Youth Advisory Board visit to No. 10 Downing Street

Following our Youth Advisory Board (YAB) visit to No.10 Downing Street, Callum one of our YAB members wrote the following account.

On the 20^th October 2023 members of the YEF Youth Advisory Board, including myself, visited 10 Downing Street and met with Civil Servants working as part of the Policy Unit, which provides policy advise directly to the UK Prime Minister. I had only previously visited London with the YAB to attend the in-person meetings and training, so this was my first ‘away’ trip as a member of the advisory board.

Travelling from Swansea to London meant I knew I was in for a long day. Of course, my train was delayed by two hours due to flooding (many thanks to the British weather). Luckily enough I was on the same train as another YAB member, so we were able to suffer the journey together! We arrived at Paddington Station, and b-lined for the tube to Westminster. We arrived at the gates of Downing Street gasping for air, covered in sweat and just in time.

Discussion with policy makers

Before our tour of 10 Downing Street, we met with two civil servants from the Policy Unit. Along with YEF staff members, 7 of the YAB attended this meeting. We all introduced ourselves, where we were from and how we were involved with the YAB. Much of the stimulus for our conversation came from the YEF’s recent Children, violence and vulnerability report, observing what stood out for us and what we found most interesting about the report. We also discussed our own lived experiences and what we have seen in our communities, as well as what we thought needed to be done, in terms of government policy, to help reduce the number of young people being involved and experiencing youth violence.

As I was the only person present at the meeting representing Wales, I had to bear in mind that some of the policy decisions we were talking about regarding England, are devolved matters in Wales. However, judicial & policing policy and the running of the welfare system are centralised (meaning those decisions are decided in Westminster) and are two topics that came up a lot in our meeting. Although many of us came from different parts of England and Wales, we could see patterns and similarities between the issues we all had within our own communities.

Speaking on what matters to young people in Wales

I talked about how, as a Youth Support Worker in the area, the biggest risk to CYP in Swansea, alongside youth violence, was exposure to criminal and sexual exploitation. The young people are often themselves considerably vulnerable and facing adversity, making it easier for perpetrators to exploit them. Considering these issues, I spoke about how better social ‘safety nets’ are needed in places like Swansea, especially when it comes to tackling poverty, food poverty and lack of opportunities.

I do believe that the Police can and should play a part to tackle the issue of youth violence and making people feel safer in their communities. However, as many of my YAB colleagues agreed, there needs to a big overhaul on how Police are recruited, trained, and relate to/ represent the communities they serve. I spoke about my own experiences of the Police in Swansea, as well young peoples’ experiences of the Police. I talked about how, although there has been a recent increase in new Police officers and PCSOs, these new recruits are often very young and lack experience and training for working in different communities. I have witnessed first-hand these new recruits unable to effectively de-escalate situations as well as a perceived lack of empathy when dealing with victims of crime and vulnerable members of the community.

Many of the young people I work with struggle to trust police, often due to negative past experiences they’ve had with them or based on their parents’/families’ experiences and views of. What is needed is bespoke and rigorous training for Police, especially when it comes to de-escalation and working in a trauma-informed way. I would even go as far a to say that all Police Officers and PCSOs would benefit from doing some sort of Youth Work training, so they can develop those skills of being able to address some young people’s challenging behaviour in a way that engages them as opposed to brutalising and criminalising them. As a group, we agreed that police forces need to do better to represent the communities they serve, perhaps through recruiting officers from the places and communities that they’ll work in.

Review our Children, violence and vulnerability report to find out about the effect of violence in the lives of 13-17 year olds across England and Wales.

Final reflections on the visit

I did enjoy the conversations we had with the members of Policy Unit that we met. They seemed genuinely engaged with what we had to say and wrote extensive notes to share with the rest of their colleagues. Despite this, it did feel at times that much of what we were saying and what we experienced in our lives were rather alien to the Civil Servants we were speaking to. I felt this because of some of the questions they asked us. However, it is so important to have meetings like the one we had at No.10 for this very reason. Being able to hold power to account and relate real life stories and experiences, that extend outside the world of Westminster. We need to remind civil servants, as well as elected officials, that the decisions they make regarding social security and reducing violence, have a real impact on people’s lives. Those decisions don’t just win or lose them elections – they have the power to affect people’s path in life.