Past Projects

Toni applied to "You Know You" funding to starts a Sexual Health Project that she was interested in.
The project was to raise awareness of where to find information and advice of sexual health issues for young people in Heywood, aiming to show the Primary Care Trust / National Health Services and other providers of sexual health services that young people should be used more in designing / directing the way their services are delivered to young people.
During discussions with workers and young people it was highlighted that young people are not given enough information about where to get advice on sexual health matters. Young People said that one session in year 10 was not enough and that even if young people did know where to go it was not something that many young people had the confidence to do.
The Young Advisors wanted to pilot a text line that gives young people the opportunity to text a question or find out where to go for advice in the local area. The idea was that simple questions would be answered discreetly and quickly and if a young person wanted to meet a worker it could be arranged by a young person to meet them in a young person friendly venue at a time that suits them not the worker.
The idea was to run an initial survey for young people from across Heywood at the beginning of the project to see if they are aware of where they can find information and advice on sexual health issues. Then the Young Advisors and young people would organise an advertising campaign to promote awareness of the text line and at the end of the period complete another survey to see if young peoples awareness of where to go for advice and information has increased.
Although the bid was unsuccessful this time, it is an idea that Heywood Young Advisors are passionate about and hope to continue pushing.

Heywood Young Advisors were asked to help with consultation on the new Children & Young People's Plan for Rochdale, and whilst doing this, they also youth proofed the document and submitted their results which were really well received and appreciated!

Heywood Young Advisors attended the launch of the North West Healthy Lives, Brighter Futures Strategy, giving a Young Person’s perspective on the strategy for children and young people’s health.
They met with Andy Burnham MP (Secretary of State for Health) and not only had a 30 minute one to one meeting with Mr Burnham, but also supported the entire day by facilitating table top discussions at the event.
Attended by over 150 health managers from across the North West, Andy Burnham said "I wonder if all PCTs are using young advisors, and if they're not, maybe they should be to make sure young people are at the heart of commissioning."
The two main issues they explored were:
* Issue 1: What do you think are the two most important issues or challenges facing your area in terms of improving the health of children and young people?
* Issue 2: What would you like to see in a North West Strategy to support your work in improving health outcomes for children and young people?
It was a fantastic day so well done guys!

The local PCT funded us £10,000 to do a revision of health services available to young people in the area. The ares of focus was STD's, Teen Pregnancy, Drugs, Alcohol Abuse and Smoking Cessation. £8000 of the money was used to fund and commision two projects to educate and prevent the health risk from the areas we researched.

Rory headed into London on a monthly basis working as a Youth Advisor for Hazel Blears giving a young person's perspective on government policies. He conducted a panel of 8 young people with the help of his collegue Jaqueline from Southwark in London. Hazel Blears gave Rory policy ideas she would like him to give to the panel, and feedback his own thoughts on. He completed a report on what the economic crisis meant to young people and how to help those who suffer.

The Young Advisors National Charity asked us at Heywood Young Advisors to develop a DVD to show two real life issues that could be used during the Young Advisor Training, adding a new dimension to it.
So we produced a film highlighting some of the challenges that we face in Heywood, Rochdale.

At the Young Advisors training we had to do a project to research the positives and the negatives about the area we live in. We decided to design a DVD on Heywood, and all went to different parts of Heywood taking pictures of the positive areas such as Youth Centres and Schools and also taking pictures of the negative areas such as grafitti on walls and parks, drugs and alcohol and local areas. The Grumble Walk DVD was then presented at the Young Advisors training in front of all the other Young Advisors. Each team of Young Advisors had something different and it was interesting to see what the other Young Advisors areas was like.

After the success of the People's Money Event, Heywood Young Advisors wanted to do a similar project again - but with a twist! The Feel Safe in Heywood Event was open to all people in Heywood instead of just young people. 3 Projects were chosen by the community to be funded with the £20,000:
* Best Bar None - An awards scheme for licensed premises, currently running in over 80 locations across the UK, developed by the Manchester City Centre Safe project to address alcohol related crime and improve the night time environment eg. Plastic cups and bottles being used instead of glass.
*Free transport to and from Pilsworth - allowing people to go shopping at the large Asda, visit the Cinema, Bowling and Restaurants that are on offer.
* A general community clean up to tackle litter, fly-tipping and broken glass.
The event was extremely well received by the whole community and a fantastic success!

This was a major public event that the Heywood team are very proud of.
After a trip to London the Y.A's were introduced to the idea of putting money up for public discussion, and allowing groups of young people to come and bid for funding and receive it there and then.
The Y.A's got together £10,000 of funding (£5K was from the CWDC work they had done) and advertised an event at the local Civic Hall where the money was up for grabs.
12 new and exisiting groups all walked away from the event with £750-£1,000 and all tthe projects are still going strong!

The above "Young Siblings" pitched for swimming lessons and won £1000!

The Young Advisors budgeted £10,000 to do a leaflet about the six common cores that all agencies working with young people should follow. The six common cores were:

1. Communication and Engaging with young people and families 2. Young persons development 3. Safeguarding and Promoting the Welfare of young people 4. Supporting Transitions 5. Multi-agency Working 6. Sharing Information.

To start the prossess of this we interveiwed police officers, YIP workers (youth inclusion project) and PCSO's. The interviews were really interesting, and we recorded what was said. We found that some workers didn't knwo what the Common Cores were, but once they started talking they realised that they used them in their everyday work. This is what we based our leaflet around. To get these common cores across to agencies that work with young people, we decided to design a leaflet and put a story inside (instead of using just information) and madk it easy for young people to read. The Young Advisors designed two leaflets: one about a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) working with a young person who was drinking on the streets, and the other was based on a Youth Worker working with a young person with personal problems. The Young Advisors sent the designs off and had to go to Leeds to look at the rough draft of both leaflets. Once the leaflets were ready they were sent out nationally and the Young Advisors won the bid of £10,000.

Rory (former Young Advisor) and Jepi (a Heywood YIP worker) gathered a team of young people who were all interested in music together and decided to organise a local Youth Music event in the town of Heywood.
It was held at the Local Civic Hall, which is a very big venue, so it needed a big sounds ystem and thanks to funding from GroundWork and Y.A.P it got one!
The event was a major sucess, we had MC's and performers from Heywood and the surrounding North Manchester area, and the event attracted 270 young people from the local and surrounding area. What a gig!!!

The Heywood Young Advisors were heavily involved in the brand development of Heywood's Young Spirit - an organisation designed to help encourage partnership work with the youth provision agencies in Heywood, while also providing for the local young people too!
The Young Advisors met and worked with designers to create the logo and theme for the brand!