Youth Voice

Description

Southampton City Council is ambitious for engagement and co-production with young people and wants to see young people's voices central to policy, provision and decision making going forward. The Council facilitates the Youth Parliament, the annual Make Your Mark consultation, the Junior Joint Area Review, Junior Wardens and the election of the Children's Mayor and more recently has been working in partnership with #Beewell to better understand children and young people's perception of their health and wellbeing. Alongside these Council activities, there is a wealth of youth engagement activity led by other organisations across the city, including the Voluntary and Community sector. With the commissioning of the Youth Voice Service, the Council is looking to build on, better coordinate and grow this existing activity to realise its ambition of putting young people's voice at the heart of decision making. Lot 1: Over the course of the next 6 months, Southampton City Council will be working with partners across the city to co-produce a future model of engagement and co-production with young people for delivery in 2025/26. In the short term however, the Council is looking to work with one or two VCSE providers, local to the Southampton area and with existing experience in delivering these services, to deliver a number of core participation activities, including: • Delivery of the Southampton Young Mayor initiative a) in terms of ensuring successful attendance at events & influencing council activity and b) managing the selection process to appoint a new Mayor in December. • Establishing the Youth Council with strong engagement from all schools, and young people's groups in the election process and supporting it to have a voice in chambers of the council. • Facilitation of the following forums to have strong and broad representation and to actively influence Council policies: Young People in Care Council, Junior Young People in Care Council, Care Leavers Forum (Southampton Voices Unite). This will also include young people's representation at Southampton's Corporate Parenting Board. Ensuring their experience is shared with members. Supporting children and young people to use their voice and where necessary strengthen their ability to have challenging conversations about the care they have received. • Delivery of care experienced apprenticeship scheme which will further create future opportunities for the city's care experienced young people. • Mapping existing participation groups and activities in relation to SEND and establishing a mechanism for enabling these groups to feed into the Council's SEND strategic activity. • Development and delivery of a young advisors/inspector's programme focussing on the 3 Child Friendly priorities The Council would be very interested to hear from organisations that may be interested in delivering these services. If a procurement is undertaken as the result of the advertising of this PIN, then PCRs 2015 Regulation 77 - Reserved Contracts will apply, further information is available at Procurement Policy Note 11/20: Reserving below threshold procurements - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Additional information: The contract term is anticipated to be from 1 September to 31 March 2025, and the total anticipated contract value is in the range value of £65,000 to £70,000. £70,000 is the maximum total value and is subject to review. For further information please email Marie Woodhouse - marie.woodhouse@nhs.net Expressions of interest are to be made to tendermanagement@southampton.gov.uk