Staff from The NYA recently gave a well-received keynote address to a Beacons Learning Exchanges conference organised by the Improvement and Development Agency.

The event, in London on 15 June, provided practical tips for service improvement in the form of interactive workshops on the successful approaches used by those authorities that had achieved Beacon status under the category of Positive Youth Engagement.

The speech by The NYA's active involvement development officer Bill Badham and young consultant Ashley Sweetland underlined the importance of involving and engaging young people. Badham welcomed the ethos of engagement that has enabled authorities to win Beacon status, saying he hoped this would in turn light a series of "beacons for change". Both drew attention to an area of Manchester that has purchased high-pitched Mosquito gadgets to use against the young, and compared this with an NYA and West Midlands authorities' Best Behaviour framework that is tackling difficulties through educative responses within communities and targeted groups.

Sweetland praised the success of Lewisham's Youth Mayor, and called for a greater local government push to include young people in participation.