The Youth Cabinet Members announced that this meeting would be their last as they would soon be over the eligible age for Youth Cabinet membership. They thanked the Committee for giving Youth Cabinet representatives the opportunity to participate at Committee to enable the voices of young people to be heard. They went on to give the following update:

• Make Your Mark had a 0.5% of voter turnout due to the lockdown and Youth Cabinet had contacted schools about this via emails. The top local issue identified was domestic violence that had never been on the ballot before and the Youth Cabinet would consider this in the future.
• In January, Youth Cabinet were invited to Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) to give the views of religious education from young people’s views and how it can be improved. Youth Cabinet would be attending more of these meetings in future.
• The topics for Curriculum for Life was now confirmed as Central Life Skills; Young Thurrock Services; What is SEND?; Criminal Exploitation; Jobs and Funky Finance. Small learning content would be produced and sent to schools for them combine these into lessons to enable young people to have a better learning experience. These would be distributed via the website which was being worked on.
• A survey about the impact of Covid-19 on young people was undertaken and 73 responses came back from young people between the ages of 11 – 19 years old. 21% had felt their school provided them with effective support during the pandemic while others expressed that schools had not provided adequate support and sixth form colleges had better support. Young people wanted to also see more mental health and wellbeing related services such as mentoring, 1 to 1 support and someone to talk to so they knew that they were not alone. Another concern was uncertainty with the job market and had asked if another youth employment system could be put forward. Young people expressed their main fears to be exams; mental health; not achieving dreams; not being provided with enough opportunities; and that their voices were not heard.
• The Young Thurrock Team had been providing support to young people for wellbeing and ensuring that virtual sessions were accessible to everybody.

The Chair questioned whether Funky Finance taught personal finance to which the Youth Cabinet confirmed that it did. He went on to express his support for the Curriculum for Life.

The Committee expressed their thanks and appreciation to the Youth Cabinet Members for their commitment, hard work and attendance at Committee for the past two years. The Committee wished the Youth Cabinet Members success in their future endeavours.

Sheila Murphy questioned whether there would be a handover period for the new Youth Cabinet Members that would attend Committee to which the Youth Cabinet Members confirmed that handover sessions had already started.

The Youth Cabinet Members asked if the service had plans for a mentoring programme and how the school wellbeing programmes were run in Thurrock. Michele Lucas explained that the Thurrock School Wellbeing Service was on the Agenda for this meeting and that there was a mentoring programme that was provided via the Inspire team. The Director of Public Health had highlighted the importance of mentoring for young people in a report brought to Committee last year and the mentoring programme would be developed further.