North East Lincolnshire Young Advisors have been very busy since they trained in July 2011 and February 2012! Jenny, our Development Officer for the North, went to visit them recently to hear all about their different pieces of work and the young people's views on how the project is going so far.

Interviews

The YAs were involved in interviewing for the Director of People and Communities and the Chairperson of the Safeguarding Children's Board. The YAs consulted on what they would like the interview process to be, and decided on having a series of case studies which they tested the 8 interviewee's on! The case studies focused on what the YAs believed to be the most prominent issues in the area; disability access and safety on the streets. The issue of disability access had been raised during the Light training, which was the topic of one of the presentations - and was used in the interviews! Well done team, and great to see the presentations taken further!

YA Oliver commented on the interview process: "I was always nervous at the start, but felt OK after they got going. It was great to give young people an active role, and have them involved in making decisions about choices which will effect young people. Interviews were a good open chat, and then we scored each candidate depending on their response to our case study. It was great to give young people the power!"

Transport

Another issue which the YAs wanted to address in their community was transport; in particular safety on public transport, reliability and costs. They designed a questionnaire to ask the general public for their views, and also took the questionnaire to local scout groups, schools and colleges. They then took the results to Dave Skepper, Commercial Director of Stagecoach Lincolnshire.

The YAs came up with some great ideas about how to improve local transport, such as: Ride Around for a Pound during the summer, College Passes, Police on Buses, a competition that made the public aware of the safety of public transport and the rarity of accidents, improvements of bus routes, and training with public transport staff. Many of these recommendations are under consideration and they have just had confirmation from Stagecoach that a young persons day rider will be on trial in the summer! Great work!

Young Reporters

Some of the YAs worked with the Grimsby Telegraph as part of Take Over Day in November 2011, where young people take over certain roles in business and local authorities for the day. After this experience they went to see the Editor with the idea that young people would regularly write an article in the paper.

The young people's articles have come a long way already! The columns started off with 300 words on a Monday night, and have already changed to 700 words on a Saturday. It is estimated that 70,000 people read the paper on a Saturday - and the amount of young people reading the paper due to the columns has dramatically increased - so the YAs are truly spreading the voice of young people! So far the YAs have written 19 articles which have concentrated on issues such as communication, music and university fees.