Participation of Children & Young People in Scottish BordersScottish Borders Children and Young People’s Planning Partnership are signed up to and committed to the active participation of all children and young people. We are committed to achieving the vision whereby:
”children and young people are at the centre of all of our work so that they can actively shape services now and in the future” We will work towards achieving this vision by developing clear systematic opportunities for children and young people to participate and will raise awareness of participation to service providers. In the first year, 2009/10 we will invest in the establishment of 5 locality youth forums, training and awareness-raising, developing a good practice forum, supporting individual agency mechanisms for involving children and young people, and developing quality standards for participation in schools. Locality Youth Forums We are currently in the process of establishing and advertising for youth work staff to support the locality youth forums. We are also working with the Locality Integration Teams (LIT) to engage young people through the agencies which are members of the LIT as a starting point for the development of the forums. We intend to facilitate a twice-yearly youth summit in partnership with Dialogue Youth, where young people from across the Scottish Borders can come together to discuss issues which effect them and begin a conversation with decision makers and their wider community. Training and Awareness Raising
Supporting staff and volunteers to work in a participative way is central to the achievement of our vision. We are currently offering an Awareness Raising session. We hope that this will increase the understanding of the Scottish Borders Participation Strategy as well as provide a starting point for the development of a culture of participation within services and agencies. Developing Good Practice Forum We know that many service areas and practitioners and currently delivering participation work and we are committed to finding out more about the good practice which is happening in the Scottish Borders. This website will be used to document and share good practice with the longer term aim of having a practitioners network to developing and sharing participative practice. Please email any examples from your own work to srobb@scotborders.gov.uk Developing Quality Standards in Schools
Four primary schools are currently taking part in the pilot of a schools participation self-evaluation toolkit. The aim of the toolkit is to evaluate current participative work in schools against seven standards and to develop and implement a school development plan. The standards consider areas such as school ethos, style of leadership, participative systems and structures, and developing skills and knowledge. The findings of the pilot will be made available in July 2009, with a phased roll out to all schools being communicated in September 2009. We hope that this toolkit will enhance and contribute to the achievement of other school frameworks such as Health Promoting Schools and Eco-Schools. | 
