TITLE OF DEVELOPING PRACTICE EXAMPLE
Social Justice Ambassadors programme: poverty and equity
Social Justice Ambassadors programme: poverty and equity
Involving children and young people in the decisions that affect them is vital. Through evaluation of PEF, school leaders, Stirling’s Team lead for Excellence and Equity (TL) and the attainment advisor (AA) identified that it would be beneficial to consider meaningful approaches to involving CYP in the decision making around PEF. Although many schools were able to see the advantages of involving CYP, they were unsure how to do this in a way that was sensitive to circumstances, context and meaningful.
Discussions with Stirling’s Youth Participation team identified that this team had already developed an approach which could be utilised, with amendments, to suit the needs identified. The programme developed was the ‘The Social Justice Ambassadors Programme: Poverty and Equity’. It is a problem based learning approach to support young people understand the socio-economic challenges facing learners. The intention of the programme is to:
Initial programme:
The Social Justice Ambassadors is a project that was initially co-designed by Stirling Youth Forum and Stirling’s Youth Participation team. The forum had the vision of all young people being confident in using their voice and being heard. Therefore they co-designed interactive/fun learning sessions for young people and this became the prototype for the Stirling ‘Toolkit’. This was successfully piloted by The Youth Forum with a group of 51 young people. It culminated in ‘The Sitting’. An event where the young people presented 19 motions regarding community issues in their areas to lead staff from across Stirling including elected members, third sector and Stirling Community Partnerships. They listened to young researchers present their findings, then had an interactive café conversation to explore ideas further.
Further development: Toolkit development with Education Scotland and Scottish Attainment Challenge
Further development: Social Justice Ambassadors programme: poverty and equity
Next steps:
Stirling
Jacqui Ward