Blog
10 August 2010
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Impressive young people, an immigration centre and a foundation
I was really pleased to be asked to open the British Youth Council conference on August 3rd, a lively gathering of around 200 young people focused on influencing policy nationally. I was also delighted to meet members of Brent's Youth Parliament to see how they work alongside elected Members genuinely influencing how policy is made locally, in their borough. On the 4th I joined the judging for Children & Young People Now magazine's awards. We considered hundreds of entries in a large number of award categories, from all over the UK. Hard work, but very uplifting!
I was really pleased to be asked to open the British Youth Council conference on August 3rd, a lively gathering of around 200 young people focused on influencing policy nationally. I was also delighted to meet members of Brent's Youth Parliament to see how they work alongside elected Members genuinely influencing how policy is made locally, in their borough. On the 4th I joined the judging for Children & Young People Now magazine's awards. We considered hundreds of entries in a large number of award categories, from all over the UK. Hard work, but very uplifting!
Last Friday a team from my office visited Millbank Reception and Assessment Centre in Ashford, Kent, to see great work being done with unaccompanied 16 and 17 year old asylum seeking boys. Their groups worked with us for the day, telling their difficult life stories and saying how much they appreciated Millbank. We were very impressed with the centre. A report will be published in the coming months, so look out for it.
Today I met with the Institute of Community Cohesion (ICOCO) and the Beth Johnson Foundation which researches and promotes multi-generational activities all over the country, to explore how to work better across age groups in communities. This subject matters deeply to young people, who regularly tell me how sad they are that too often, different age groups struggle to understand each other and live tolerantly together.
By Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner for England
