Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy Generator Update cookies preferences

Secondary Voice Group

Secondary Voice Group

The Secondary Voice Group is an opportunity for young people in secondary schools in York to share their views and opinions on the support available to children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and to work with the local authority and health services to make improvements based on their feedback.

If you'd like to get involved email: [email protected].

Read the Access4All Group Privacy Notice.

Ways the Secondary Voice Group have been involved in the York SEND Local Offer:

The safeguarding partnership have adapted the York Mind Evaluating Participation booklet to create York Council’s own Measuring Impact of Participation tool. This tool will be used to create outcomes and evaluate the impact of participation with the young people. The partnership wanted to trial the tool with Access4All.

Outcome

Feedback has been provided to leaders and any suggested changes will be considered for the final version. The feedback was positive, and both the group and Laura feel the tool will be beneficial.

Top of page

The young people’s group were invited by the Council for Disabled Children to take part in the SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper Consultation run by Kaizen. The young people took part in the consultation. The consultation included feedback back on how well they feel they're supported, areas of support they feel are most important, setting new rules for local authorities and how young people should be included in changes to support.

Outcome

Their feedback was sent to Kaizen, and they fed back that their views will be included anonymously in the final report (which will be available to us once published).

Top of page

The skills team plan on making amendments to the What’s Next booklet but felt that prior to any amendments, they felt consulting with young people who will be using the booklet would be the best course of action. The young people fed back on the layout, accessibility, and ease of understanding. The group have invited the staff members amending the booklet back to a future meeting to review any changes or to work with them to make amendments.

Outcome

Feedback was sent to the Skills Team Manager who will be invited to a future meeting to discuss.

Top of page

The Safeguarding Partnership asked the group to review their new Voice webpage to make sure it is accessible and young person friendly. The group felt the language used was confusing and too ‘wordy’ for young people to understand. They worked with Laura to reword it.

Outcome

Their views were fed back to the safeguarding partnership, and they have used amended wording and have decided to cut down the number of words used to ensure it is accessible to young people.

Top of page

The group fed back on the Inclusion Review. They shared their feedback on preparing for adulthood, teacher training, transitioning to secondary school and our experience at school.

Outcome

Feedback was shared directly with leaders, to support the planning of the delivery phase. The assistant director fed back at the decision makers meeting told the group that the groups' feedback was utilised in the planning phase, but the group would like to ask leaders to feedback on the outcomes of how their views are being used in practice and delivery phase.

Top of page

The group have helped the Educational Psychology (EP) Service in their first steps to creating a young person evaluation tool.

Outcome

The EP service have used the feedback in their planning stage of the evaluation tool and hope to come back to the group to trial the tool.

Top of page

The group have helped the realising rights working group by telling them what rights the young people feel that those supporting them help young people to realise well.

The group were then contacted again to come up with some creative ideas on how the group can help everyone in York to know more about children’s rights.

Outcome

The feedback was shared at the next Realising Rights meeting and the ideas they put forward have been planned into the dream phase and hope to be taken into the planning phase of the project, specifically the Children’s Rights Day/Trail around York.

Top of page

Young people shared their experience at health services. Including feedback about Accident and Emergency (A&E), dentists, speech, and language therapy and physiotherapy.

Outcome

Their feedback was shared with the matron in charge of children’s services at York Hospital. The Matron will be attending the meeting in September to feedback and to work in partnership with the young people to decide how we make these things better for young people.

Top of page

The group fed back on how daunting and scary getting the bus can be, they shared their views and decided to create a poster for bus companies. This would outline how bus drivers can make their experience better and allow young people to feel more confident when getting the bus.

To ensure the advice was a representative of other young people too, the group had a task to each ask at least one other young person for their views.

Bus Drivers Top Tips

Getting the bus can make us feel:

  • "kinda nervous"
  • "sad because there is no room"
  • "weird"
  • "worried"
  • "scared"
  • "it can feel very overwhelming"

Things that we find difficult:

  • "finding the right stop"
  • "how little room there is on the bus"
  • "it's dodgy asking for the ticket"
  • "if someone sits next to me"
  • "worried about people hurting me"

Bus drivers can change the way we feel.

Top tips for bus drivers to help young people cope with getting the bus:

  1. when you're kind to us, it makes us relax
  2. please give us time to get the right money out
  3. shout out loud when the bus gets to a stop and tell me what location we are at
  4. when you're happy it makes us feel more comfortable
  5. check to make sure everyone is safe

Taxi Drivers Top Tips

Getting a taxi can make us feel:

  • "sometimes it makes me feel awkward"
  • "scared when I don't know the driver"
  • "weird because you've called up a stranger to pick you up"
  • "it can feel very overwhelming"

Things that we find difficult:

  • "when it is quiet it makes me feel awkward"
  • "not knowing which route we are going"
  • "when you talk to us but we don't want to chat"

You can change the way we feel.

Top tips for taxi drivers to help young people cope with getting taxi's:

  1. if you talk to us and we don't respond, this might mean we don't feel comfortable making small talk
  2. if we have to go a different route because of road closures or traffic, please let us know
  3. please don't use your vape when we are in the car
  4. ask us if we want music on, sometimes we might like it, and sometimes we might like to sit in silence
  5. smile, it will help us to feel comfortable

These tips have been turned into posters and were sent out to a range of transport companies in York to spread awareness.

Top of page

Get involved