Agenda item

The meeting will devise the work-programme.

Feedback from young people has been received, see attached email, and the results of a survey are to follow.

Dates for the year are attached.

The chair moved a discussion with the Southwark Youth Council to the beginning of the meeting. Suléy Muhidin, Community Participation Officer,  and a member of Southwark Youth Council were invited to speak. They explained that the youth council recommended three topics:

•  Bullying

•  Young people and mental health

•  Sexual health and relationship awareness

The young person gave a brief presentation on bullying with assistance from the Community Participation Officer. The young person recommended bullying ambassadors in schools as a good practice. Bullying ambassadors are senior students who go around schools and help to tackle behaviour. The participation officer reported back on a conversation that had taken place with the youth council. Young people thought that bulling was an inevitable part of culture and so efforts are need to help young people to deal with this so it does not escalate and lead to suicide or other negative outcomes. A member commented that it is considered it was important to prevent bullying in many ways: bullying behaviour, culture and also by working with targets of bullying. The young person identified transition to secondary as when bullying particularly occurred.

There was a conversation about the lack of education, information and support around all three issues identified: sexual relationships, bullying and mental health, and the best place for this to happen is schools, however schools are often reluctant to deal with these issues and sometimes do not see this as their remit. A member of the audience who works in a secondary school spoke about the pressure of time given the emphasis on academic achievement and exam pressure. She suggested the home as the first place and empowering and training parents, and commentated that many parents are not aware of problems. There was a conversation about the best place to hold discussions.  The participation officer spoke about the stigma associated with talking about difficult issues. He was asked about alternative avenues to deal with bullying, other than schools, and he suggested youth clubs . An officer mentioned a phone application that enables young people to access school nurses, which is good way to assist boys.

The chair mentioned the previous years review on mental health, and that there were recommendations included in this to tackle bullying.

The committee returned to the work programme , towards the end of the meeting, and identified the following themes:

Looked after children, care leavers and the Local Offer

Care covenant: How will the principles in the government’s vision are delivered locally? 

Local Offer: both presently and the new one for planned for care leavers (request a briefing).

Safeguarding and children at risk

Looking at public health cuts and if they will impact on children at risk negatively

Bullying & Mental Health

Follow up the bullying recommendations in the mental health review

Democratic engagement

Look at Brexit, and democratic engagement of young people in schools

Academies

Look at the PTFA proposed legislative changes and how it will impact on parental governance & engagement in schools.

Admission & places: with particular reference to the south of the borough and the capital programme.

Accountability:  look at conflict of interest e.g. Joseph Rowntree issues

Forced Academisation and the impact on the 63 grant maintained schools. How should the council encourage the 63 schools to respond, in particular looking at these approaches? 

• Maintaining the integrity of council support service to stop their withering and consequently schools opting for  Academisation

(particularly small schools)

• encouraging the formation of local  academy networks
• Consider the different governing models schools could adopt (foundation, voluntary, maintained) and the impact these models would have on staying under local authority control or becoming an academy and the future ownership of land.

RESOLVED

The chair and project manager will develop a draft work programme based on the above and send this to the members via email for comment.