Hi there,With the third national lockdown in place and many of you studying from home, we wanted to bring a little good news to your inbox from our Youth Consultancy Panel. Be sure to scroll down to see what opportunities you can get involved in during lockdown for free! We asked our YCP for their top tips and tricks for lockdown as many of us continue to work and study from home in the coming weeks.Here's what they suggest...⭐ Be kind to yourself, you are coping with something huge and strange right now so speak to yourself in a way you'd speak to someone else ⭐ Find and designate yourself a working space, even if its just on the floor next to your bed, to make sure you are in a different mindset even though you aren't leaving the house ⭐ Get up and away from your desk/work area every now and then and go for a walk - even a short one around the house can give you a change of scenery that takes you out of the working mindset and gives you something else to think about ⭐ Do something creative to engage a different aspect of your brain - find whatever inspires you, especially something new, and give it a go! ⭐ Put your phone in a drawer for an hour of the day to help with productivity and taking a break from messaging ⭐ Plan your day and be realistic with your expectations, don't set yourself too many tasks to complete in one day. Instead, limit the number of tasks you need to complete and celebrate the "quick wins" ⭐ Take time out for yourself and treat yourself to something you love! ⭐ This situation is not forever, you're doing well. Introducing our Youth Trustee - Lewis!It's the New Year and the Foundation has made several resolutions to keep growing and learning with young people this year. One of our top New Year's Resolutions is to further our promotion of young people's voices, and we are delighted to announce that YCP member Lewis has been appointed our Youth Trustee. His role is to highlight and amplify youth voice at the very highest level of decision making at the Foundation - on our board. Lewis was a member of our first cohort of the Achievers Network and then went on to be a Young Leader on the programme, and is now part of the YCP. “I am very excited to get my teeth into the role of Youth Trustee at the Jack Petchey Foundation. I am hoping that I can represent youth voice on the board and further the already fantastic work that the Foundation does. “ Read the full article, including our other resolutions, through the link below. The Jack Petchey Foundation – Shaping Our FutureBy Sudipta Over the last few weeks, the YCP have had the amazing opportunity to create a video, showcasing the results of the JPF’s COVID-19 Youth Survey. As many of you may know, over lockdown the Jack Petchey Foundation created a survey to see how young people could be benefited by the experiences they gained from lockdown. With over 6,000 responses from people aged 11-25, a report was created to show how we were all affected in the five main areas of: education, employment, social and emotional wellbeing, giving back to society and what we want in the future. We were tasked with creating a video to talk about how our own personal experiences in lockdown, related to the ones mentioned in the results. After having a zoom meeting with videographer, Chris, we learnt tips on how to make our homemade videos professional and then we had to decide what to speak on. I spoke about my time using remote learning and how we can learn from some early communication problems, whilst other YCP members discussed about how young people would benefit from a variety of work experience available to them, so they are certain and supported in their future profession. Some spoke about how the government should fund more extracurricular activities and youth clubs, as it was because of them that many of us adapted and got used to lockdown measures; not to mention the immense benefit they have had on young people’s wellbeing this year! There are also mentions of volunteering and the huge growth in young people giving back to the community, with the results showing that 56% of people took ‘positive action’ to help their area. You can find this video on the Jack Petchey YouTube channel! We are looking forward to the coming weeks when we have the chance to speak directly to MPs in London and Essex about the results, in detail, and hopefully we can find ways to incorporate young people’s ideas into future political decision making! Grants to Support Youth Organisations Affected by COVID-19By India Jack Petchey have been running an Open Grants Programme which allows organisations that support young people to apply for a monetary grant of different sizes to support their activities. They decided to do this as youth organisations have particularly been hit by COVID-19 and a lack of funding. The Foundation put associations they had previously worked with forward and they involved us as the YCP by also asking for our personal recommendations of groups we may have used or worked with. Throughout the process we were involved in reading, assessing and advocating for what we believed were the best applications. All the organisations asked to apply had to submit a detailed application form with information about the project or improvements they would complete with the money. Then we had training sessions over zoom, with Gemma, where we learnt the criteria we would need to use for our assessments as well as the process we needed to undergo. We had to give each application a colour of red, amber or green and explain what we believed was the advantages and disadvantages of each. The grants were distributed equally amongst all of us on the YCP, so we were all involved in the process. I personally received 3 grants to read. The process of allocating rankings to each was difficult, as I am sure you can appreciate all the projects put forward were brilliant! I could see them all having a large impact on young people, so I recommended all of them to receive a full grant by explain the positives behind them all. Overall, Jack Petchey Foundation should help 27 organisations which means the foundation will be supporting an additional 5,308 young people by awarding £438,085 to support youth organisations! Profile: Sudipta, Youth Consultancy PanelMy name is Sudipta and I joined the Youth Consultancy Panel at the Jack Petchey Foundation, this October, and since then I have worked together with the other members on many projects such as assessing the Open Grants and helping convey the results of the COVID-19 Survey. I’m 16 and from Surrey, currently doing my GCSEs. Out of school, dancing is one of my greatest passions, which led me to be a Step Into Dance Ambassador during 2018-19. After that once-in-a lifetime programme, learning all about the industry in the Royal Academy of Dance, I had the chance to be in Achiever’s Network 8, during 2019 and 2020. After learning so much about myself and gaining many new skills and friends, I decided to get involved in another programme- the YCP! Over lockdown, the opportunity came up to help judge the community awards and seeing how young people, all around my age, came together to support their communities in such difficult times, inspired me to help more young people around Essex and London participate in more activities. The Foundation has given me so many chances to help me grow in my passions and learn more about my identity, so I wanted to help more people find their special thing, or help their talents grow! Profile: India, Youth Consultancy PanelHi, my name is India and I am 16 years old. I am from Brentwood, Essex which is where I go to sixth form. I am currently studying A levels in Maths, Biology and Chemistry as I hope to go to university to study medicine. I first became involved in the Jack Petchey Foundation when I won an achievement award in 2018 for resilience in school. I then joined the Achievers Network 8 in 2019 which was one of the best experiences I’ve had as it taught me so much about myself and other people. I then joined the YCP when I graduated from the programme in September 2020. I really want to give back to the Foundation after all the opportunities they had provided me. I am very passionate about youth voice and have been a youth councillor for 3 years. I think making sure young people has a voice in matters that affect them is vital. I am really looking forward to continuing working as part of the YCP and representing young people’s views to the best of my abilities. Profile: Sam, Youth Consultancy PanelHi, I'm Sam and I am 16, currently working on my first year of the International Baccalaureate. Living in South West London, I has been involved in Jack Petchey since 2017, when I received an achievement award from my school. I then went on to be a part of Achiever’s Network 8, which just finished this year, and then immediately applied to the YCP to remain an active part of the organisation. Giving the youth a voice is super important to me, as a Scout and a student with a more internationally focused curriculum, since listening to the young people will allow for development and success like never before. Especially during times of COVID, I have wanted to ensure that students and young people get their voice heard in JPF, to keep achieving. Become a Step Into Dance AmbassadorStep Into Dance are looking for new young people to join their Ambassador scheme! Learn to VlogAlways wanted to be a youtuber or improve your video skills and not sure where to start? The next session is 21st Jan! Free TV Training Online!Starting in February 2021, Worldwrite is running a new part-time training package for 16-25 year olds interested in film, video, TV, journalism and the creative industries. The package will combine online sessions via zoom, and (when the charity is allowed to open its centre in Hackney, London) face to face camera training and shoots with all equipment provided. This training package is funded by the Jack Petchey Foundation and so is free to all who wish to attend. Apply by Feb 2nd! Enter our Cartoon CompetitionEvery year we run a cartoon competition where the winning entry is featured in our school planners, used by thousands of students across London and Essex! The theme for this year's competition is Empower, simply draw a cartoon of that theme in A4 size and email it to us with an entry form! Deadline: Feb 28th Write a Blog for our WebsiteWe are always looking for new voices for our website, and love to feature YOUR experiences, advice and ideas in our blog section. At the moment, we are looking for blog posts about how you stay positive and motivated during lockdown - just look at our YCP tips for inspiration! Email pr@jackpetchey.org.uk to find out more and get involved! |