The Conference was an exciting mix of speakers and workshops. The newly formulated National Youth Information Standards were presented to the delegates, who received them with excitement and enthusiasm.  Sixteen Local Authorities were represented with 50 professionals present at the workshops which included such subjects as Information Work and Social Media, How to Involve Young People in Information Services (Youth Editorial Groups) and Understanding the National Standards.

Introductions were made by David Holtam and Rose Davies, Chair and Vice Chair respectively of the Youth Information Workers Network Cymru. Tannis Cunnick from The Youth Strategy Branch of the Welsh Government spoke on how Youth Information Work lay at the Heart of the Youth Work Strategy, Rose Davies talked about Youth Information – A Rights Based Approach. Powys and Blaenau Gwent brought their Mobile Youth Information Vans for people to view.

Other key contributors were Alun Connik from Estyn who talked about why national standards are necessary, Charlotte Drury who managed the process of developing the Youth Information Standards, Geoff Moore (CLIC) who introduced the delegates to the I-spect toolkits currently under production, to help young people inspect Youth Information Services, Sarah Keefe (Bridgend Youth Service), Marco Gil-Cervantes and Daniel Grosvenor from ProMo-Cymru who ran the Social Media workshop, and Arielle Tye (theSprout) and Kathryn Allen (ProMo-Cymru) who ran a session on Youth Editorial Groups.

The Conference ran on time and received very positive feedback from delegates during the evaluation session at the end of the day. A big thank you to Sarah Parfitt, Sarah Dean, Tania Russell-Owen and Geoff Moore for organising the venue and catering and ensuring projectors and laptops worked on the day.

Youth Information Work is clearly at the heart of the Welsh Government’s strategy for Youth Work in Wales, and we can look forward to a very exciting time ahead with the growth of the CLIC Network of local information sites leading the way in on-line youth information social media.

Photos from the day can be viewed here.

Read about her impressions of EVi here.

“Demonstrated how to use social networking sites as a professional, safely & securely.”

“I am a technophobe… this has taught me how to use Facebook & Twitter.”

“It was a great insight to all aspects of social networking. Thank you for delivering a great training day.”

If you are interested in Social Media Training for young people or professionals, please contact Rachel Burton, Training & Accreditation Officer at rachel@cliconline.co.uk for more information.

This year’s conference was entitled ‘Making choices today for a better tomorrow’, and encouraged attendees to talk about education, employment, volunteering and training.

One young person in attendance said: “I’ve had the chance to attend a few of these conferences and I think they get better every year.  These events like this are really important because they let us tell the people that make decisions in Carmarthenshire what young people really want in our county.”

Click here to check out Carmarthenshire Youth, which is part of the CLIC network!

As a service providing information, support, advice and advocacy to children and young people between the ages of 0 – 25 years across Wales, the Meic team comes into daily contact with children and young people suffering the effects of poverty both personally and within their local and wider communities. The Meic team met and networked with other like-minded professionals on the day to promote the service.

Eurochild is a European network of organisations promoting the rights and welfare of children in Europe. The 8th annual conference looked at how family support impacts on children’s well-being and outcomes.

The CLIC training team has recently delivered Level 2 training with youth workers and young people from Bwsted‘s Local Editorial Group in Bridgend.  We also delivered the Level 3 ACN to Youth Workers in Wrexham and Flintshire in a joint training event.

Young people from both counties also attended this event to take part in training workshops in video stories, photo diaries and creative writing.

If you are interested in the CLIC team delivering this training to your staff and/or young people, please contact Rachel Burton at rachel@cliconline.co.uk We can supply training and training packs in both Welsh and English.

Red-Button is the substance misuse website for under 18s in Cardiff. While other sites take a regional or national approach to substance misuse and are written for an adult audience, Red-Button is for and by young people in Cardiff, meaning detailed and accurate information is available in one place.

The site is driven by personal stories and videos and young people can anonymously add to these stories and have their say.

If you have some content to add to the Red-Button website, please e-mail arielle@promo-cymru.org

Organised by ProMo-Cymry and CLIC, the theme this time will be “The Future of Youth Information Work” and there will be expert speakers, challenging and informative workshops and a chance to network and share best practice. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

If you are interested to attend or wish to find out more, please contact CLIC Counties Partnership Officer, Geoff Moore at geoff@cliconline.org.uk to reserve a place.

November

TheSprout was invited to hold November’s Sprout Editorial Group meeting in Literature Wales’ pop up literature lounge in St David’s 2.

Beforehand there was a special workshop put on for members of the group to learn about review writing from the editors of two local publications.

It was a great session with lots of positive feedback from the young people.

Our young reporters have also been busy interviewing in November, they’ve met Charlotte Church, Catherine Fisher (Young People’s Laureate for Wales) and the Lord Mayor.

December

Young people from TheSprout won two awards at the CLIC Awards in November. Jeff the Fridge was awarded Best Review for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Stormer007 walked away with Most Involved CLICER for his amazing commitment to the project.

Read all about it at thesprout.co.uk.