Youth Engagement Policy Commission - Call for Evidence

Published: 22 July 2016

The council announced the formation of a special youth commission in March this year, to look at potential issues holding back young people from engaging in the city - it is now looking for information from the public.

The group, chaired by Councillor Martin McElroy, is made up of a mix of people with experience of youth services and young people themselves, including the voices of young people in care.

They have been meeting over the last few months to discuss a range of topics, and will produce a final report to councillors providing in-depth analysis and recommending solutions to city problems.

As Councillor McElroy said following the launch of the commission: "We want to get a different perspective on the services the city provides and can provide.

"We want to learn about what services are working and what are not as effective as they could be.

"I'm hoping we'll have as eclectic a mix as we can have on the committee with a broad mix of different parties represented as well as different groups.

"This isn't a case of the usual bunch of politicians sitting about pontificating in the Chambers. We'll be going out and about to meet people and visit different initiatives."

Call for Evidence

As part of the process, the Youth Engagement Policy Commission would like to ask for your views, and any available evidence that will help the Commission to better understand the issues around the three areas the Commission wishes to address:

• Barriers that young people face in engaging with the City Council, other public agencies and in participating in the life of our city

Priority issues for young people, that they would wish to engage on

• Approaches to help improve youth engagement

There are three ways to submit evidence:

• Email your views, and any evidence (research, case studies, examples, etc.) to Youth Engagement
• Participate on Dialogue, an online discussion tool where you can register and discuss your ideas with other participants
• Answer an Online Survey

We would ask that you please submit any evidence by Friday 2nd September.

Find out more information about the commission, its members and aims at Youth Engagement Policy Commission.