Agenda item

[To receive a report from members of the Youth Council in relation to the mini scrutiny reviews that took place on the 22 and 23 February 2018 on Transport, Mental Health and Work Experience in Wolverhampton.]

The Chair welcomed representatives of the Youth Council to the meeting.

It was confirmed that the topics for the mini panels had been decided following the Make you Mark initiative and that these topics had decided after consideration of the local results.

The first topic under consideration had been Mental Health including promoting services for young people and making sure that people knew where to go for help. It was though that teachers were not always qualified enough to know the right action to take.

It was considered that there was a need for greater confidentiality in schools around LGBT concerns and to ensure that all issues were being looked at in schools and that students had a safe place to go to.

The Board considered that it was important to involve young people in service planning, to ensure they knew how things worked and what was on the horizon.

The mini panel had also considered timeliness of referral, support after discharge and the advertising of available support in schools, on school websites and at GP surgeries.

Officers confirmed that the outcomes from the reviews had gone through all management teams and all were in support of taking forward actions to be governed by a number of different groups such as CAMHS.

The Board thanked the Youth Council representatives for the report and noted that the recommendations were consistent with what was being discussed at the suicide prevention workshop. The only concern raised was to ensure that not too much additional pressure was placed on teaching staff. The Director for Education stated that there were staff with appropriate skills in schools and that there was a toolkit in relation to LGBT, PSE and mental health first aid training for a range of professionals.

The Board considered that it was also important to ensure that there was recognition of dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and that teachers also have training on this. The Director of Education confirmed that Schools were acutely aware of these issues.

The Director for Children Services stated that the Council was currently testing how to work with schools with initiatives such as the Head Start programme, the Council aimed to test and learn and was targeting certain areas to see what incentive would be most effective to role forward.

The Board noted that even though many of the schools had now become Academies, the Council still had a duty of care to the children so somewhere along the line the Council would need to go in and help them if required.

The Director for Education agreed and stated that it was a complex education system and there was a need to build good relations with the academies. The Council had asked the trusts to come and meet with Officers to ensure a shared vision and to discuss any issues of concern along with organising a meeting with regional schools commissioner.

The Board queried whether members of the Youth Council had taken part in mental health week. It was stated that they had not as they had a residential week with Headstart at the same time.  The Board expressed some concern in relation to this and worried that mental health services were not as good as they should be.

The Director for Children’s Services stated that care needed to be taken to ensure whether the Board was talking about CAMHS or support for emotional wellbeing and that there were currently national concerns in relation to CAMHS.  It was stated that the Council was trying to work with young people to aid the transition from childrens’ to adults’ mental health services. The Director for Public Health was currently working on an overarching strategy and young people would be included in this. The Board considered that a joint piece of scrutiny work needed to be carried out in relation to CAMHS. 

The Board also considered that there was a lot of help available at the University but that students didn’t take it up.

The Board also recommended that all the initial recommendations needed to be sent to every headteacher in the City.

The second area the Youth Council considered was work experience. The Youth Council considered that young people needed to be kept more up to date and that the Council needed to consider improving the work box as they did not receive much help when looking for work experience.  

It was thought that there could be development of a super career type event as there was a lack of work experience in specialised fields. More input from career advisors was required. It was also important to ensure that there was a clear guide and quality assurance.

The Board agreed that there was a need to challenge stereotypes of apprenticeships and work experience and to promote the link between apprenticeships and work experience events. Employers needed to encourage flexibility in the timing of work experience and there needed to be more range. Sometimes all schools had work experience week at the same time and this limited opportunities, a coordinated approach as required.

The Director for Education confirmed that that was a national issue and that schools did make their own decisions regarding work experience and not all schools even offered it. The Council was working with schools around the problem areas and that there had been a recent restructure with employment becoming part of the education directorate.

The Board expressed some concern in relation to the standard of some young people applying for apprenticeships and they sometimes had no maths or english ability and employers spent too much time teaching them skills that they should have left school with.

The Director for Education agreed and stated that there was a focus on english and maths and that it was the difference between being work ready and what they would become, there was still a lot of work to do and some children would need additional support.

The Board considered that this was a possible area for a scrutiny review in the future and that this could Include outcomes from the Skills review and apprenticeships review.  The Board requested that a report be brought back to a future meeting of the Board in relation to what skills employers needed and the City needed and that this could then be fed back into the Combined Authority.

The third area the Youth Council had considered was Transport including safety on buses, visibility of transport officers. 

It was considered that representatives from the Transport Police could be invited to attend a future meeting of the Board along with the Council anti-social behaviour officers and Safer Travel Team.

Resolved:     1)       That a joint piece of scrutiny work be carried out in relation to Child and adolescent Mental Health Services.

2)       That consideration be given to carrying out a scrutiny review in relation to the standard of education of young people applying for apprenticeships and the qualifications and skills that employers were looking for.

3)       That representatives from the Transport Police, the Council’s antisocial behaviour officer and the safer Travel Team be invited to attend a future meeting of the Board.