Participation in Action: Peer Outreach Workers come together to shape the capital
Adam Offord
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Young Londoners with a variety of life experiences are helping their London peers by influencing the mayor's decisions and policies.
Provider: Education and Youth Team, London City Hall
Name: Peer Outreach Workers
The Peer Outreach Workers (POWs) are young people from across the capital that have been influencing the mayor's policies since 2006 when Ken Livingstone was the mayor of London.
The group is madeup of around 30 young people aged between 15 and 25 from a diverse range of backgrounds including being care leavers and teenage parents, so that they can represent all young Londoners.
"There are also young people who come on to the team because they are not in full-time education or employment," says Rebecca Palmer, senior project manager for children and young people's participation at the education and youth team at the Greater London Authority.
She explains that the POWs team has been involved in shaping a number of policies in the past - including health policies - but more recently they have been pushing for young people to be involved in the regeneration of the environment. In addition, the young people have worked with London assembly members to evaluate projects and scrutinise the mayor's work.
"We run a programme called the Link Up Crew and they feed into a number of policies like the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime around serious youth violence, gangs, and knife crime," adds Palmer.
"We also had teams involved in reading through applications and selecting the organisations they think would be best to deliver programmes funded from here."
In November 2015, the group also hosted a youth-led inquiry on the state of child rights in London, which focused on mental health, children in care and care leavers, the youth justice system, young refugees and migrants, and housing and homelessness.
A number of organisations gave evidence to the inquiry including the Children's Rights Alliance for England, Shelter and The Children's Society, which was compiled into a report for former Mayor Boris Johnson.
Mark Mouna, peer outreach team manager at the education and youth team, says POW members gain teamwork, CV and everyday life skills.
He explains that young people are either referred to the POWs team or they can apply themselves. The education and youth team will then carry out online discussions with the young person and they will be invited for an interview if the team thinks they would make a good member.
Once on the team, they can then stay for as long as they want, with some working for six months due to finding a new job or going to university, and others staying as an outreach worker for up to five years.
The POWs team is now looking to get involved in a new Innovation Fund designed to help young people leaving care get into work because there are a number of care leavers in the team and "their knowledge and expertise is invaluable".
The education and youth team also plan to start recruiting new members in January from their waiting list, who will then work on initiatives and projects to ensure young Londoners have a voice.
"Next year might look a bit different in how much more we become brokers in where youth provision is going and what is going on, and how we engage and work with young people at risk of gangs or getting involved in knife crime," Palmer adds.
"Some of these young people have been told they will never achieve anything so to actually do something they feel proud of is a game changer."
More from: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/education-and-youth/peer-outreach-team/peer-outreach-workers