LINK Vice Versa
“The LINK young advisers are a group of young people aged
up to 19 who are trained to work
withorganisationsand services
in BedfordBorough Council to
provide ideas and recommendations on making their
publicity/publications and services child and young people
friendly.”
The LINK Vice Versa offer to services or
organisations
Young Advisors – information,
advice, guidance on being child and youth friendly through focus
groups, service user feedback and youth proofing
Young Recruiters – working
with you to find the best staff possible by helping with
interviews, developing questions, finding out the qualities that we
are looking for in the people who work with us
Young Commissioners – finding
the right organisations to provide services for children and young
people, visiting them to find out how their work is going and to
hear form children and young people using the service
Young Inspectors – carrying
out observations and inspections of buildings, activities, services
to provide ideas on how to improve them for children and young
people that are no cost, low cost and high cost
recommendations.
The group meets regularly and is always
looking for new members who will receive training in how to do
observations and inspections, how to write reports and how to
interview people.
In 2012 we have ….
Young Advisors - worked with
Adult Services in Bedford Borough Council to help develop
Healthwatch Bedford Borough. 103 young people took part in our
survey to say what their thoughts were on health services in
Bedford Borough which has helped in developing the new service for
2013. You can find out more about Healthwatch Bedford Borough at
www.bedford.gov.uk/healthwatch
Young Recruiters – taken part
in interviews for staff for the Engagement and Development Team in
June and September 2012, and helped with Social Worker recruitment
in October 2012 by writing questions to ask in the interview and
providing a scoring system so that the panel knew what we were
looking for.
Young Commissioners – in
April 2012 3 young commissioners with disabilities took part in the
commissioning of short breaks services, helping to interview and
choose which organisations should be given the contracts. In
December 2012 visits have started going out to see organisations
that are providing services to check how they are going and speak
with the children and young people who are using them. The group is
also developing their own Short Breaks Grant that children and
young people with disabilities can apply to so that they can make
their own Short Break.
Young Inspectors – have been
helping services to improve by visiting them, carrying out
observations and inspections and providing reports with ideas about
how to change things to be the best service possible for children
and young people. In 2012 they carried out 3 inspections of
services and look forward to visiting them in 2013 to see if the
changes have happened.
Young Advisors - worked with
Bedford LINk to find out what children and young people think about
health education and support about healthy eating and
exercise. Information has been shared with the Bedford LINk
board who are using it to inform their work with different health
providers.
Young Commissioners – led a
consultation into the Short Breaks Statement speaking with 35 young
people with disabilities to find out what they think is important
in a set of standards and pledges around Short Breaks. They then
created a set of recommendations based on the results and gave this
to the Commissioning Manager to inform the new statement.
In 2013 we will be
Young Advisors – continuing
to support Healthwatch including being training in February by the
National Children’s Bureau to help in their role advising the
Healthwatch steering group
Young Commissioners - the
group are developing their own Grant Scheme so that children and
young people with disabilities can apply to so that they can make
their own Short Break
Young Inspectors – working
with the NHS to inspect 3 health services and provide feedback
against the You’re Welcome criteria
The team:
Rosa, Shruti, Natalie, Claudia, Yasmin, Chipo,
Aman, Radiya, Rahima, Kyle, Haleema, Grace, Chris, Annabel, Alice
H, Kristofer, Alice P, Rhys, Harry
To find out more, please contact the group via
hanna.castle@bedford.gov.uk
or call 01234 718388