Youth Parliament
Make Your Mark Results
The results are in for the 2019 Make Your Mark vote, and we are pleased to announce that 2019 had a big turnout of young people in Central Bedfordshire, with 10,647 young people making their mark. So thanks to everyone who helped promote the Make Your Mark vote, for the schools that took part, and of course to the young people who took the time to vote!
The top 3 issues, as voted by young people, in Central Bedfordshire are as follows:
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Protect the Environment (2746 votes)
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End Knife Crime (2290 votes)
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Mental Health (1245 votes)
On the 8th November the UK Youth Parliament met in the House of Commons to debate which of the top 5 issues will become the UK Youth Parliament's campaign for 2020 and the 2 campaigns that were chosen are:
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Protect the Environment
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End Knife Crime
To find out more and watch the debate, please click the link below.
Meet the members
Find out more about your Youth Parliament candidates by clicking the link below
SRE in School
As part of the "Curriculum for Life" campaign, which was voted for in the 2017 Make Your Mark consultation, the members' of Youth Parliament agreed that Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) was an important part of moving towards a curriculum to prepare young people for life after school. As such the youth parliament joined in with many other organisations to call for the government to make SRE compulsory in all schools.
On March 1st 2017 this campaign was successful and the government passed an amendment to make SRE compulsory. Whilst we are pleased with the success of this campaign our work continues as the government consult on what should be included in a 21st Century SRE curriculum.
This is an important milestone on the journey towards a Curriculum for life which we will continue to work towards as a collective Youth Voice.
Youth Parliament teamed up with Young Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire to campaign around making sanitary products free and available in schools. In March 2019 the government announced plans to ensure that sanitary products will be made free and available in all UK schools. This is a massive victory that we were proud to be a part of!
For schools wanting to sign-up to receive government funded sanitary products you can find out more information and how to sign-up here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/period-products-in-schools-and-colleges
Mental Health Report
The Youth Parliament surveyed over 1200 young people to get their views of the current Mental Health services. From the survey we produced a report which has been presented to MPs, the director of Children's Services for CBC, the management board, and others.
Our recomendations were as follows:
A step-up, step-down system to ensure more young people have some support.
Peer Support Network to be setup within schools
Parent support groups estabilished across Central Bedfordshire
A targeted Mental Health campaign at young males
Get in Touch
If you have an idea or thought on what needs changing in your community we'd love to hear from you. Fill in your details here and we will be in touch soon