young people and children to do in Northampton. Ways we are doing this include through funding new things using Money 4 Youth, setting up the Sport 4 Youth group, developing the Disabled Go access guide with young people on its Steering Group and Sport 4 Youth (a mixed-ability open accessgroup advising professionals). We are also supporting the Overview & Scrutiny Committee at Northampton Borough Council to do a piece of work to look at youth provision and how it can be improved. 

What do we want to do for young people in Northampton?

We want to identify and tackle issues of importance to young people in Northampton. We discuss them with councillors and service providers to find ways we can make things better or more effective for young people in Northampton. Where appropriate we take further action too.

We want to help make sure that young people get to have services and facilities in Northampton that they want. One way we do this is through the Money 4 Youth scheme. This is sometimes also known as the Youth Opportunities Fund and Youth Capital Fund. We'll be running the scheme every year until at least 2011 so please send in your ideas for us to see if we can make them happen!

We seek your views. You may see us at community events, community groups or in schools asking for views and ideas.

How to contact us

You can

• Ask at school - secondary schools should have elected reps; or 
• contact the Youth Forum's Councillor Co-Chair, Cllr John Yates; or
• contact the Youth Forum's Co-ordinator at the Council, Lindsey Ambrose tel: 01604 837566 or mobile phone/text: 0779 53 33 687 or email: youthforum@northampton.gov.uk .  

This page last updated 27/04/2009.