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Young Commissioners

Do you want to help make a difference to the lives of children and young people in Middlesbrough? We're looking for young commissioners!

Not sure what that means?

A 'commissioner' is someone who buys ('commissions') services. It's their job to make sure the council has the right services, helping the right people.

Guess who knows loads about what the best services for children and young people are? That's right, you! We need your help to make sure we have the best services for children and young people in Middlesbrough.

This is where the young commissioners group comes in!

Young commissioners are volunteers aged between 13 and 19 years old. They all have experience of some of the services we (the council) offer for children and young people.

As a young commissioner, you can get involved in different things depending on what you're interested in. You can find out a bit more about that below.

We promise that meetings will be fun, you'll learn a lot, and you'll help to make a difference... and of course, there will be pizza!

A picture explaining what the young commissioners are, the information is also available below

Commissioning services

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Commissioning is what we call it when we pay people to give services for us. Lots of our services are for children and young people. So we think young people like you will be the best people to say whether those services are good! You can help us with:

  • choosing which services we need to help children and young people
  • helping us write contracts, which is all the things a service must promise to do

Promotional activities

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You can get involved in creating website and social media pages, and helping us to redesign things like leaflets and posters so they work well for children and young people.

Youth Parliament

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Youth Parliament is made up of Members of the Youth Parliament (MYPs) from all over the country. MYPs are elected just like the MP who represents Middlesbrough in Parliament. They work with other MYPs and adults from lots of different organisations to try and make things better for local young people. You can get involved in the election process, where young people campaign to get elected as the MYP for Middlesbrough.

Monitoring

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You can get involved in helping us to monitor services for children and young people. This means looking at them to see if they're helping people, or seeing if we could have a different service to help people even more.

You can also help us monitor grant programmes. Grants are set amounts of money which people don't have to pay back. People apply to us for a grant, and we choose which people will do the best things with their grant. You'll help us look at whether the grants we give out are helping people.

Grant programme (short breaks)

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We give grants to people who offer fun breaks to children with disabilities and their families. Grants are set amounts of money which people don't have to pay back. People apply to us for a grant, and we choose which people will do the best things with their grant. You can help us choose who to give our grants to, and help us look at how those fun breaks are helping children and families.

Get involved!

To become a young commissioner or find out more, speak to Sharon Barker by emailing sharon_barker@middlesbrough.gov.uk or calling 01642 729309.