Northampton Youth Forum

People on Northampton Youth Forum are busy people. Busy at school, with part-time work, babysitting to help their family or friends, perhaps caring for relatives, perhaps coping with a personal illness or disability, volunteering...

So, we aim to spread the workload on the Forum. It can be stressful as a young person to find you've taken on too much to do and not wanting to let people down. It can be a problem going for job interviews etc if you've got roles listed on your CV or application form but you haven't had time to really do anything in them.

As a 'super team', some people on the youth forum take on specialist roles too. This helps people to make a real difference and spread the workload between everyone.

Some of the roles on the Forum are...

Co-Chairs

There are 3 co-chairs elected by the youth forum's members. They share the role of chairing meetings, making some decisions about Agendas and activities (often involving everyone else too) and may represent the forum in letters to senior people in the Council and other organisations.

There is 1 Councillor Co-Chair appointed by the Leader of the Council.

The forum, and the Co-Chairs, work with the youth forum in non-party political ways.

Peer Mentor

A young person who has given excellent service to the youth forum over a year or more, including showing the ability to think of others and support their peers, may be appointed to this role for the forum. The role is about helping new people to the forum to settle in to the role and being an alternative point of contact for queries to the appropriate adults supporting the forum. During the year, a peer mentor may decrease their involvement with the forum as they concentrate on their studies or work.

Young Press Officers/Young Photographers

People involved in particular projects, get involved with dealing with the press and publicity aspects for the people and organisations we are working with. For example this can be by preparing films and presentations, recording voxpops and radio interviews, writing articles, giving quotes, holding press conferences, taking photographs for use in official publicity, featuring in photo shoots or giving interviews. 

Young IT Officers

The Forum uses Facebook to support day to day communication in a group open only to members of the Forum and appropriate adults supporting them, and in public-facing Facebook pages. The Forum may also make use of cloud computing, Dropbox, Survey Monkey and other technology to help members of the forum participate and involve others. Members of the Forum with particular skills and interests in computing may take on the role of being young IT Officers, with special responsibilities for the technology. The monitoring of pages and groups is supported by appropriate adults.

Area Shadow Board Member

A young person on the Youth Forum attends the meetings of the area (Northampton) shadow Board to the Children and Young People's Partnership Board. The 'CYPPB' deals with services provided by the county council and across the county - things like what's happening in schools and public transport. The Shadow Board group includes reps from school councils and voluntary sector groups. It elects a couple of people to go to the meetings of the Children and Young People's Partnership Board to help ensure the adults listen to young people.

Other Youth Forum Members

There's lots of ways to get involved. Some people prefer to get involved in lots of different projects than to take on one specific role on the Forum.

Last updated: 16 April 2012