Voice of the Child

We've launched a year of activities, events and training as part of our 'Year of the Voice of the Child' celebrations. 

The 12-month calendar of events will celebrate the work that takes place across the Council to put children's voice at the centre of everything they do. 

• Youth Democracy - We'll be increasing young people’s involvement in democracy and voting through our Young Mayor and Member of Youth Parliament annual elections and by working with schools to talk about adult elections and how they work. 
• Annual conversations - There will be a year-long programme of conversations with children and young people in care and care leavers. These conversations will be used to shape our Children's Services. 
• SEND Participation - We're widening the opportunities for children and young people with SEND to be involved in meaningful participation opportunities to shape borough wide projects such as our SEND Improvement plan. 
• Children's voice in play - we'll be focusing on involving younger aged children through schools in play promotion. 
• Celebration events and conferences - there will be a number of youth led events and conferences held throughout the year to celebrate children and young peoples achievements and for professionals to develop their skills and knowledge directly from their views. 
• Staff training - we'll be increasing involvement in children and young people in the delivery of our staff training. 

This calendar will be updated frequently with new dates and events. Please check back for the latest information. 

If you would like to know more information or tell us about any work you do around the voice of the child please email the team on seenandheard@northtyneside.gov.uk.  We would love to see pictures and posts on our social media and you can do this with #seenandheardNT

Find out more about the range of groups and forums on offer to get involved. 

Our Young Mayor and Member of Youth Parliament Elections are open now. 

• Vote for your Young Mayor 2024-25
• Member of Youth Parliament 2024-25

Eligible voters are young people aged 11 to 18 or those  with SEND aged 19 to 25 who live or study in North Tyneside.

Voters can vote once for Young Mayor candidate and once for Member of Youth Parliament candidate.

Voting will be live until 11th January 2024.

Safeguarding has hit the big screen in North Tyneside as young people and North Tyneside Safeguarding Children Partnership (NTSCP) proudly premiered a new, short film yesterday (20 July)

Designed by young people, for young people, the animated film will now be rolled out across secondary schools in the borough to educate pupils on safeguarding.

Led by North Tyneside Council, Northumbria Police and North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), the NTSCP commissioned the short film to help get young people involved in safeguarding.

Leaders from the partnership wanted young people to be at the centre of the project, supporting them to work with local production company Turps Film Ltd to plan, storyboard and take an active role in the production of the film.

It aims to make safeguarding easy to understand for young people, explaining to them what it means and how to stay safe by using the language of the young people.

The project involved young people from The Carers Centre the YMCA in North Shields, and members of the Council’s Youth Council and SEND Forum

Each year as part of our work around under 11 participation and engagement the Children’s Council run a project directed from children of that age group. Last years project focused on play. For 2023 – 2024 a survey has gone out to all First and Primary School so children have the opportunity to vote on what they felt was most important. This years chose topic was ‘tackling poverty’. This has been shared with schools and work is underway with the Children’s Council to create a year long project with direct impact within schools.

A pupil from Benton Dene Primary School has received a £500 boost for her Nature Garden project after winning North Tyneside Children’s Councils playground project.

Amber’s successful pitch to leaders at the Council showed off her exciting project for a nature garden in the school playground, where children will get the chance to plant flowers and vegetables and help them grow. 

She was one of 22 members of the Children’s Council, made up of children aged between 5 and 12 who live in the borough, who pitched their proposals in a dragon’s den style event. 

Read more. 

To celebrate the end of National Care Leavers week we hosted the annual children in care and care leavers awards night. This is a unique event where council staff can nominate young people in care for a range of awards. These awards were designed by the Children in Care Council and the winner chosen by young people. The event was very special for the children and young people and an opportunity to be recognised or their achievements.

The first young people led event since the pandemic was held by the Regional Children in Care Council in Sunderland. North Tyneside lead on this and some of our Children in Care Council are heavily involved. The event was an opportunity for members of the Regional Care Leavers strategic board to come together with the young people and hear their priorities. The young people selected the focus themes for the event from what was being discussed across the 12 authorities. This was the Care Leavers Local Offer, mental health and life skills support. Senior Leaders were asked to make a ‘pinky promise’ of support which will be monitored by the Regional Children in Care Council over a six-month period.

The State of the Area event 2023 was held at the Linskill Centre on Friday 6 October. The programme for the day was developed in conjunction with members of our Youth Council, as part of the ‘Year of the Voice of the Child’. Participants took part in workshops on feeling safe, participation in democracy, climate futures, access everywhere and education for life. Each workshop on the day was asked come away with one key action for change that will be worked on and the impact shared at the 2024 event.

In September the SEND Youth Forum has changed its structure in order to widen its scope of young people and opportunities. Each term there will not a larger open meeting for schools to support their young people to attend. This will be attended by Secondary age pupils and those aged 16-25 in sixth form and college. The first ne of these extended forums was held in September and was attended by four provisions. The young people worked on the Local Offer and planned how to gather views from their peers.

During Local Democracy Week this year there were a number of events held to showcase children and young people’s voices in decision making. The Youth Council Annual debate was held at the beginning of the week. This was chaired by Cllr. Peter Earley with the support of the Young Mayor. Six schools from the borough were involved in this and over 50 young people who debated on current topics chosen by young people. The topic of ‘more investment should be put into public transport than the motor industry’ came out as the most important by a vote on the day. This will now be driven forward by the Youth Council.

In addition there was also a very well attended Young Person’s Question Time. A number of young people presented questions to a panel of Senior Leaders on a range of topics. The event was chaired by Adrian Childs from the BBC. There were representatives from Labour and Conservative parties, Northumbria Police, Public Health and the Business Forum. The event was also live streamed to schools to ensure as many young people could be involved as possible.

In September as part of the ‘Year of the Voice of the Child’ a drop-in event for social care staff was held in the Council Chambers. This was an opportunity for all staff to find out what the Children’s Participation Team do and how they can be involved in helping shape services in line with children and young people’s views. This drop-in was attended by a variety of staff across the social care sector and has resulted in a number of small projects being developed to improve opportunities for children and young people.