Young Flintshire - A newly formed participation group

Exciting times lie ahead for a group of young people living in Flintshire.

Young Flintshire is a newly formed participation group that has brought together pupils from ten Flintshire secondary schools, and representatives from Flintshire Youth Forum to form one overarching group. With the full support of Flintshire County Council, the young people who are passionate about making changes in their community, have the opportunity to engage in the democratic and decision-making processes which affect them at both local and national levels.

Following a successful pilot in Summer 2024, the newly elected group met for the first time on Friday, 22nd November in the Council Chambers at County Hall Mold with Claire Homard, Chief Officer for Education and Youth, and Councillor Mared Eastwood, Cabinet Member for Education, Welsh Language, Culture and Leisure. Neal Cockerton, Chief Executive of the Council attended via video link to formally open the meeting and welcome the young people.

During the morning, the group participated in a United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) group activity and discussion about key matters affecting them. They were given the opportunity to review findings from a survey conducted in the autumn term with approximately 600 young people from Flintshire and consider themes for including in their forward work programme.   Ben Turpin, Climate Change Project Officer, and Molly Salter also presented on Climate Change. This led to a group discussion and the opportunity for the young people to feed into the Council’s future Climate Change Strategy

Young Flintshire were consulted about how they would like to meet going forward and how often, and officers from the Councils Youth services and Healthy Schools teams will facilitate this going forward. 

Cllr Mared Eastwood, Cabinet Member for Education, Welsh Language, Culture and Leisure said:

“Young Flintshire is a fantastic opportunity for our young people. It is important that they can contribute effectively to matters they feel passionate about in their community and be able to make a real difference in the future”.