In Leeds it is recognised as one of the five outcomes within the Children and Young People’s Plan, that “all children and young people are active citizens who feel that they have a voice and influence” and a core behaviour that underpins everything we do “we listen and respond to the voice of the child”.
Our approach focuses on building positive relationships and trust with children and young people to enable them to feel safe to share their thoughts, wishes and feelings. We work in partnership with youth voice groups across the city, learning about the issues they face and their experiences and acting on the priorities they tell us are important and want us to prioritise.
Children and young people have a voice and influence at an individual, family, service, and strategic level, this assists us to identify how best to support and engage children and young people and involve them at all levels. The voice and influence of children and young people should not be a standalone entity but embedded within the culture, discussions, decisions, and actions. Hearing and responding to the voice of children and young people is paramount to the work of the safeguarding partnership in Leeds. Below are just some of the ways that the safeguarding partnership have endeavoured to include the voice and influence of children and young people during 2024-25.
There is recognition that further work needs to take place to hear the voice of those children and young people who have experience of the safeguarding system through Early Help, Child in Need and Child Protection and this will be explored further in the coming year. A workshop is also planned for May 2025 where executive board members will be meeting with care experienced young people.
Following on from the successful event last year, the Children and Young People Partnership (CYPP) requested that the Voice, Influence and Change (VIC) team facilitate an annual takeover for the opportunity to meet directly with young people from youth voice groups across the city and listen and respond to the issues they feel are the most important. This year the event took place in January 2025, with the VIC team, lead staff and young people coproducing the following aims:
- To learn about and meet the different youth voice groups from across the city.
- To learn about and meet the different decision makers in Leeds.
- To share and learn about key issues for young people.
- To discuss possible solutions surrounding key issues raised by young people.
The takeover event 2025, focused on safe spaces (linked to Child Friendly Leeds wish 2) because crime and safety was voted for by young people in Leeds as the top issue in the Make Your Mark ballot 2024.
Prior to the event, the youth voice groups discussed what crime and safety meant to them and documented several other issues, as well as possible solutions relating to: abuse, gangs, drugs, violence, Honour based violence, Online safety, money laundering, child criminal exploitation and peer pressure.
During the event, decision makers were asked to join a youth group to discuss what makes spaces feel safe / unsafe and possible solutions to the causes / issues. They used the ideas that young people identified during the planning session, as well as new ideas that were generated because of their conversations. Decision makers and youth voice groups jointly agreed solutions and actions that they thought would address the issues.
The My Health, My School Annual School (MHMS) survey, is a well-recognised method of hearing the views of children and young people from across the city. It is a free on-line survey for pupils in Years 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 as well as pupils attending any Specialist Inclusive Learning Centres (SILCs) and post-16 settings in Leeds. The survey gathers important pupil perception data and measures health behaviours and contributes to school improvement.
The survey includes various areas which related to safeguarding, such as feeling safe at home, gangs, knife crime, exploitation, on-line safety and where to go for support.
The safeguarding partnerships have analysed this year’s data in-line with previous years in the areas related to safeguarding and the information shared with the relevant sub-groups.
The Children in Care Council have worked with the Virtual School to develop a film which is being used in training for designated teachers and school staff to raise awareness about their experiences of school and the challenges they have experienced.
The Voice Influence and Change Team produce three six-monthly city-wide voice and influence reports (themed around social care, universal/ seldom heard, SEND) providing updates on key issues shared by children and young people and parents and carers and describing how teams and services are enabling them to have their voices heard and influence change. These reports are shared with the partnership and across the city and include updates from educational settings and third sector partners. Voice and influence are embedded within all CYP partnership meetings – from being included in reports presented and discussed at the meetings to having dedicated agenda items. The third sector safeguarding group also has a regular agenda item on voice and influence.