Sesiwn
Dystiolaeth: P-04-597, ‘Diogelu dyfodol Draig Ffynci,
Cynulliad Plant a Phobl Ifanc Cymru’
Evidence Session: P-04-597, ‘Protect the future of Funky
Dragon, the Children and Young People’s Assembly for
Wales’
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[3]
William Powell: We move now to agenda item 2, which is the
evidence session on the petition P-04-597, Protect the future of
Funky Dragon, the Children and Young People’s Assembly for
Wales. As Members will recall, this petition was submitted by Trish
Jones of Funky Dragon. We first considered it back on 23 September,
and it had collected 1,641 signatures. We look forward to welcoming
our witnesses shortly.
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[4]
Bore da. Good morning, all. Welcome to this meeting of the
Petitions Committee, addressing petition P-04-597 on the future of
Funky Dragon. I’d appreciate it if you’d briefly
introduce yourself for the record and also to check that
everything’s working correctly.
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[5]
Ms Williams: Right. I’m Catriona Williams, chief
executive of Children in Wales.
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[6]
Mr Janes: I’m Ed Janes, development officer for
participation with Children in Wales.
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[7]
Ms Hill: And I’m Lynne Hill, one of the policy
directors at Children in Wales.
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[8]
William Powell: Excellent. Well, you’re all most
welcome. My colleague Joyce Watson is going to kick off straight
away with questions, if that’s in order. Joyce.
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[9]
Joyce Watson: Thank you. Good morning, all. I want to ask
questions around the independent peer-led platform for children and
young people and whether you agree, because we’ve had
evidence from Funky Dragon, where they’ve said, and I quote,
that,
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[10]
‘Wales has become the only country in Europe not to have an
independent youth parliament.’
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[11]
Ms Williams: Right. I think one of the issues, really, is
around what is an independent youth parliament. If it’s an
elected body from young people that is representative across Wales,
and also if the governance of the organisation is young-people
governed—I’m very familiar with Funky Dragon; I
actually helped to write the constitution many years ago, in the
beginning, and we’ve been involved throughout—then
Wales hasn’t got that independent body that is governed by
young people and is an elected body.
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[12]
Joyce Watson: Okay. So, I want to explore, then, whether
Children in Wales’s work with children and young people is
intended to be an independent, youth-led, national platform for
children and young people.
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[13]
Ms Williams: Right. The situation for Children in Wales was
that, for many years, we were core funded to do all of our
activity, which is the sort of national body to put forward the
voices of the children and families sector, and, as the years have
gone by, obviously, children and young people’s voices have
been part of that—the participation agenda in Wales has
developed hugely over the past 20 years, really—and so, as
far as we’re concerned, we bid to the only grant scheme that
was available to us to bid to, which was the children and families
delivery grant scheme. And within that, at the time we bid, I was
quite hopeful that we could do a partnership, with Funky Dragon as
a partner, but fully understanding that each organisation is very
independent. And the philosophy of a peer-led organisation, I am
familiar with that, because I did take it to the Charity Commission
myself, all those years ago. A young-people-led body couldn’t
possibly be what we were, because we have trustees who are from the
professional sector, as well as opportunities for young people, but
we’re not, you know, definitely young-people governed,
because a parliament and, say, 16 to 25-year-olds running an
organisation is different. I’m co-chair of Voices from Care
with young people, and that structure is young people led, because,
at the annual general meeting, the young people have all the
power.
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[14]
Joyce Watson: So, do you think—and this is the final
question from me—that there is a need for a platform, as
Funky Dragon has stated?
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[15]
Ms Williams: Where we’re at the moment is that the
young people from Funky Dragon have asked to meet with us, and
they’ve had a very difficult time, let’s face it, over
the past few months. We were keen, because, across Wales, as I say,
the participation agenda has developed so much that we very much
welcome the approach. We want to talk. I think, because Wales is a
small country, we need to all work together to get something that
is going to work, because, I think, when Funky Dragon started,
there was no division between Assembly and Government, and I think
that is one of the things that we now—. It’s a good
time to have a look at how we work together, because, in some
specific instances, if you’ve got a very minority vulnerable
group that needs a lot of support to give their voices, it’s
inevitable—and perhaps Lynne could mention young
carers—that it’s only a smallish group that would be
consulted by various bodies.
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[16]
I think the point that we’re at is: we know what we bid for,
we’re giving the support to both the sector, the
professionals—. We’ve got four strands in our work: the
voice of young people; support to professionals to be able to
properly engage young people, in other words the skills of how to
do it; then we’ve got the sector’s voice, in terms of
the workers; and then we’ve got the representation of what
everybody’s saying into Government. So, there are four bits
to our bid, and so, for instance, if there’s an inquiry into
young carers, that group of young carers—. We’ve got
over 200 organisational members in touch with children, and they
may be asked by the Assembly to give evidence, they may be asked by
local government to give evidence and they may be asked by Welsh
Government to give evidence. So, I think it’s timely for us
to be coming together with other groups to actually look at
what’s best now.
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[17]
William Powell: We’re grateful for that. Would you
like to contribute at this point, Ms Hill?
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[18]
Ms Hill: I can certainly give you an example of how we work
with particular groups like young carers. We’ve been doing
that work for probably the past eight to nine years now, in that we
work with the workers on a regular basis and then we’ve been
very fortunate that Welsh Government have supported opportunities
to enable young carers to come together, to identify what the
issues are for them as a group and to work through how they would
want to present those issues. Over the years, we’ve had
regular meetings with Gwenda Thomas, when she was Deputy Minister
for health and social services, and they went to meet with her and
presented the work that they’d worked up. We were always very
clear that what they talked about were the issues for young carers,
not, ‘This is my story’. It was about saying,
‘This is a piece of work that we’ve done across Wales.
We’ve brought together all these views and these are the key
issues for us’.
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[19]
I have to say, at the last meeting, one of the young carers raised
issues about local pharmacies and having challenges in collecting
medication, which has been a long-standing issue for young carers.
Understandably, pharmacists want to be careful who they give it to,
but it does cause real problems for some families. As a result of
that meeting, Welsh Government officials then worked with the royal
college of pharmacists to sort of begin to tease out an agreement,
which was really, really great for the young carers, and they
actually got a letter back from the Deputy Minister saying
that.
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[20]
So, there’s a whole process for a relatively small, although
a growing, number of young people who care. There’s a whole
process there about supporting that voice through. We’ve also
done pieces of work like producing videos for them, or leaflets for
them, which are still being used. They were very heavily promoted
through the carers strategy, saying, ‘These are young
carers’ issues; they mirror the needs of adult carers, and
these are where their particular needs are different’. So,
that’s just an example of the work we do.
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[21]
William Powell: That’s helpful. Thank you. Russell
George.
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[22]
Russell George: Thank you. Good morning. The
Minister’s view is that funding awarded to Children in Wales
is to fund a national participation model. That’s his view.
Is that your view as well?
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[23]
Ms Williams: It is a national participation model.
It’s not an assembly in terms of the model that Funky Dragon
was based on. At the time we bid, we thought that Funky Dragon was
still going to be there. I think Lynne has demonstrated a very
small group. Ed could give examples of more universal engagement.
So, in terms of Government, and influencing Government in
particular, although we are having discussions with the Assembly
about what the young people’s youth engagement in the
Assembly is doing, because there will be times when we work
together, ours is a national participation model, but it’s
not an organisation, and I think that’s the difference. I
don’t know, Ed, if you want to say—
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09:15
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[24]
Mr Janes: Yes. I think, because you have the Funky Dragon
model of participation—the kind of youth Assembly, which is a
fantastic model of participation—the model that we have is
also a model that we believe will work and that is national, but it
is set out in a different way. So, the model that we have focuses
on Children in Wales doing work in schools, Children in Wales doing
work in empowering the local forum work that’s being done by
forums—some of the fantastic work that’s being done
already in the local youth forums and in national youth
organisations, as well as with groups like young carers and young
disabled people that we’ve done before, and looked-after
children as well. Then, it is using that and, kind of, empowering
that work and recognising that work by feeding it into the Welsh
Government and then backing that up with the meetings that we want
to be arranged with Ministers. So, the bid also included us running
meetings between young people and Ministers each year, with the
idea being that those young people would have been involved in the
different priorities, locally, and then have the chance to, kind
of, make sure that it’s being fed into the national
manner.
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[25]
Russell George: Right. What I wanted to just also clarify is
that, last summer, talking about the grant funding that you had and
what it was being used for, on your website, you had a statement
saying,
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[26]
‘For clarification, this project is not funded to deliver a
National Youth Assembly for Wales.’
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[27]
I wonder if you could just talk to what was behind that statement,
so we can understand that.
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[28]
Ms Williams: I think it was exactly—. I think what
I’ve said previously that it’s not an elected body of
young people who are, sort of, being politically active, as it
were, in terms of representing the nation. I mean, we have got
partners, as well as our own organisation: we’ve got
ProMo-Cymru, which, in terms of universal engagement of children
and young people—. CLIConline has many, many hits and, for
instance, we’ve just put a poverty video onto that to promote
a discussion amongst, hopefully thousands, but certainly hundreds
of young people, for them to be able to contribute their views
there. But it isn’t—. I think, the main point is
it’s not linked to democracy and
representation—that’s how, as an assembly, we view
it—but we are bringing together groups at national level. And
also, we’ve got a model where we’ve got four regional
links to the youth forums, and also we’ve got our own links
to member organisations already that work with a whole range of
children and young people.
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[29]
So, we’re trying to get that sort of loop, for instance, with
the child poverty work in Welsh Government. We’re in
discussions about how we can have an ongoing relationship between
children and young people and the policy makers there. So, I think
the key difference is it’s not an elected body of
representatives from each part of Wales. But I think that’s
probably the discussion that now needs to take place, because, to
be honest, the funding was hugely reduced; there wasn’t, in
terms of this grant round, the funding that had previously
supported both Children in Wales and Funky Dragon together: it was
virtually half. So, we bid for what we could deliver and I think
that’s the—. But, it is a model that contributes to
national Government policy development.
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[30]
Russell George: Okay. I’ve got one last question and
I’m conscious that two of my colleagues want to ask questions
as well, so it doesn’t need a long reply, but I was just
curious to know, in your view, who is responsible for ensuring that
young people in Wales are also represented at the UK Youth
Parliament and also on a European level.
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[31]
Ms Williams: Ed can talk to that.
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[32]
Mr Janes: Thank you. So, that’s traditionally been
supported by Funky Dragon. Last year, Children in Wales received
funding from the Welsh Government as well as John Bercow, through
the British Youth Council, to take or to accompany a group of young
people from Wales specifically for last year. We’re currently
in—. Well, the agreement was that it was for last year
specifically, with the idea that it would then be looked at in
future. We’re currently putting together a more detailed
report. We’ve put together a summary, initially, and now
we’re putting together a more detailed report about the
event, about the opportunity, and what the young people got out of
it. So, we’ve been consulting with them, we’ve been
asking them, and we’re just putting that report together at
the minute.
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[33]
Russell George: It would be useful to have a copy of that
report, wouldn’t it, Chair, for our committee, if it’s
available?
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[34]
Mr Janes: Yes, okay.
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[35]
Russell George: Thank you.
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[36]
Mr Janes: So, that includes the opportunity and what it was
like, but also, bearing in mind that it was put together at quite
late notice and with a specific amount of funding, we’ve also
asked them to kind of comment on the opportunity, but also how they
felt—you know, if they felt there could be more support and
more of a process in the run-up to the event, where they could get
together and have a chance to kind of discuss some of the topics
and have a chance to get to know each other so that it’s more
of an ongoing process rather than what we had, which was a meeting
a couple of weeks before, where someone from the British Youth
Council came out to introduce the work but also to talk through the
security and some of the processes around it and then, two weeks
later, the actual two-day trip and two-day event.
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[37]
Bethan Jenkins: Sorry, can I just clarify? Are you carrying
on with that work? You say you’re talking to young people now
about how it worked; I’m just conscious that you say that
you’re not an assembly or an elected body, so I’m just
curious as to if it’s continuing and on what basis you would
want to continue it, given that you’ve just explained earlier
that you’re not that type of organisation.
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[38]
Mr Janes: Well, that report—. Well, we very
much—. That was the first time we’d done it. I led it,
I very much enjoyed it, and I think we would be interested in doing
it again. The report that we’re putting in will be used to
decide, I guess, if Wales takes part in it this year and in the
future, and whether there will be more, you know, and what the
funding will enable us to do that we get for it. We have been
working with participation officers and youth forums from all of
the local authorities around the future of it. They are very
interested in us continuing to do it. Essentially, we are waiting
for a decision, but we’re also looking at ways to build it
into the work that we are doing, the young Wales work, the core
work, and whether the campaigns that have been taken on in the
wider UK could be built into the campaigns and the priorities that
we’re going to be doing in Wales. So, it’s still being
worked out, basically, but the report that we’re putting in
will be used to work out the best way forward.
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[39]
Ms Williams: Perhaps I could just add to that: basically, it
was not within the grant that we were given. I saw Funky’s
evidence and they’re quite right, they hadn’t had
funding before to do it, which we were. It was very much a sort of
last-minute, extra piece of work, which we were very pleased to do,
but, obviously with devolution as well, you know, if there’s
only one of the topics that’s Wales relevant that
they’re discussing, and two or three are totally to do with
England policy, there is an evaluation and I believe that the
funding that the Minister gave for this last round, on the basis of
the report we give, that will be reviewed by Welsh Government. But,
on who’s responsible, I think that’s this Parliament
and Government interface, which is, I think, underlying the whole
of this discussion.
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[40]
William Powell: Yes. We’re very grateful for the
candour of those answers. It seems to me that your organisation has
been put in quite a difficult position, which is not of your
making, and that you’ve obviously stepped up to the plate,
particularly in the context of the international work, which
obviously wasn’t within the remit. I realise that the
arrangements are still at an early stage, but could you give an
estimate as to how many children and young people per year will be
directly involved in the participation model that you’ve
outlined?
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[41]
Ms Williams: Well, I’ll hand over to my colleagues.
The one thing we’ll say is that we’re hoping to hit the
target in terms of the electronic, social media, click online to as
many thousands of youngsters in Wales as we can get engaged. And
through the school work, we’re hoping to move that along. I
think then it’s almost like participation isn’t one
thing; there’re lots of different levels to it. We started
from the position of understanding that there were quite a lot of
the most vulnerable, most disadvantaged children who weren’t
able to get their voice heard. And so there’s more in-depth
work there. So, I don’t know if Lynne and Ed would like to
add—.
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[42]
Ms Hill: I think if I start off and Ed will come in as well.
Certainly, at the moment, we are working with all the participation
workers and the youth forums across Wales. We have established a
team of workers who are making links regionally, so each
participation network forum has a link to us, and we have—. I
know we have meetings established with all 22. They haven’t
all gone through yet, because we started that discussion actually
the first week of January; we met with them and talked in great
detail about the plan, and they were really on board about
engaging. So, there is, first of all, an opportunity for the
statutory bodies. Now, there’s a bit of a challenge in
Gwynedd, because apparently Gwynedd do not have a youth forum at
the moment. So, we’re looking at how we engage there, but we
actually have an office based in Gwynedd and a worker based there
who knows the area very well, so we will be making sure—and
she also does some work around the youth service—so
we’ll do that. So, we started that work.
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[43]
We obviously have—. We’ve identified that we will do
six pieces of work in schools. I think we want to be very clear
that that doesn’t just mean six schools; that means six
pieces of work around different issues, around different concerns.
And that will obviously address a very wide age range, because we
know that our work is actually, you know, from 0 to 25, not solely
youth, although we are very aware that there’s a youth sector
that feels and felt that they weren’t sure where their voices
would be heard. So, we need to make sure that we’re very
clear in supporting them, but we also want to be working in primary
schools, looking at where younger people are. We have membership
with, and very good links with, all the pre-schools, so there may
be pieces of work around pre-school issues and so on. So, we need
to be able to spread that sort of work.
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[44]
Alongside that, as I say, we have a longstanding relationship with
young carers. We have a long history of working with young disabled
people, and there’s been lots of work around that. Last
Saturday, we did a training event in Wrexham for young people from
across north Wales to be doing a piece of training around
understanding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child and knowing their rights and expressing their rights. So,
we’ve got those pieces of work going on, as well as then
links with our partner organisations, such as Voices,
Barnardo’s, Action for Children and Tros Gynnal, so we can
link with those as well.
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[45]
So, in terms of numbers, the answer is ‘I don’t
know’, but we estimate we will reach a wide range of people
both across the age ranges and across their experiences.
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[46]
William Powell: That’s very helpful. I think
it’s come across loud and clear how deep your experiences of
serving the needs of some minority and hard-to-reach and
disadvantaged groups are, but, given that when you bid for funding
last time round you weren’t aware that Funky Dragon
wouldn’t be on the pitch in terms of its activities, what
measures have you been able to put in place or you are intending to
put in place to ensure that you are also catering for the needs of
the mainstream, as well as the groups for whom you have the
particular expertise?
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09:30
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[47]
Ms Williams: I’ll hand over to Ed in a minute, but I
think there are some topics that come through from all
groups—bullying, for instance, is one. And I think one of the
things in our bid that we were very keen to do was to make sure
that there was an impact and an outcome for children and young
people through that. So, for instance, the connection
between—. I mean, it’s widespread. The first
children’s commissioner raised bullying as a big issue for
children. It comes through from all of our groups. Either
it’s hate bullying, or it’s bullying in schools or
whatever. So, as a topic identified by children and young people,
that’s a chunk of work that will be very universal. We have a
worker who is linking with some of the forums, but she is also
pulling together the workers on anti-bullying work and we’re
in the policy groups in Welsh Government. So, I’ll hand over
to Ed, but that’s one, like children’s mental health;
there are some issues that have come through in the past from Funky
Dragon, but also from our groups. Children who are hard to reach
are not necessarily different in terms of the bigger issues that
affect all children.
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[48]
Mr Janes: I mean, I would say that all the work that’s
going on in schools is going to be—. Well, unless we decide
to do some work in special schools, all of the work in schools will
be with mainstream children and young people. The work with the
youth forums and the specialist groups: at the minute, the work
we’re doing in the youth forums is to go out into each one,
find out what the local issues are and that will shape the
priorities for the work. So, so far, we’ve been going out and
we’ve been hearing about issues such as bullying, which has
come up in all of them, mental health, and rural transport as well.
So, all of those ideas, again, are coming from mainstream children
and young people that are in youth forums, and then, as well as
that, we will look to continue what we’ve done before in
terms of looked-after children, young carers and disability as
well. So, we are very much catering for both. And then, as well as
that, at the minute, we are developing the young Wales website for
the project or for the programme of work. We are developing social
media and other methods for young people that maybe aren’t in
the schools and the forums and the specific groups that we work
with—other ways for them to engage with the project as well.
So, I think we have—you know, I’m confident that we
will have—a programme of work that will bring in the
universal children and young people in the mainstream, as well as
the groups that we’ve maybe in the past more traditionally
worked with.
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[49]
William Powell: Okay. That’s reassuring. I’m
conscious that my colleague, Joyce Watson, has been showing great
patience before coming in. I have a final question for you for now,
and that is whether you’ve given any consideration to a
process of electing young people from across Wales to create some
form of representative body, and also an issue that’s come up
in recent days, which is whether you’ve been involved in any
consultation around the impacts that flow from the recent decision
by Welsh Government to radically reduce the funding available to
the young farmers movement within Wales, given their particular
involvement in the same area of work.
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[50]
Ms Williams: I think, to answer the first question,
it’s sort of repeating in a way what I said at the beginning
that we think it’s timely and we have—. You know, we
needed to be very sensitive to how upset a lot of the young people
were in Funky Dragon. So, we’ve been in close contact with
trustees there, and they now are feeling that it’s timely for
us. Also, Ed and I have met with Kelly, who’s based in the
Assembly, in terms of youth engagement. We think it’s timely
to have a get together to really have a look at whether there is an
elected gap. But what we’re doing at national level, in the
interim, is building a group that is going to advise the whole of
our work. Now, that’s not elected—that’s not an
elected structure. I think it’s interesting because there are
different levels. I mean, I’ve done a lot of European work
and the European youth forum, which is the umbrella, is actually
sort of quite old young people; it’s between 16 and, in some
countries, it is 30-year-olds. There’s a difference, and
we’re actually covering, as Lynne said, zero to 25,
basically. So, we want the voices of children and young people. So,
that elected model is a youth model, and so I think we feel
it’s the time to talk with others.
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[51]
Ed, do you want to come in?
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[52]
Mr Janes: The one thing I would say is, in meeting with
participation officers and youth forum workers, it’s
something that they are still very interested in. We are looking at
ways of even bringing together young people on a regional level, or
maybe, when we hold—well, looking at potential ways of doing
it. But, I guess the one thing that we know is the residential
approach that was previously done by Funky Dragon isn’t
something that we can really achieve, to be honest, with the
funding that we have.
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[53]
William Powell: Understood, yes.
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[54]
Mr Janes: That doesn’t mean that we don’t
like—it doesn’t mean that we don’t support the
idea of, like, an Assembly approach to participation; that’s
not the case at all.
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[55]
William Powell: But you are just constrained financially,
effectively, yes.
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[56]
Ms Hill: I was going to say, I think also, what we find now
is that many of the local services are also constrained
financially, and I think undertaking residential work with young
people takes a huge commitment from local staff, and there are
often challenges around the time, the travel. It would be a
challenge for us on the current project funding, but it would also
be a challenge, I think, for many of our partners.
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[57]
Ms Williams: And I think that sort of goes on to your second
question, really, that one of the concerns we have across
Wales—well, we have two concerns, actually—is the
impact on children’s organisations per se, in terms of
funding, but also particularly on the participation work in many
organisations. Because, you know, it is a little bit of a soft
target, unfortunately, at local level as well, in terms of the
participation workers, to get good participation, proper, linked to
the—and we haven’t mentioned the participation
standards. We are working with the participation workers now to
update—not to change, but to update—and get those out
there. But, to actually deliver on those standards at local level,
there’s got to be the capacity in the organisations—you
know, the maintained and the non-maintained organisations—to
be able to do the full cycle of informing, working with, listening
to children and young people, feeding back, et cetera. That
capacity does need to be strengthened, and we certainly have been
looking at that.
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[58]
William Powell: Thank you very much. Bethan
Jenkins.
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[59]
Bethan Jenkins: Just quickly, because I’m conscious
we’ve already run out of time. When Funky Dragon came in,
they said that they were concerned about the fact that the Welsh
Government, rather than young people, would be identifying the
issues that would go out to be discussed, and they were very
concerned about that because they were wanting to set the agenda.
So, I just wanted your brief response to that.
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[60]
Ms Williams: Yes, I mean, I think, probably, in fairness to
Funky Dragon, they would only have seen what was written down in,
sort of, bold on a chart. I think the way it works really is,
clearly, what we’ve been funded to do is to support good
policy development in Welsh Government. But, for instance, we
wouldn’t go out to children and young people, and say,
‘This is the latest consultation from Welsh Government; what
do you think of it?’. It’s more a case of children and
young people—and you are probably best speaking to this than
me, Ed—identifying what, locally, are really issues to them,
and then us—. For instance, if bullying comes up, that means
that there’s something that can be taken into policy
developments across Welsh Government. But, there will be some
priority issues that are sort of both Welsh Government
priorities—like poverty—and children and young
people’s issues as well, which marry. I think part of our job
is to prioritise what’s going to make the best
impact—or the young people to prioritise with us.
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[61]
Mr Janes: As I’ve said already, we are going to each
youth forum. We’ve been to some already, as Lynne has
mentioned, and there are others that we have yet to go in to and we
will be doing in the next few weeks. With all of them, we’re
finding out what their local issues are. Things like mental health,
bullying and transport are all coming up, and they will be the
basis, with the youth forum work as well as the specific groups
like young carers—. Local issues will be the basis of the
national priorities that we take on.
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[62]
Bethan Jenkins: Okay. I’m just concerned, for the
record as well, as with Funky Dragon, this will be going back to
one place and not getting out—to the Welsh Government but not
to anywhere else, and that’s been my criticism of Funky
Dragon previously. You know, how does that go up from the youth
forum to not only the Welsh Government but the wider institution of
the Assembly? So, hopefully, your discussions with the Presiding
Officer can lead to a wider-based input to what young people are
doing. But, just quickly, because I didn’t think I was
satisfied with the answer, before we end, when you did apply for
the children and family grant scheme, you were clearly aware of the
situation with Funky Dragon, because, obviously, you were
discussing with them. I just want to understand, because I
don’t think I understood fully from Funky Dragon’s
response either, where the communication—if it did; I
don’t want to put words into your mouth—broke down, as
in why they did not then fully engage with you putting forward a
plan, because, for me, as a person outside of all of this
discussion, it would have made much more sense for them to have
been on board at that stage so that they could have built in that
representative Assembly side in conjunction with your participation
side to complement each other. Now I feel that the elected side is
very much on the back foot, and that’s what I think
we’re all concerned about in Wales at the moment.
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[63]
Ms Williams: Yes, thank you for that. I mean, I think,
firstly, we’re very concerned to work closely with the
Assembly, and I think Welsh Government has said that is a good
idea—so, in terms of our grant, within that, working with the
Presiding Officer. And also, I think it’s inevitable that the
same groups of children and young people will be supported by us to
give evidence in committees as well, particularly those who need
more support. Our members, Barnardo’s, Action for Children,
and our partners, Tros Gynnal, Voices from Care—we’ll
all be supporting children and young people to give their views,
and the wider results we’ll put in the public domain. Any of
the universal responses to social media campaigns and so
on—that will be information available to the
Assembly.
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[64]
I can remember clearly, you know, it was a matter of principle for
the young people in Funky Dragon that they—. There was one
meeting that I instigated with the chief executive of Funky Dragon,
and I said, ‘Look, clearly, there’s only one project
going to be funded; we should do this together’, and he said,
‘It’s a matter of principle that we are young
people-led, and we don’t really want to be getting so close
to an organisation.’ I have to say, in terms of Children in
Wales and Funky Dragon, our relationship, long term, has been
really good. One of my policy directors has been the chair. You
know, it’s been a very difficult situation. But, as a matter
of principle, from their point of view, they felt that their
youth-led autonomy—. They might be being pushed into a
merger, which, actually, wasn’t the case, but their youth-led
autonomy was possibly going to be compromised.
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[65]
Bethan Jenkins: But there’s nothing now at all,
that’s the thing—
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[66]
Ms Williams: I know, I know.
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[67]
Bethan Jenkins: I mean, it’s all with the benefit of
hindsight, of course, but, at the moment we do not have that
national elected body for Wales, which is a massive shame
really.
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[68]
Ms Williams: I think, on a positive note, certainly the
young people on their board—it’s still there as a sort
of vestige of an organisation—. That’s where the
talking is, and, I think, you know, together we’ve got quite
a good opportunity. I mean, actually, one model, going on for many,
many years—. Perhaps it is, you know, timely to have a look
at what’s best for Wales, because we are small and we do need
to work all together so that the voices of young people get into
each institution.
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[69]
William Powell: I think that’s a really positive note
on which to end. It’s been a very useful evidence session
from our perspective to gain greater insights into actually what
lay behind the events of last summer and early autumn. We will
provide you with a full transcript, which I think, in the context
of the discussions we’ve been having, is particularly
important, so that you’ve got the opportunity to check that
for accuracy, and also Members, at an early future date, will have
the opportunity to consider the evidence that we’ve just
heard. So, thank you very much indeed for coming this morning and
for your contributions. Diolch yn fawr.
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09:45
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