CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Paper 2 20^th Septem­ber 2019

CAIRNGORMS YOUTH ACTION

FOR DECISION

Title: CAIRNGORMS YOUTH ACTION

Pre­pared by: ALAN SMITH, OUT­DOOR LEARN­ING OFFICER

Pur­pose

To seek the CNPA’s sup­port for the pro­posed struc­ture and remit for Cairngorms Youth Action.

Recom­mend­a­tions

That the Board:

a) Note the work of the Youth Steer­ing Group in devel­op­ing Cairngorms Youth Action to date. b) Agree the pro­posed struc­ture and remit for Cairngorms Youth Action as developed by the Youth Steer­ing Group. c) Agree a lead Board mem­ber to be involved in the project.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

It was agreed at the board meet­ing of 7^th Decem­ber 2018 that CNPA should sup­port the devel­op­ment of a CNPA youth coun­cil through co-cre­ation with young people. This work has been pro­gress­ing since Janu­ary 2019 with the recruit­ment of a Youth Steer­ing Group, monthly devel­op­ment meet­ings and con­tin­ued work­shops as part of the LEAD­ER transna­tion­al pro­ject with three Finnish LAGs.

Pro­gress has been sig­ni­fic­ant with the fol­low­ing achievements:

a) Developed a struc­ture for the pro­posed youth group. b) Devised a pro­posed remit for the youth group includ­ing guidelines on how it should oper­ate. c) Agreed a name for the pro­ject, youth group and hasht­ag. d) Organ­ised an excit­ing and inspir­ing work­shop for our transna­tion­al partners.

Full details of these achieve­ments can be found in the annexes to this paper.

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Page 2

CAIRNGORMS YOUTH ACTION – FOR DECISION

Stra­tegic Context

1. The pro­ject has pro­ceeded in line with the decision of the Board in Decem­ber 2018 to sup­port the devel­op­ment of a CNPA Youth Coun­cil co-cre­ated with young people. NPPP3 6^d – Rais­ing aware­ness and under­stand­ing of the Park and the issues and choices involved in man­age­ment of the Park.

Pro­ject Development

1. The main aims of the pro­ject were to:

a) Devel­op pro­ced­ures and pro­to­cols for recruit­ment and man­age­ment of a youth coun­cil. b) Estab­lish what areas of work the youth coun­cil will be involved with, for example; con­sulta­tions, grant man­age­ment for youth pro­jects, and provid­ing a youth voice and pres­ence for CNPA. c) Devel­op an appro­pri­ate mod­el for inter­ac­tion with the CNPA Board, its pro­ced­ures and business.

Pro­ject Delivery

1. Pro­ject activ­ity to date is as follows:

a) 17 young people aged 16 – 30 recruited to form the Pro­ject Steer­ing Group. b) 4 monthly steer­ing group meet­ings to devel­op the struc­ture and remit for Cairngorms Youth Action. See Annex 1 c) Fact find­ing vis­it and work­shop with Keskip­iste LEAD­ER Group in Fin­land – atten­ded in April 2019. d) Devel­op­ment work­shop with transna­tion­al part­ners in Cairngorms Nation­al Park to final­ise youth coun­cil mod­el delivered in May 2019. See Annex 2 e) Youth Steer­ing Group delivered a fringe event work­shop at the HIE Strength­en­ing Com­munit­ies Con­fer­ence in Aviemore in May 2019. See Annex 3 f) Fact find­ing vis­it for CNPA and Cairngorms Trust staff with Ravakka LEAD­ER Group in Fin­land to look at fin­an­cial and budget­ary gov­ernance mod­els for youth coun­cil atten­ded August 2019.

Dis­cus­sion

1. Annex 1 out­lines the pro­posed struc­ture and remit for Cairngorms Youth Action. This has all been developed and cre­ated from the ideas and input from the Youth Steer­ing Group informed by research, dis­cus­sion and inform­a­tion gleaned from the transna­tion­al workshops.

2. Annex 2 out­lines ideas of activ­ity young people can engage in to be more involved in their loc­al cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al her­it­age. These ideas will provided the basis for future pro­ject through Cairngorms Youth Action.

3. Annex 3 out­lines the ideas gen­er­ated at the fringe event on youth Engage­ment facil­it­ated by the Youth Steer­ing Group at the HIE Strength­en­ing com­munit­ies Con­fer­ence. These ideas will form the basis for the devel­op­ment of future col­lab­or­a­tion between Cairngorms Youth Action, com­munit­ies, youth organ­isa­tions and oth­er bodies.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. That the Board:

a) Note the work of the Youth Steer­ing Group in devel­op­ing Cairngorms Youth Action to date. b) Agree the pro­posed struc­ture and remit for Cairngorms Youth Action as developed by the Youth Steer­ing Group. c) Agree a lead board mem­ber to be involved in the project.

Implic­a­tions

1. The full cost of devel­op­ing Cairngorms Youth Action is covered through the EURO­PARC Youth Mani­festo Pro­ject fund­ing from Cairngorms LEAD­ER Action Group and part­ners in the transna­tion­al part­ner­ship pro­ject until Septem­ber 2020. Ongo­ing fund­ing in the region of £5 – 10k per annum from with­in CNPA budget would be required to cov­er admin­is­tra­tion costs for Cairngorms Youth Action. A yet to be decided grant fund for the Cairngorms Youth Action Team to alloc­ate through an agreed pro­ced­ure will be required; there is the poten­tial here to work with the Cairngorms Trust to set up a sim­il­ar pro­ced­ure to that used by the Finnish LAG’s.

Suc­cess Measures

1. The key meas­ure will be estab­lish­ing the Cairngorms Youth Action pro­ject that engages mean­ing­fully with the gov­ernance and decision mak­ing pro­cesses of CNPA and devel­ops a grant award­ing func­tion that sees the cre­ation of innov­at­ive pro­jects delivered by young people for the bene­fit of young people in the Cairngorms.

Alan Smith 15^th August 2019 alansmith@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

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Page 4 — Annex 1: Cairngorms Youth Action

Cairngorms Youth Action is a new pro­ject developed by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity to help address the issues iden­ti­fied by young people and out­lined in the EURO­PARC Youth Manifesto.

The key ele­ments of Cairngorms Youth Action will be:

• To be the voice of young people in the Park by recruit­ing young people to form the Cairngorms Youth Action Team.
• To devel­op a pro­ced­ure to fund young people’s ideas about liv­ing, learn­ing and work­ing in the Park by giv­ing them a grant.
• To put on edu­ca­tion­al, excit­ing and innov­at­ive events for young people in the Park.

Pur­pose

Cairngorms Youth Action is an empower­ing and inspir­ing plat­form for young people to share and devel­op ideas that lead to pro­act­ive par­ti­cip­a­tion in decision mak­ing. It will engage with the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of our loc­al rur­al com­munit­ies. Cairngorms Youth Action will enable young people to tackle issues and cre­ate pos­it­ive change. By includ­ing the voice of young people and their con­stantly evolving ideas we can cre­ate a sus­tain­able future for our park.

Struc­ture

The park wide ini­ti­at­ive to engage mean­ing­fully with young people across a range of issues shall be known as Cairngorms Youth Action. The group that is formed to be the youth voice shall be known as the Cairngorms Youth Action Team.

Age range

14 – 26 — this tar­get age range should not exclude young people on either side of it if they are keen and motiv­ated to get involved. Efforts will be made to ensure there is a bal­anced age range in the Cairngorms Youth Action Team (CYAT).

Num­ber in Group

12 – 15 – the num­ber in the group should be kept at a level to cre­ate mean­ing­ful and rep­res­ent­at­ive dia­logue and discussion.

How they join

Recruit­ment will be done through open enrol­ment at the begin­ning of the school year through the use of an applic­a­tion form. For the first intake CNPA staff and mem­bers of the cur­rent Youth Steer­ing Group will look at applic­a­tions and decide who joins the CYAT. For sub­sequent recruit­ment CNPA staff and cur­rent CYAT mem­bers will look at applic­a­tions and decide who is recruited. Intern­al elec­tions will be held for spe­cif­ic pos­i­tions if deemed necessary.

Ten­ure – length of service

In recog­ni­tion of the flu­id state of many young people’s lives no strict length of ten­ure has been set as people should be able to stay on the group for as long as they are inter­ested and as short as they can manage.

Where from

Scot­land wide – should have interest in and know­ledge of the Park. Age related – young­er mem­bers are likely to be from schools in Park and older mem­bers from out of Park.

Fre­quency of meetings

Meet­ings of the CYAT should be held at least quarterly with the year begin­ning in Septem­ber. First meet­ing of the year will be a week­end res­id­en­tial to intro­duce mem­bers to each oth­er and to the work of the CYAT. Oth­er meet­ings will be held at an agreed time and place to ensure max­im­um attend­ance. Use of online meet­ing plat­forms will also be con­sidered. Sub groups for plan­ning events may be held at dif­fer­ent times if necessary.

Remit

Youth Voice

• Cairngorms Youth Action Team – a plat­form for young people to share and devel­op ideas that is integ­rated and included in the decision mak­ing pro­cesses of Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.
• Con­sult­ing all young people in the Park and rep­res­ent­ing their views and opinions.
• Used by CNPA to com­ment on policy con­sulta­tions and oth­er mat­ters per­tain­ing to the park. CYAT would see papers to com­ment on pri­or to the CNPA Board meet­ing to enable con­sulta­tion with young people in the park.

• Meet twice yearly with the CNPA Board on an inform­al basis that would include some activ­ity, dis­cus­sion and socialising.

• A group that –

  • Pro­motes pride in rur­al and pro­tec­ted areas and helps instil con­fid­ence in young people.
  • That cre­ates a frame­work for oth­ers to use and leaves a last­ing legacy.
  • That high­lights oppor­tun­it­ies to young people and provides out­reach ser­vices to help include oth­er young people.
• Build rela­tion­ships with oth­er youth bod­ies – e.g. Young Scot, Rur­al Youth Par­lia­ment, loc­al author­ity Youth Par­lia­ments etc.

Grant giv­ing

Man­aging a small grant scheme for young people to enable them to put their ideas into prac­tice. Work with the CNPA and Cairngorms Trust to devel­op a set of cri­ter­ia for youth led small grant applic­a­tions. Applic­a­tions for grants would be taken twice dur­ing the year. There would be a sub-group to look at ini­tial applic­a­tions and give advice. Decisions on award­ing grants would be done by the whole group.

Events

Stage events for young people in the Park to bring them togeth­er to share ideas and exper­i­ences. CYAT mem­bers will attend events to pro­mote the pro­ject and to raise aware­ness of what they are doing. There will be a yearly event planned and delivered through CYAT that is fun, enga­ging and inform­at­ive – e.g. a music fest­iv­al with an under­ly­ing mes­sage on cli­mate change, biod­iversity loss and show­cas­ing how young people can get involved and take action!

Mar­ket­ing and Promotion

A Cairngorms Youth Action web page on the CNPA web­site to act as a portal for all youth related activ­ity and oppor­tun­it­ies with­in the park. Get­ting the word out there through age related media – devel­op­ing a brand — #bairngorms

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Page 7 — Annex 2: Youth and Cul­tur­al Heritage

Dur­ing a joint work­shop in the Cairngorms we asked youth par­ti­cipants from Scot­land and Fin­land to think about how young people can engage fur­ther with cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al her­it­age – there responses are below.

Youth and Cul­tur­al Heritage

• Com­munity skill shares with mul­tiple gen­er­a­tions to pass on tra­di­tion­al know­ledge. Can provide befriend­ing oppor­tun­it­ies. Works both ways to allow young people to share skills too.
• Pro­mot­ing con­nec­tions with par­ents and grandparents.
• Inter­act­ive trips work­ing with schools to tie in les­sons – give real exper­i­ences to help con­nect young people.
• Cul­ture camps – res­id­en­tial trips.
• Reduced entry fees to cul­tur­al sites for young people.
• ‘Free days’ to encour­age young people.
• Integ­rat­ing cul­tur­al out­reach into youth tar­geted events e.g. stalls at music events.
• Cross pro­mo­tion of cul­tur­al sites in cafes, accom­mod­a­tion etc.
• Mark cen­ten­ar­ies and anniversar­ies of key cul­ture events.
• Learn about loc­al cul­tur­al sites and heritage.
• Involve young people in loc­al cul­tur­al and his­tor­ic­al soci­et­ies to help organ­ise events.
• Get the full fam­ily involved.
• Make it rel­ev­ant to people today to devel­op a sense of ownership.
• Pro­mot­ing com­munit­ies of interest.
• Break­ing down age divi­sions to be more inclus­ive – remov­ing age barriers.
• Cre­ate more volun­teer­ing, appren­tice­ships and work exper­i­ence oppor­tun­it­ies in cul­tur­al sector.
• Story-telling, taster ses­sions etc.
• Run prac­tic­al activities.
• Social media and media cam­paigns to raise awareness.
• Com­bin­ing cul­tur­al her­it­age with dif­fer­ent activities.
• Link­ing young people to museums more regularly.
• Help for young people facing inequal­it­ies to access services.
• Swap shop events to exchange cul­tur­al her­it­age ori­ented objects such as books, films or skills.
• Re-enact­ments.
• More events that focus on young people in museums, archae­olo­gic­al digs etc.
• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Fest­iv­al and Committee.
• Young Cairngorms Her­it­age Champions.
• Young Her­it­age Volunteers.
• Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Edu­ca­tion Ambassadors.
• More Scot­tish his­tor­ic­al edu­ca­tion in schools and groups, loc­al history.
• Envir­on­ment­al films / Scot­tish documentaries.

Youth and Nat­ur­al Heritage

• Giv­ing nature talks to school pupils.
• Recog­nising the import­ance of nature.
• Watch­ing envir­on­ment­al films and documentaries.
• Spe­cies iden­ti­fic­a­tion training.
• Com­mu­nic­at­ing what’s already out there.
• Pro­mot­ing com­munity groups of interest.
• Taster ses­sions for young people – work shadowing.
• Sub­sid­ised kit hire for young people.
• Team build­ing groups for out­door learn­ing skills.
• Youth volun­teer groups – tree plant­ing etc.
• Teach­ing about rewild­ing – using Scot­tish examples.
• Work with Scouts, Brownies and Rainbows.
• Com­munity gardens.
• Inter­na­tion­al events – cli­mate change etc.
• Col­lab­or­at­ive efforts by funders.
• Aware­ness of how it helps com­munit­ies – health etc.
• Inter-gen­er­a­tion­al events and activities.
• Make trans­port avail­able, access­ible and afford­able to get out an about.
• Cel­eb­rate anniversar­ies of key events.
• More aware­ness of volun­teer­ing, work exper­i­ence and work shadowing.
• Cre­at­ing a youth spe­cif­ic role(open to a young­er age group)
• Cre­ation of inform­al Nature Clubs without reg­u­lar commitment.
• Youth dog walk­ing groups.
• More nature –based job expos­ure closer con­nec­tions to schools in class or after school options.
• Ensure wide range of nature top­ics in outreach.
• High­light dir­ect bene­fits – food, medi­cines, water, soil etc.
• Immers­ive nature edu­ca­tion – integ­rate nature across cur­riculum in schools.
• Skill shares with­in com­munit­ies to pass on knowledge.
• Non-nature events to expose young people to nature such as music events or sports events.
• Youth car shar­ing scheme to reduce trans­port bar­ri­ers to youth to nature activities/​employ­ment etc.
• Increase Juni­or Ranger and Youth+ participation.

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Page 9 — Annex 3: Strength­en­ing Com­munit­ies Conference

Youth Engage­ment Fringe Event – What you said!

As part of the HIE Strength­en­ing Com­munit­ies Con­fer­ence youth mem­bers of the Cairngorms NP Youth steer­ing group facil­it­ated group dis­cus­sions at a fringe event for con­fer­ence del­eg­ates. The ques­tions and the group responses are below.

What are the best ways for your com­munity or organ­isa­tion to engage with young people in your loc­al area?

Go to where young people are.

Real par­ti­cip­a­tion

• Let them organise
• Give oppor­tun­it­ies to influence
• Devel­op plans from the group based on their ideas and with them
• Through chil­dren you can engage adults.
• Involve in decision mak­ing – High­land youth strategy.
• Hav­ing some­thing sup­port­ive to offer – micro loans for start-ups.
• Oppor­tun­it­ies for ​‘form­al’ youth pro­grammes for young people to grow in a new setting.
• Give them lead­er­ship train­ing – builds confidence.
• Avoid imposter syn­drome — sets in f you don’t feel you have been offer­ing value.
• Avoid enga­ging for engaging’s sake – engage­ment fatigue.
• Devel­op role models.
• Com­ing togeth­er in reac­tion to big glob­al issues.
• Be adapt­ive to changes in a community.
• Recog­nise that there is value in leav­ing for edu­ca­tion or growth oppor­tun­it­ies but have infra­struc­ture for people to return.
• Young people’s voices and per­spect­ives must be respec­ted and listened to.
• Com­munity gath­er­ing spaces – e.g. Velo­city in Inverness.
• Ment­or­ing pro­grammes – Ment­or­prise in Uists.
• Take your pas­sion and respond to com­munity needs.
• Work – life integration.
• Emphas­ise the positive.
• Stronger social options.
• Young people should not be tokenised.
• Engage with exist­ing youth groups.
• Embra­cing and being wel­com­ing to young people.
• Listen to young people.

How do we reach these young people?

• Con­nect people through nature.
• Youth music fest­iv­al in the Cairngorms led by young people.
• Face to face con­tact – appro­pri­ate use of social media.
• Jar­gon free language!
• Get young people involved from an earli­er age — to be a val­ued part of community.
• See young people as part of wider com­munity – not as apart from it.
• Giv­ing young people own­er­ship of projects.
• Mak­ing a place for con­tact – hub.
• Aven­ues to chan­nel pos­it­ive activities.
• Require­ments to engage young people in planning.
• Talk­ing about best meth­ods and suc­cesses with our neigh­bour­ing communities.
• Par­ti­cip­at­ory demo­cracy and budget­ing – Westray model.

What ideas can you think of to deal with the issues expressed by young people in the EURO­PARC Youth Mani­festo around liv­ing or learn­ing or work­ing or youth empowerment?

Liv­ing Infrastructure

• Gov­ern­ment pays for buses dur­ing daytime.
• Com­munity trans­port scheme – sub­sid­ised fares.
• Smal­ler eco-friendly buses.
• No even­ing services!!
• Elec­tric bikes and more char­ging points for elec­tric vehicles.
• Cheap­er ferry prices for youth.
• Stronger broad­band – inter­net access cre­ates more opportunities.
• Young people want digit­al connectivity.
• Con­nect to young people through gaming.
• Fund­ing through digit­al Scotland.
• Under 25’s bus pass.

Com­munity

• Know­ing the his­tory of your community.
• Intergen­er­a­tion­al play in com­munit­ies to break down barriers.
• Youth music fest­iv­al in the Cairngorms led by young people.
• Integ­ra­tion of ages in a social set­ting – bring people togeth­er allow them to collaborate.

Afford­ab­il­ity

• Above shop flats devel­op­ment for afford­able housing.
• Split­ting big build­ings into smal­ler afford­able units for young people.
• Com­munity hous­ing projects.

More sup­port

• Emphas­ise oppor­tun­it­ies that are out there – apprenticeships.
• Loc­al busi­nesses as rur­al skills part­ners and volun­teer opportunities.
• Encour­age and foster entre­pren­eur­ship – ​‘Fit for Work’ sessions.
• Flex­ib­il­ity, child­care and equal oppor­tun­it­ies for young people.
• Tail­or edu­ca­tion to the loc­al area Kin­gussie HS changed their curriculum.
• Use already estab­lished path­ways – Young Maoris.
• Rela­tion­ships with schools is key.
• Peer learn­ing support.
• Rur­al skills.
• Donat­ing music­al instru­ments – sub­sid­ised hir­ing of them.
• Aviemore Out­door cloth­ing store get inform­a­tion out about this.
• Hav­ing the hous­ing, trans­port and child­care sup­port in com­munity is essential.
• Sup­port for entre­pren­eurs to bring their busi­ness to an area.
• Dor­noch – good example of invest­ing in young people.

Inspire Interest

• Future lead­ers rather than ​‘youth groups’.
• Power of sug­ges­tion – pos­it­ive images and messages.
• Have young people from the youth group attend con­fer­ences, com­munity coun­cils etc.
• Be excited!
• Face to face contact.
• Appro­pri­ate use of social media.

Work­ing

Need job opportunities

• Strong links between edu­ca­tion pro­viders and job providers.
• Entre­pren­eur­i­al edu­ca­tion, offer busi­ness edu­ca­tion at an early age.
• Job open days and job shad­ow­ing opportunities.
• Paid short term con­tracts for school leav­ers Feis Ros model.
• Pro­gres­sion oppor­tun­it­ies – ment­or­ing is key.
• Raise aware­ness of cur­rent oppor­tun­it­ies – net­work­ing events.
• Devel­op­ment trusts need to be busi­ness minded to succeed.

Need more training

• Allow youth to set up social enter­prise pro­jects and be in charge of the process.
• Break the ​‘who you know’ men­tal­ity – ensure its fair – avoid nepotism.
• Devel­op skills.

Low wages

• Vari­ety in jobs –people hold­ing a num­ber of part time jobs.
• Enable school leav­ers up to early 20’s to get exper­i­ence through paid short term contracts.
• Fund­ing giv­en by young people to young people.

Youth Empower­ment

• Identi­fy what young people want to do – pick­ing quick wins – deliv­er­ing the out­come builds con­fid­ence and experience.
• What do loc­al young people want to do – con­sid­er­ing our unique envir­on­ment – address the harder to reach young people.
• Respect­ing the dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies of interest – dif­fer­ent mech­an­isms tailored to each.
• Young people need role mod­els to see what can be done and help lead the way.
• Young people shouldn’t be invited in ​‘just for show’ to sit on boards etc. must be there for a mean­ing­ful purpose.
• A board needs every­one in it to be there for a reas­on (skills, know­ledge of sec­tor). So in fact age is not rel­ev­ant from that point of view, but should be able to bring up young people’s point of view.
• Mani­festo needs to be taken into schools not just rely­ing on social media to do the job.
• Catch­ing young people who are out of school, espe­cially the 16 – 25 yr group. It’s a chal­lenge to know how to / where to engage with them – prob­ably social media.
• Young people need to see some­thing hap­pen­ing when they have inves­ted input into a discussion.
• Need to have a frame­work in place that provides a vehicle for tak­ing for­ward all the cur­rently dis­par­ate youth activ­ity that’s hap­pen­ing in the park.
• Keep mes­sages simple and updates fre­quent so young people (and oth­ers) know what is going on.
• An organ­isa­tion needs to show a uni­fied mes­sage that incor­por­ates all the view­points of indi­vidu­als, young­er and older.
• Need to look at how we value the inform­a­tion that comes through social media and not view it as mis­in­form­a­tion or fake news.