Hull Voice and Influence Team

The Hull Voice and Influence Team - What we do

Young Mayor – the Young Mayor is a ceremonial role, a young person attends events and activities, sometimes with the Lord Mayor. The young person in the role gets to attend events, open them and sometimes make speeches. The young mayor is selected for an interview, which is carried out by other young people.  The Young Mayor can also lead a campaign that is important to them. The campaign is brought to life by a group of young people aged 13 to 18 with a similar passion or interest.  Contact – voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk. for more information.

Young Voices Influencing Care  -  a group of care experienced young people aged 12 to 17 meet together regularly and have fun whilst being a representative group of children who are looked after by the local authority. They meet with the Corporate Parenting Board, raise issues and help find solutions to improve services for C&YP in care.  The group produce a newsletter, organise events and activities and produce information for professionals to help them understand what it is like to be in care.  contact  - YVIC@hullcc.gov.uk 

Hull Young Peoples Parliament  - a meeting that takes place three times a year where young people from across the city can come together to work on issues that have been raised by young people locally and nationally.  HYPP is usually held in the Guildhall and is facilitated by  four UK Youth Reps who have been voted in by other young people.  Parliament works on at least two key issues, sometimes three, each year.  HYPP is opened by the Young Mayor, and the four UK Youth Reps give an update on the things they have been doing to the young people attending. The meetings consist of a panel of experts who answer questions from the young people, which is followed by a workshop activity that leads to actions for the participants to take back to school and  youth groups. HYPP is for young people from school year 6 to  28 years, 24 with a disability.  voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk

SEND Young people and Local Offer engagement – Young people are invited to feedback on the SEND Local Offer, make suggestions and be involved in the design and development of the site. contact voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk  

HeadStart Volunteers – a group of young people who meet weekly to work on campaigns relating to mental health and wellbeing. As a volunteer young people can also carry out other roles such as  co-facilitator, consultation, interview panel member, events worker, funding panel member, planning rep, young evaluator, or mystery shopper.  contact headstarthull@hullcc.gov.uk  and visit the website  How Are You Feeling?

Short projects or tasks  - there are a range of short projects or tasks that young people can get involved in with the voice and influence team.  sometimes they take place over a weekend, or holiday periods, they can be one session or a few weeks.  Examples of these are:

Domestic Abuse Strategy – young people feedback on the strategy, and ensure young people’s needs and voice are included. Help to put together a young person version of the strategy.  Contact voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk  

Accessibility project -  This is a new creative project that will work with young people with disabilities and hidden disabilities to raise awareness of accessibility issues, and highlight where things need to change. voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk

Scrutiny meetings – a group of young people meet twice a month, once to read reports written by officers in the council, and secondly to ask the officers questions about their reports.  This is an opportunity for young people to find out more about how services are run, how things are working ask questions about the services. voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk

Interview panels – young people are asked to sit on interview panels and help to choose the future staff for children and young people’s services.  This is done in different ways, sometimes there is a panel of young people, or  young people sit with adults on a panel. Training is given and a worker is always available to support the panels. voiceandinfluence@hullcc.gov.uk