Baking perfection – The Youth Council!

Stood at the front of a crowded room. A blank canvas, newly painted with beady little eyes; each pair telling their own story, their own interpretation of a mutual experience.

Life looked after.
            In a world so big, with professionals so tall; who stand above tiny little lives to place them in stability. Imagine the loss, imagine the lack of control. No forum to speak up, no platform to share their views, no microphone to project their voice. Most don’t see the best intentions of the adults around them. There are no handbook’s which will perfectly answer each intricately formed question, welded on the edge of a young person’s tongue. And so, the quandary then lies with us; the agency cooking up a home above their heads. The carefully selected ingredients, hand picked from a garden of love; 3 tablespoons of security, 2 cups of reassurance, a sprinkle of familiarity and a whole heap of care. You may ask, how we bake this into something resourceful for our looked after Children? I can tell you…

We whipped up a slice and topped it off with the perfect finishing touch– The Rainbow Youth Council.

If an event could move mountains, this was the one. To witness a sea of engaged looked after young people, writing, sharing stories and experiences with each other and then being brave enough to stand up and vocalise their views. Sensational. The ethos of the council being “Your Place, Your Time, Your Voice” offered staggering ground for the young people to take charge and lead. One by one, the young people stood before a panel of supervising social workers, with speeches they had written about why they should be chosen to be the Captain and Deputy of the Youth Council; The beauty being how unpredictable these young people were! Young People referred through to me to develop their confidence and self-esteem, stood in front of a table of other looked after Children and read their speech with confidence, integrity, conviction and, most important of all, sincerity.
Unfathomable – Unpredictable - Unbelievable.

We worked through a carefully crafted booklet to help structure the session and make it accessible for all ages and needs, before engaging everyone in an exciting activity to help break the ice and spark conversation. We tied up the session with a Q&A panel lead by our Captain and Deputy, answered by the regions Supervising Social workers before closing with an intense, heart pounding, sweat inducing battle… The Paper Aeroplane race!

As far as baking perfection goes, this one certainly took the biscuit.

Piece written by Kieren Molyneux, North West Youth Participation Officer