2024 Cooperative Case Studies
- May 2024
- Lead Member Stevenage Borough Council
- Categories Community
Over the past 12 months, Stevenage Borough Council (SBC) has worked with the town’s Youth Council to further develop opportunities for young people to influence the council. This initiative would play a key role in the plans for the future of the town.
In 2018, the SBC community development team began working with the youth council on further enhancing and empowering the ability of the group to reflect the town and the needs of younger residents. Working with the young people and the elected Youth Mayor, a structured work plan for the youth council was developed. The plan focused on the following: to increase membership, creating a stronger voice on issues affecting young people and driving empowerment to make decisions. Split into these three core areas, our restructure alongside youth council members has led to the following key outcomes during 2018/19.
Increased membership, diversity of representation and a role for every member
Over the past year, the youth council had doubled in size to 18, bringing a wide diversity of young people into decision-making process. For the first time this has included young people who are home schooled through partnerships with the local home school networks. In addition to this increase in size the youth council now works on new system of full meetings and working groups, with all young people having a role in one of four core working groups; Finance; Schools and Youth Work; Media and Communications; Events and Trips. These groups work alongside the elected Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer of the youth council.
