Agenda item

Rebecca Green, Chairman of the Local Youth Network and Helen Bradley, Community Youth Officer will provide an update and present the following requests for consideration:

·         £5,000 for John Bentley School for a mentoring project to raise awareness of Child Sexual Exploitation;

·         £3,295 for Friends of Abberd Brook for an outreach conservation project;

·         A procurement request for £15,466.54 to support a weekly youth club for young people with special educational needs and disabilities;

·         To note that the total expenditure incurred for the Unfair Funfair was £25.05 granted between meetings of the Area Board.

The notes of the last LYN Management Group meeting are also attached for information.

Rebecca Green, Chairman of the Local Youth Network (LYN), Jordan Holt, Vice-Chairman and Beth Wheeler gave an update on the LYN and presented recommendations to the Area Board.

The LYN had worked with 45 groups since inception and had given out around £20,000 in grants. The LYN’s recent ‘Unfair Funfair’ had been a success and the Board was asked to note the expenditure incurred between the meetings of the Area Board to support this event was £25.05 in total, rather than the £20 noted at the previous meeting.

Mr Holt spoke in support of John Bentley School’s application for £5,000 for a mentoring project to raise awareness of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE). 18 young people would be mentored over 6 weeks by the charity ‘Relate’. Although John Bentley School would host the programme, it would be open to any young person. It was confirmed that this provision was beyond the statutory duty of the school and grant money would be awarded from the LYN budget.

Miss Wheeler outlined the application from the Friends of Abberd Brook for an outreach conservation project, it was hoped that the application would also be building blocks for ‘Friends of Abberd Brook’ for young people.

Helen Bradley, Local Youth Officer, then introduced the procurement request for Groundworks South for £15,466.54 to support a weekly youth club for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The LYN usually only allocated £5000 as a maximum for procurement requests, however, this request was deemed to be an exceptional circumstance due to an identified need to support those with SEND. The LYN had preferred this provider, on the grounds of how the centre would be organised and managed and that it included a volunteer training programme; where individuals would have the opportunity to be trained to professional qualification standard. Due to the funding required being a significant sum of money, a 6, 9 and 12 month review would be undertaken to evaluate its progress.

In response to questions, it was confirmed that the initial request for the club had originated from young people and carers of young people with SEND, which had led to a full needs assessment for the centre being completed. Young people and adults without SEND would be able to volunteer in the centre, thus raising awareness of SEND amongst the more able.

Members spoke in support of the application as it was based on the identified needs of the young people it would affect and the interim reviews would provide the opportunity to evaluate progress and consider whether it would be appropriate to involve young people without SEND.

Resolved:

      i.        To award £5,000 for John Bentley School for a mentoring project to raise awareness of Child Sexual Exploitation;

    ii.        To award £3,295 for Friends of Abberd Brook for an outreach conservation project;

   iii.        To award £15,466.54 to support a weekly youth club with Groundworks for young people with special educational needs and disabilities on the condition that a review of this provision be undertaken at 3, 6 and 9 months.

   iv.        To ratify expenditure incurred for the Unfair Funfair of £25.05 granted between meetings of the Area Board