Agenda and minutes

Mark welcomed all to the meeting and introductions were made.

Georgina led the Board on an icebreaker where attendees had to have a conversation with each other and then decide what hat suited them the best.

Marc Bentley gave some background on the Princess Diana Award for Champion Volunteers and informed the Board that he had nominated LINX for this prestigious award which had taken him six days to prepare and involved obtaining quotes from various sources.  He had recently received notification that they had been successful for the award and invited Louise Taylor and Paul Wilcox to present the certificates to LINX.  County Councillor Matthew Tomlinson was then invited to present the trophy to LINX.

Kat guided the Board through the next activity where they were asked to position on mountains, what they thought were good (high points) and not so important (low points) that LINX have been involved in over the last 12 months.

Feedback was given, and one of the most important pieces of work that had been carried out was the Pupil Premium and heightening the awareness of it in schools and with children looked after.

Kris Holme's presented a leaflet to the Board that will be used to raise awareness of Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which is "(Respect for the views of the child): When adults are making decisions that affect children, children have the right to say what they think should happen and have their opinions taken into account".

The leaflet is attached to these minutes.

Mark introduced Tom to the Board who began by saying he felt privileged to be asked to attend the meeting and also that he himself had been had been a recipient of the Diana Award for Volunteering 12 years ago to the day and encouraged the young people to continue their good work and get involved with the opportunities the Diana Award gives.

Tom spoke about the work he is involved in with Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner for England and her team and also with Amplify whom some of the young people from LINX are involved with.

The Board were asked to think about what challenges they would like to lay down before the Local Authority and Government and what things could be done better?  Tom ensured that he would take all the comments back and present them on behalf of the young people of Lancashire and feedback with progress.

Topics to be raised were:

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) need to promote ourselves better and ensure children and young people can find out about us

- The OCC need to better explain who we are and what we do

- The recruitment of foster carers need to involve children and young people

- Government should do something to address foster care just being seen as a job

- Children and young people in care should all have fair treatment when they turn 18

- Thinking should be done about the impact on children of legal changes (housing benefit, legal aid etc.)

- Local authorities are being asked to do more with less money and the budget only goes so far.

Barnardos and the young people gave a demonstration on the KOKO website, which enabled them to talk to each other and receive information in a secure and appropriate way.

A copy of the letter attached was presented to the Board and this will now be circulated to children looked after to raise the awareness.

Following on from the receipt of the Diana Award the young people from LINX were presented with a cake to celebrate their achievement.

The meeting was brought to a close with the "tops and pants" evaluation.  Feedback is attached.

Mark thanked everyone for their attendance.