March 2022 marks the end of another PYA year. In total, we all volunteered for 164 hours this year across, meetings, task groups, town Council meetings and other events. It has been a very busy year! Spring 2022 saw us return to face-to-face meetings which has been great!
Here is an overview of everything we have done in PYA during the Spring term!
Guest Speakers
The first PYA meeting of the new year welcomed Charlotte Raines from the Planning Dept in Vale of Glamorgan Council to meet with PYA and consult on developments of St David’s Crescent. PYA members contributed lots of interesting and thoughtful ideas that considered safety, the environment and play. By linking with Charlotte, we were able to share our Cwrt Y Vil MUGA report for the Planning Department to consider.
Commissioning Services
Throughout January and February, one PYA member along with members of Llantwit Youth Council and Rights Ambassadors, completed a series of training sessions to learn about the interviewing process, including building questions, shortlisting, and scoring mechanisms.
We were involved in helping to select bids for School Based Counselling within the Vale. We did two interviews on a young person led panel and gave our feedback to those in charge of selecting the bids.
Make Your Mark
In February 2022, PYA members voted in the Make Your Mark campaign. Make your Mark is a ballot supported by local authorities, schools, and the UK Parliament. This ballot gives young people all over the country a chance to vote on the issues that they think are the most important. PYA members supported their peers in school and representative groups to vote in Make Your Mark this year.
The results of for the Vale of Glamorgan for Make Your Mark 2022 are as follows:
- Environment – 237 votes
- Health and Wellbeing – 243 votes
- Education and Learning – 247 votes
The Vale of Glamorgan had the third highest number votes in Wales. These results will shape the campaigns and work that we do in PYA in the coming year.
PYA Homelessness Campaign
In June 2021, the Vale Youth Service delivered a team building day for year 7 pupils at Stanwell School and one of the activities carried out with young people was a ‘tops and pants’ consultation exercise on the issues they thought were important within their local community. In a task group we collated all the results from the consultation before working together to democratically decide on an issue that would shape their next campaign. PYA members voted for their next campaign to be on homelessness in Penarth. We will be creating posters to challenge some of the stereotypes that surround homelessness.
Following this, PYA members met as a task group to explore campaign methods to raise awareness of homelessness with a decision made to focus on breaking down stereotypes. Young people from Youth Cabinet’s Youth Homelessness Task Group were invited to collaborate with PYA to share their experiences of campaigning on the issue and display their promotional materials. PYA have since agreed to use the Youth Homelessness posters as a template for their campaign with plans in place to display them in various locations in Penarth.
Chair/Vice Chair elections March 2022
The Chair of PYA was Lilimai Black and the Vice-Chair was Edo Abramovich until March 2022. In March 2022, a new Chair and Vice-Chair was elected for the following academic year. Lila Smith was elected Chair and Edo Abramovich was re-elected Vice-Chair. We will both undergo specific Chair induction training to enable them to fulfil these roles. Furthermore, all PYA members undergo induction training to enable them to undertake their role of youth councillor. All new PYA members will also receive their new member induction training.
PYA Member Feedback
PYA members provided the Youth Action Worker with feedback from the PYA 2021-2022 year. Here are some of the things we said about why we enjoy being a PYA member and what new skills we have learned:
‘Being a PYA member has helped me because I am more confident to talking to more people.’
‘I have learnt to help contribute effectively to changes that benefit Penarth.’
‘I enjoy learning more about my community and having a space in which I am listened to.’
‘I am confident to speak about social issues more freely to a group of empathetic people.’
‘It has given me a safe environment in which to improve my speaking skills which has improved my confidence.’
‘I have learned new communication skills by talking to decision makers.’
Our Future Plans
We are looking forward to working on our homelessness campaign in the next PYA year. We will also be working closely with Penarth Town Council to support with the planning of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee event.
If you are interested in joining PYA, get in touch with us at pya@valeofglamorgan.gov.uk!
