Consultation Feedback

Make Your Mark is the largest youth ballot for 11 to 18 year olds in the UK. Young people have their say and begin their democratic journey by voting on the issues they want to change. The 2024 Make Your Mark voting ran between 29th January and 8th March.

National Results
512,606 young people cast their vote. The top issue voted for by young people was Health and Wellbeing. Members of Youth Parliament from Leeds and across the UK will be working on Health and Wellbeing as their campaign for the next 2 years. 

Leeds Results
7,884 young people from Leeds cast their vote. The top issue voted for by young people in Leeds was Crime and Safety.

The Leeds Youth Council will work on Crime and Safety as their campaign for the next two years.

As part of the development of a new Leeds Local Offer (SEND) website, a new logo and branding was developed in consultation with young people. 

Potential logos were shared with young people at the SEND summit in November 2023, and also with the Leeds SEND Youth Council. Young people were asked to vote for their preferred logo and also choose the colours they preferred. 

The feedback was shared with the team developing the logo and branding. Final designs were shared with the Leeds SEND Youth Council in January 2024 and their feedback and suggested amends were implemented. 

The new logo and branding for the Leeds Local Offer (SEND) is now used on the new website and all promotional material. 

From September to December 2023 children, young people, parents and carers were asked to give their views and feedback on Short Breaks and Fun Activities in Leeds. 

Leeds City Council's Commissioning Team are carefully reviewing the data from the consultation with children, young people, parents and carers as well as working with providers and practitioners when commissioning services. 

the Commissioning Team used the established Voice, Influence and Change (VIC) networks, Leeds Local Offer site and social media accounts to share information and encourage families to share their views. The networks include a range of parent and carer groups with a SEND focus; young people’s groups; and schools and education settings. Commissioning Team have established relationships with VIC leads in many Leeds schools and settings, who will often support VIC activities with their learners.

As part of this Short Breaks review, the Commissioning Team engaged with children, young people, parents and carers by using a mixture of mechanisms:

• Focus group with the SEND Youth Forum on 19th October 2023 (via Teams)
• Consultation at the SEND Summit on 14th November 2023 (Leeds Civic Hall)
• C&YP and P/C online surveys (December 2023)

All feedback received from the consultations will inform the current review of Short Breaks and Fun Activities in Leeds.

Click here to read the full consultation report. 

In Leeds we want to help children, young people and families who live in poverty.

We want to work with and support children and families that are living in poverty and experiencing poverty-related difficulties.

The Leeds Children's Poverty Board are a group of senior members of staff from across the city who are working together to try and address the impact of child poverty.

In the summer of 2023 the Child Poverty Board consulted with children and young people in Leeds when updating the Child Poverty Strategy for Leeds (a plan).

Click here to download the consultation report. 
 

Young people from specialist learning settings takeover the Leeds Area SEND Partnership Board every November as part of National Takeover Challenge.

In November 2023, students from St John's School, West SILC, East SILC and future Horizons took over the board.

Students surveyed 99 young people with SEND in Leeds to find out which of the Child Friendly Leeds wishes were most important to them, and what ideas they had for achieving this wish in Leeds.

Click here to download the Child Friendly Leeds wishes consultation report.

Students shared the report with the Leeds Area SEND Partnership Board on the 22nd November 2022, and have also shared the findings with the Child Friendly Leeds wish leads.

If you would like any more information about the Child Friendly Leeds wishes please email childfriendlyleeds@leeds.gov.uk
 

The Leeds SEND Youth Forum attended an online session on the 13th February 2023 to review the young people’s section on the Leeds Local Offer website.

All feedback and recommendations for improvement to the website have been actioned and responded to.

During the May 2023 session, SEND Youth Forum members heard from MindMate about their website, and the new Neurodiversity Information Hub.

The SEND Youth Forum shared feedback with MindMate about the website:

• Really good website with lots of information
• Really like the visuals
• Urgent help - like that it is a priority of all pages
• Like the videos
• Like the 'real' stories.
• Easy to navigate and understand

Service feedback:

• Urgent help is all for under 18's, and nothing other than calling 999 for 19 to 25 year olds.

MindMate's Response

• We have updated the website based on your feedback which was really helpful.

The following pages now have a button link to Mindwell for the over 18s who might need urgent help.

• https://www.mindmate.org.uk/urgent-help-all-services/
• https://www.mindmate.org.uk/coping-common-issues/thinking-of-suicide-need-urgent-help/ 
   

Back in June / July 2023, young people and families shared their experiences of accessing dental care with Youthwatch Leeds.

Youthwatch are currently in the process of writing up a report to share our findings from our Oral Health project, we’d like to ensure this a co-produced piece of work with our young volunteers and aim to get this complete sometime within October. We're really keen on creating visuals/ videos to ensure our findings are communicated through different mediums and not just via text heavy reports. A total of 352 parents and carers, 248 children and young people have shared their thoughts/ experiences with us. We’d like to extend our gratitude to each and every person who was involved and welcome us into their space to speak too!

Thanks to the support and involvement from the Public Health Team, some funding has been secured in recognition of the difficulties many people have reported back with difficulty seeing a dentist. This will be used towards providing oral health promotion within the east Leeds locality (recognition of high demand in need of support). Currently we are in the process of assisting the recruitment of community oral health ambassadors for training. Insight and findings will also be shared with decision makers within dentistry to help ensure public voice and experience is placed at the forefront of commissioning changes now that dental services will be overseen by the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. We'll be working closely with said commissioners by continually highlighting experiences shared with us when attending/ representing the people of Leeds at the West Yorkshire Children and Young People's Oral Health Board and the Children and Young People's Oral Health Network Meeting.

Some of the recurring feedback themes that have emerged from the input shared and what we are actively feeding back thus far include;

• a lack of available dental practices taking on patients
• financial difficulties in accessing dental care and maintaining oral health
• mental health implications of oral health upkeep and dental visits (i.e. anxiety, distress)
• the need for dental practice environments to be less stimulating and better equipped to provide a calm and welcoming atmosphere 
• the importance of dental professionals adapting to delivering person-centered care 
• the need for better flexibility around adjustments to meet individual needs - particularly including the use of communication aids such as translators and story boards and clearer communication on the dental pathway/ access to dental advice.

The Children and young people's plan outlines our priorities that guide our work. The plan has been developed through consultation across the city, including the views of children and young people. 

Ensuring that our Best City Ambition delivers for Leeds' children and young people, we will focus on:

• children in all areas of the city having the best start in life and enjoying a healthy, happy, and friendly childhood
• young people having the skills that enable them to realise their potential and to thrive. 

In October and December 2022 we consulted 142 young people via online surveys and 67 young people contributed in ‘child friendly’
sessions. The consultation also took into account comments from the Child Friendly Leeds 12 Wishes, that captured the voices of 80,000 children and young people in Leeds in 2021.

The refreshed Children and Young People's Plan 2023 to 2028 can be found online. 

click here to download the consultation report. 

SENDIASS have been working with a graphic designer to create digital animation characters that can be used on social media and on information.

40 young people took part in our consultations between November 2021 and March 2022 and made over 300 comments for us to consider and use about the colour character and text style for designs. Young people also made detailed comments and considered how designs could work best for as many young people with SEND as possible who may view them in discussion.
 

Thank you to everyone who completed the NHS Youth Forum consultation about special educational needs and disabilities and long term conditions.

The NHS Youth Forum have written a report following the consultation, you can find the full report as well as a video version of the report here: NHs Youth Forum Report. 

In 2022, the views of children, young people, parents and carers were sought on the green paper about the changes the government want to make to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system in England.

The consultation ran from the 29th March 2022 to the 22nd July 2022.

The government’s response to the consultation is available in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan.

This plan sets out our responses to the feedback we received and the improvements we’ll make to the SEND and alternative provision system in England.
 

The Council for Disabled Children have been working closely with children and young people to ensure that their voices are included in the DfE’s consultation on the SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper.

The SEND Review is a piece of work by the Department for Education (DfE) that looks at improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND. To ensure that the DfE’s proposals will reflect the needs of children and young people with SEND, CDC have been gathering their opinions to create a children and young people’s response to the SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper.

Click here to read the response from children and young people.

Make Your Mark is the largest youth ballot for 11 to 18 year olds in the UK. Young people have their say and begin their democratic journey by voting on the issues they want to change.

National Results
434,492 young people cast their vote. The top issue voted for by young people was Health and Wellbeing.

Leeds Results
5,546 young people from Leeds cast their vote. The top issue voted for by young people in Leeds was Health and Wellbeing.

The Leeds Youth Council and Leeds Members of Youth Parliament will work on Health and Wellbeing as their campaign for the next two years.

Specialist Provision Results
Students from 6 specialist provisions in Leeds cast their vote. The top issue voted for by the young people was Health and Wellbeing.

Health and wellbeing will be the theme for the 2022 SEND Partnership Board Takeover.
 

The Leeds Youth Council Campaign Group was formed in May 2022 and consists of 18 young people aged 10-18. The group meet in person on a monthly basis to develop a campaign around the top voted issue from the Make Your Mark Ballot, the largest youth consultation in the UK. 'Health and wellbeing' was voted as a national and local priority, receiving a total of 5546 votes in Leeds.

The group developed three aims for the initial stages of their campaign:

• To explore what health and wellbeing means to young people in Leeds.
• To find out what needs to change for young people in Leeds.
• To explore possible solutions to bring about change for young people in Leeds

To achieve their aims, the group put together a consultation survey for young people aged 9-18 (up to 25 with SEND) who live in or go to school in Leeds.

The respondents were given a choice of 14 issues relating to Health and Wellbeing and asked to vote for the one they felt was the most important. They were asked to share their ideas
for how to address the issue.

A total of 853 surveys were completed. The results were analysed so the issues could be ranked based on their importance to young people in Leeds. Key themes were identified surrounding possible solutions to bring about change.

Click here to download the full survey report

For more information about the survey results, and the work of the Leeds Youth Council campaign group contact VIC@leeds.gov.uk
 

Throughout 2021-22 Common Room was commissioned to engage with young people as part of the NHS England National Quality Improvement Taskforce for children and young people’s mental health inpatient services. This work included establishing a Young Persons Advisory Group made up of six young people with lived experience of staying in children and young people's mental health inpatient settings across England.

The group was tasked with creating a resource to help improve responses to suicidal feelings and self-harm incidents in inpatient settings.

Working alongside Patrick Grace, the designer, the group created a series of posters using quotes directly from young people who have lived experience of staying in inpatient settings. The posters are aimed at different audiences who may be present in a children's inpatient setting; children & young people, staff, visitors and family members or carers.

The group also produced a Team Briefing Sheet to share other quotes they felt weren't appropriate to display, but still needed to be heard by staff. They hope that this sheet can be used in the units to promote some discussions around improvement and change.

All resources can be downloaded here: click here.

The NHS have collected young people’s views, thoughts and experiences of the healthcare system to feed into a health based youth charter for the city of Leeds.

Three main questions were asked:

• Thinking about the health care system today, what don’t you like?
• Thinking about the health care system today, what do you think works well?
• What would your dream health care system look like?

FIND OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE YOUTH CHARTER HERE
 

Due to the coronavirus pandemic we were unable to host an in person SENate information and consultation event for schools and information and consultation event for parents and carers.

Leeds City Council worked in partnership with EPIC Leeds to host a virtual Leeds Local Offer Information and Consultation Month on the Leeds Local Offer website. The month was split into three elements on the website:

• Service Information Market Place
• Parent / Carer Consultations
• Young People Consultations

Click here for the full report. 
 

In February 2021 we asked members of the Leeds SEND Youth Forum to design a logo for the group.

We are really pleased with the new Leeds SEND Youth Forum Logo. All members who sign up to the Leeds SEND Youth Forum will receive a pin badge with the logo on with their welcome letter.
 

MindMate help young people in Leeds to find help with their mental health and wellbeing. Throughout the MindMate website and on resources they produce they use characters.

MindMate have redesigned their characters (36 in total) and they wanted to know what young people in Leeds thought of their new designs. We asked you, as members of the SEND Youth Forum, to let us know what you thought.

The Leeds SEND Youth Forum is a virtual network of young people aged 11 to 25 years old with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who live in Leeds or attend school in Leeds.

The Leeds SEND Youth Forum provides opportunities for young people to have a voice and influence in SEND services in leeds.

We asked Leeds SEND Youth Forum about their experiences of being involved in the forum and how we can make it better.

5 members of the youth forum completed an online survey to tell us about their experience. 
 

The Leeds Local Offer website is a place for us to provide information in one place about services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families.

We have lots of information on the Leeds Local Offer website about education, careers, transport, fun activities, health services and lots more.

The health section on the website is quite confusing and contains a lot of out-of-date information. So, in November 2021 to January 2022 we asked young people, parents, and carers in Leeds what information about health services they would like to see on the website to assist in the redesign of the health section.

All suggestions and feedback were taken on board and influenced the changes made.
 

In April 2021; HealthWatch asked young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their parents / carers to share their experiences of finding a dentist.

Feedback from the consultation
HealthWatch received nearly 3 times as much feedback on dentistry than they have had in the previously. Access to NHS Dentistry has been an issue in Leeds and across the country for some time now.

Following the latest campaign HealthWatch produced a summary report of the key themes across the West Yorkshire and Harrogate region with regards to dentistry and this was shared directly with the NHS Dental Commissioner and more importantly, the West Yorkshire and Harrogate System Oversight and Assurance Group.

Following the report being shared they have agreed to own the issue as a West Yorkshire and Harrogate Integrated Care System. Quotes from members of the public on how a lack of dentistry affects them was a driver for them to take action, realising the wider health issues that this is now causing, including mental health and the potential for wide scale health inequalities.

Change can take a long time within the health system, especially when that change will be national but we’re pleased that we’ve been able to use peoples experiences to get this issue on the agenda at last and hopefully on the road to making improvements to the way people can access NHS dentistry.
 

In June 2021 Advonet asked for young people who were interested in helping them to design their leaflets and guides so they appeal to other young people and promote their service.

Unfortunately, members of the Leeds SEND Youth Forum did not express an interest however 4 young people from Leeds did.

The young people have met with the graphic designer to discuss what the leaflet should look like and timescales for work. The leaflet should be completed by August 2021 and will be shared with YouthWatch at HealthWatch to review in early September before making it more widely available.
 

From 23rd February to 8th March, Health Watch Leeds asked people to tell them about their experience of shielding during the pandemic. Health Watch wanted to hear both from people who have been asked to shield over the past 12 months and those who have only recently received shielding letters.

65 responses were received, 57 of which were from those shielding pre-February 2021; 8 were from people who had started shielding from February.

Click here to read the Healthwatch Shielding Survey 2021

In Leeds we want fun activities to be more inclusive, which means ensuring children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities can take part in the activities they want to.

In March 2021 we asked young people in Leeds about short breaks and fun activities via an online survey. We wanted to find out about the activities young people enjoy doing, and how we can help services to ensure all activities are accessible to young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

The responses received are being shared with a group of professionals working together to review short breaks and fun activities in Leeds. The feedback will be incorporated into the decisions that are made.
 

In November 2021, young people from the Powerhouse (West SILC post 16 provision) contacted the Leeds Local Offer to share their experience of using the website. From January to April 2022 students met with the Local Offer and SEND Voice and Influence Coordinator on a weekly basis to review the information on the young people’s section. A full redesign took place and students undertook a user testing section before the young people’s section was finalised on the 25th April 2022.

Click here for a summary of the changes that were made to the young people’s section of the Leeds Local Offer directly from feedback and suggestions made by students from the Powerhouse.

Any sections / information removed from the young people’s section are still available in the parents / carers and professionals sections.

If you would like further information please email LLO@leeds.gov.uk

SENDIASS is a dedicated service providing free, confidential and impartial information advice and support for children and young people aged 0-25 who have or may have special educational needs and/or a disability and for their parents and carers.

As part of the Leeds Local Offer Information and Consultation Month (March 2021) children, young people, parents and carers were asked to review the SENDIASS website pages.

Click here to download the feedback report. 
 

On Thursday 30th March 2021, 2 members of the SEND Youth Forum attended a zoom focus session with SENDIASS to provide them with feedback on their young people’s service information leaflets.

Click here to download the feedback report. 

Following consultation around the look and content of the Leeds Local Offer website in September / October 2020, the Leeds Local Offer team have been working with the website hosts to implement changes based on the feedback.

In March 2021, 5 young people and 6 parents user tested the new website and provided additional feedback around the ease of use, look of the website and the information the website provides.

Click here to download the user testing report. 

Making Leeds a good city for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) consultation with children and young people .

We are working on the new SEND and Inclusion strategy for Leeds. This is a big plan of all the things we need to do, to make Leeds a good place for children and young people with SEND and additional needs.

In July 2021, we asked young people in Leeds with SEND: what are the most important things for our new strategy to work on?

We heard from 29 young people. They were aged between 12 and 19 years.

Click here to download the feedback report. 

Click here to download an easy read version of the feedback report.
 

In the summer, the Children’s Commissioner asked young people to share their hopes, fears, dreams, lockdown stories and their future plans. 

The Big Answer, as the response has been called, has now be published.

The response is written for children and is very clear. The main feedback was:

• Most children are happy in their families but there needs to be more family hubs, where families can get lots of help from different people in one place, and there should be enough money to help families before problems worsen.
• Children like to have opportunities to play and relax away from their screens but they want to feel safe when they go outside, they want more youth clubs offering great activities and when they are on their screens, they want to be safe online.
• Most children said their mental well-being was fine but they want more mental health support in schools and digital mental health support, as well as more teaching about healthy diet and the importance of staying active.
• 84% of children said they were happy with their life at school but wanted opportunities to help them catch up, have more catch-up money for schools, better rewards for teachers and time after school for sports, learning and the arts.
• Children want high quality careers advice, more jobs for young people and more apprenticeships.
  Children in care were more likely to be unhappy. There was a plea for more children’s homes, better mental health support for children in care and better support for care leavers.

Click here to read the full report. 
 

Young people, families and professionals were asked to feed into the redesign of the SEND Leeds Local Offer website.

The consultation took place September to October 2020 and the new look website will be relaunched early 2021.

Click here to download the full report. 

For more information about the consultation email llo@leeds.gov.uk.
 

Each year students takeover the SEND Partnership Board as part of National Takeover Challenge. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic they unable to takeover the SEND Partnership Board in person in 2020.

Children, young people and families were asked to give their feedback about their personal experiences of the coronavirus lockdown. These responses were collated into a report that students presented to the SEND Partnership Board on the 24th November 2020.

Members of the SEND Partnership Board are going to share the presentation and report with their services and use the feedback to look at how things can be done differently to support families.