Coxhoe Youth Strategy Partnership

Coxhoe Youth Strategy Partnership is comprised of representatives of Coxhoe Parish Council, Durham County Council. the Active Life Centre and Coxhoe Community Partnership. Its aim is to improve the lives and opportunities for children and young village in Coxhoe and Quarrington Hill.

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Latest News

Parish Council delivery of youth services commences

We advised you in the Chronicle in 2016 that we were recruiting a team of youth workers to continue provision if Durham County Council as expected confirmed that it would have to cut its Youth Services as part of a further £64 million of cuts it has to make by 2020 as a reduction of funding from the Government. Coxhoe Parish Council has already taken over delivery of the Quarrington Hill Monday Senior Youth session because Durham County Council’s workers left and weren’t replaced. We have also re-started the popular Friday night under 12 Youth club at Active Life Centre that closed last year and will be re-starting the over 12s session 30 September. We will also be continuing the Coxhoe Wednesday sessions in 2017 when Durham County Council withdraws from the and the also the Quarrington Hill Friday sessions. We are delighted that the Directors of Active Life Centre and the Trustees of Quarrington Hill Community Centre share our desire for these valuable services for our young people to continue on their premises. We will be moving forward with our plans to establish Youth Councils in both villages to make sure that our youth provision delivers what our young people actually want and give them a voice in their communities, and with the Parish Council.

Funding for Young People Achieved

On behalf of the Partnership Coxhoe Parish Council has been successful in obtaining nearly £9,000 in funding from the ‘Big Lottery Awards for All’ Fund. The funding will be used towards the Parish Plan aim to consult with and provide activities for the young people of our Parish from 0 to18 years and to set up a Parish Youth Council.

Parish Plans 1 and 2 surveys included questions for adults about provision for children and young people but the people we really need to tell us what is needed are the young people themselves. Parish Plan 1 process circulated a questionnaire to children and young people and while it resulted in improvements we felt that a more thorough process of consultation was needed for Parish Plan 2 and the best way to do this was to employ the expertise of ‘Investing in Children CIC’. This is an organisation that promotes the human rights of children and young people and works alongside them to make changes.

Investing in Children will visit toddler groups, nurseries, schools, youth groups and any other places that young people or parents of the youngest age group meet to talk to them about what activities they would like to see in the Parish and what the barriers are that stop them from accessing activities. They will be ‘Facebooking’, ‘Twittering’ and setting up groups of young people to talk about what they want and to carry out research. At the end of this process we will have the beginnings of a Youth Council for the Parish.

The Parish Council have also put £10,000 per year towards employing a youth worker to ensure that what the children and young people ask for can be put into action. This is necessary as the Parish anticipate fewer resources from the County Council because of financial constraints.

Partnership Progress to Date

Progress will be reported here.

Read more about Young people here