18 July 2023
This is our regular policy and public affairs round up blog, covering what the team have been up to here at UK Youth, what young people have been saying, and what is coming up in the next couple of months.
We would love to hear from you so please get in touch if you have any questions, thoughts or ideas to share with the team!
We have met with a number of MPs over the last month, including meeting Nadhim Zahawi MP in his constituency. One of our Thriving Minds grantees, Link to Change, also met with Mohammad Yasin MP at their youth organisation to show him the fantastic work they have been doing to support young people’s mental health!
We also recently shared an update on the work we have been doing on youth loneliness policy, as part of Loneliness Awareness Week. Check out the blog if you are interested in what has been happening within this space over the recent months.
NYA published a report on Youth Work with Schools, looking at how schools and youth workers can develop a holistic approach to supporting young people. Somia Nasim, UK Youth’s Head of Knowledge Management, sat on the panel for this report, drawing recommendations surrounding a Minister for Youth, National Youth Strategy and Workforce among other things. You can read the full report here.
We met with other organisations in the youth and democracy space to talk about resources for the upcoming 2024 general election. There is a huge amount of resource already available that youth workers can use, plus a whole bunch of new material being created and training sessions planned. We will start to share these resources within the UK Youth Movement over the next year, and share a big push in the lead up to the election when we know the date so that youth workers can engage in these discussions with young people.
At the start of June, we attended the European Confederation of Youth Clubs (ECYC) General Assembly in Porto, Portugal, where we discussed the collective challenges facing young people and youth work across Europe, alongside sharing best practice examples. This blog talks about the conference, and our work with ECYC.
We also joined a Q&A hosted by Third Sector TV with Minister Stuart Andrew and asked a question about charities being charged at business rates for their energy bills. His response was as expected in being quite non-committal, however we are glad to have got this on his radar as it has been brought to us by organisations in the UK Youth Movement as a concern.
On Tuesday 6th June Power of Youth Day, as part of Volunteers Week. There was an incredible amount of support on social media, including this video from Minister Stuart Andrew MP showing his support for youth action and the #iwill movement. Do give it a watch if you haven’t seen it already!
In early June, we were very pleased to convene business leaders from across sectors to discuss how together, we can improve the outcomes for young people across the UK. The network will be a forum for peer learning on relevant topics such as: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), employability practices, and youth engagement. Find out more about the goals of the network here.
This month we want to highlight a spoken word poem, from #iwill Ambassador Pelumi on ‘The Cost of Being Polite’, give it a listen here.
We are working towards Party Conference season and ensuring young people’s voices are heard, do get in touch if you will be attending as we would love to connect with as many people in the youth policy space as possible.
We are continuing our MP meetings with grantees from our Thriving Minds programme, focusing on mental health. Thank you to all of the youth organisations for their support in helping to host and organise these meetings!
We are also in the middle of a policy development process on the value of outdoor learning. If you would like to be involved in this work, or if you have some best practice examples of outdoor learning working really well that you would like to share please do get in touch with us!
Please get in touch by emailing kate.roberts@ukyouth.org with any feedback you have on the content of our roundup, as well as any ideas/reflections you’d like to share to feed into our policy and public affairs work!