Welcome
Apologies
Tomi, Ge, Marouf
Sexual Health Education Consultation
Leanne Davies, from Oldham Council’s Public Health team, wanted to discuss sexual health services and the standard of support offered to young people in Oldham. The meeting split into 3 groups and discuss issues such as the information given to young people around sexual health and the awareness of help that is available to young people.
Cllr Louie Hamblett
Cllr Hamblett is an elected representative from Shaw and Crompton Parish Council. Youth Councillors were to take part in Q&A sessions to find out more about what a Parish Council is and what work they do in the community. Questions posed to Cllr Hamblett included; How does the Parish Council raise funds? What does the Parish Council spend money on? How can Oldham Youth Council work with Shaw & Crompton Parish Council?
Discrimination Posters
Chris had sent the posters to staff at Healthy Young Minds Oldham (formerly CAMHS) for feedback from their staff and young people’s participation group. Feedback was mixed suggesting that the imagery could distress people and maybe even encourage self-harm. The participation group did think the posters could deter people but felt it would encourage more than discourage. It was also felt that self-harm image was a little clichéd in that this suggests that those who self harm only do so by cutting. However, it was felt it was positive that a male had been used in the poster which goes against stereotypes that it is girls who self harm. Staff also suggested that maybe removing the word ‘but’ from the poster may also get the message over.
Having discussed this feedback it was decided that the ‘self-harm’ poster could not go out as it currently stands. The Youth Council still want to send out 4 posters and want Mental Health discrimination as one of the four. The Council discussed the idea of changing self-harm for another mental health problem but felt that we should use self-harm. Finally it was decided that we would keep the poster using the phrase ‘I self-harm, I am not an attention seeker’ but we would change the image to someone with long sleeves so the viewer is left guessing on how they self-harm.
Chris also mentioned that he had asked for Youth Council representation at the next participation group meeting so that we can ask for their help in doing something to stop prejudice towards people with mental health problems.
OYC Leadership Roles
Chris had posted the proposed new structure on facebook and sent it via email. There where also hard copies for Youth Councillors o look at in case they had not seen it already. The Youth Council was asked if anything needed clarification or if they had any concerns.
Saskia had registered some concerns over the new structure regarding the amount of time the Youth Mayor Elect role took. She felt it was too long and momentum would be lost while waiting to become Youth Mayor. The Council discussed making the election later in the year but due to commitments faced from BYC/UKYP and synchronization with Mayor of Oldham the time being Youth Mayor Elect could not be significantly shortened. The idea of having 5 months of 2 co-chairs instead of Youth Mayor Elect was proposed. At vice chair election the current vice chair would step up and share the roles & responsibilities with the current vice chair. This idea was rejected as it was felt it was making things overly complicated. Finally it was decided that we would stick with the proposed structure but at vice chair elections the chair becomes Deputy Youth Mayor. As part of this restructure all roles will be given a job description with roles and responsibilities attached. The deputy Youth Mayor’s roles and responsibilities will include support and mentoring of the Chair as well as attending the OYC meetings.
Discussions then turned to the officer roles and when to elect them. Currently the Youth Council does not have a permanent secretary in role so election of officer roles needs to be soon. It was also discussed that by having officer elections later (ie in june) newly elected Youth Councillors would be able to get involved immediately. This may help to keep people engaged longer.
A vote was taken with a unanimous verdict in favour of adopting the new structure. The next step will be to sort the job descriptions for each role then hold an extra-ordinary meeting of the Youth Council to update the constitution.
Changes to Leadership Roles 2017
Poland 2018
Chris informed the Youth Council that another trip to Poland is being planned for January 2018. Application forms were handed out and have to be returned no later than the OYC meeting on 19th July 2018.
Events and Trips
Dates for your diaries were given out.
