New Voice for Newcastle Youth as City Creates UK’s First Independent Youth Council

The young people of Newcastle will soon have their voices heard at the highest level – as the city becomes the first in the UK to set up an independent Youth Council.

Newcastle City Council has comissioned Children North East to establish and support the Council, which will see a group of city youngsters – aged between 13 and 19 – elected by their peers to work with local decision makers to make Newcastle even more young person friendly.

The council will have a similar role to Newcastle’s existing Elder’s Council, an independent organisation run by and for older people in Newcastle to represent their views and concerns to the council and other local agencies.

A steering group of local young people will work with Children North East over the coming months to decide exactly how the council will work on a day to day basis and elections to the council are expected to take place in April.

Steering group member James Bartle, 17, said: “We all love living in Newcastle which is a great place to grow up but we always want to have our say over the things which really matter to us, and we think a Youth Council is a brilliant way of letting us do that.

“We’re all really looking forward to working with Children North East to get the council started over the next few months.”

Work began on establishing the Youth Council after City Council members agreed a motion last year calling on the Executive to establish a youth council to “engage effectively with a wide and diverse range of young people.”

John Collings, acting Executive Director of Children’s Services for Newcastle City Council said: “We already make a huge effort to involve children and young people in local decision-making and time and time again we are blown away and inspired by their enthusiasm, energy and ideas. The Newcastle Youth Council will be a fun, inclusive and valuable way of building on that work. 

“It is really important that the Youth Council is completely independent from us so that not only is it credible to young people, but it genuinely empowers them to hold us accountable for how the decisions we make affect them, and it would appear we are the first local authority in the country to establish a Youth Council this way.”

Jeremy Cripps, Chief Executive of Children North East said: ‘Children North East are delighted to have the chance to work with Newcastle City Council to establish and support an independent Youth Council for the city.

“It seems only right that the region’s children’s charity should be working with the region’s capital city to ensure that the voice of young people is heard and makes a difference in Newcastle.”

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