Last night we had our first youth cabinet meeting since over exams and we had a lot on the agenda to discuss.  We also had a visitor from an Estyn inspector who wanted to observe our meeting.

Some members attended the Vale of Glamorgan Annual General Meeting in May and we went through the new list to find out who are new Cabinet members are.  Information about this can be found on the Vale website.  Our new Cabinet member, which will be looking after the youth service and the youth cabinet is Councillor Kathryn McCaffer, who is responsible for Leisure, Arts and Culture. We will be meeting the new Cabinet in July.  We will also be meeting the new Mayor, Councillor Christine Cave in July too.

Some of the main topics we discussed at this meeting included the response we received from Kirsty Williams AM, the Welsh Government Education Minister regarding our letter about first aid training in schools.  We think first aid training should be compulsory in schools because it’s such a vital skill and we asked Kirsty Williams AM whether there are any plans in the new curriculum for this.  The response we received said that the new curriculum will include a Health & Wellbeing area of learning which could include first aid but that it will be up to the individual school whether they deliver it or not.  More information about the new curriculum can be found here. We did explore the new curriculum website and are looking forward to attending some consultation events soon to learn more about it and give our views on it.  We will be asking for first aid!!

Another important issue we discussed was the environment.  Youth Cymru are currently carrying out a consultation to find out young people’s views on the environment and sustainability, it’s called Green Action. You can have your say to by taking part in the consultation and getting involved in the new project they are starting if this is something you are passionate about.

Other agenda items included volunteering awards for young people because now that Glamorgan Voluntary Service will no longer by awarding Millennium Volunteer certificates, how will young people be rewarded for there volunteering? This is something we are very passionate about and are talking to the youth service about.

Our next meeting is in July but we have several consultation events to attend before then so we will be updating you on this soon.