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Belfast Youth Forum, now known as Belfast City Youth Council, along with the Northern Ireland Youth Forum and the NICCY Youth Panel, have produced a mental health advocacy toolkit for young people.
The Heads Up! toolkit is designed to help young people organise a mental health campaign project in their community and support them to campaign on local mental health issues.
It aims to encourage young people to:
To download a copy of the toolkit, visit Northern Ireland Youth Forum's website (link opens in new window).
Our young people continue to engage with decision makers on the Elephant in the Room (EITR) campaign.
Elephant in the Room (EITR) is a regional youth-led mental health campaign organised by young people from Belfast Youth Forum, NI Youth Forum and Children’s Law Centre.
The Belfast Youth Forum, now known as Belfast City Youth Council, along with Northern Ireland Youth Forum and the Children’s Law Centre, organised an event where over 100 young people expressed their frustrations at the lack of mental health education and support services available in Northern Ireland. They called for the UN’s recommendation to be fully implemented by our government.
From this, a Youth Mental Health Committee was formed to explore issues connected to mental health and young people, so that as many young people as possible have a meaningful say in shaping the future of mental health education and support services.
This research lead to the Elephant in the Room report.
To find out what young people in Northern Ireland thought and knew about mental health, in particular:
The findings of the research were broken down in to three broad themes:
To read the report, go to Elephant in the Room.
The Belfast Youth Forum, now Belfast City Youth Council, launched their ‘Any Use?’ research report as part of UN World Children’s Day celebration to mark the 30th Anniversary of the UNCRC. The report focuses on young people’s opinions on Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in Belfast. Our Youth Council created the report in partnership with Common Youth and Centre for Children’s Rights QUB.
They chose relationship and sexuality education as one of their campaign areas for 2018-2019 because young people have raised it as a key issue through a number of engagement events.
Read the 'Any Use?: Young people’s opinions on Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in Belfast' report.
Our young people are raising awareness and are engaging with decision makers and influencers across Belfast to implement the actions for government in their Poverty: it's not a choice report research report.
Read the 'Poverty: it's not a choice' report.
As a decision maker within our council, we would appreciate any opportunity to meet and discuss our work, especially if it can influence policy and council decisions that impact young people’s lives.
If you’d ever like to meet some of us for a chat or to find out more about our work, you can contact our Young People Co-ordinator and she will help arrange this.
You can contact us by email or call 028 9032 0202.
Belfast City Council is the Data Controller under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the personal data it gathers for the purposes of sending email updates from Belfast City Youth Council.
The council accepts that you are providing your personal data on the basis of consent and are positively agreeing for the council to hold and further use it.
The personal data may be shared internally within the council with staff who are involved in providing this service and where necessary, between internal departments with the purpose of supporting an effective delivery of service.Your personal data will not be shared or disclosed to any other organisation without your consent, unless the law permits or places an obligation on the council to do so.
The personal data is held and stored by the council in a safe and secure manner and in compliance with Data Protection legislation and in line with the council’s Records Retention and Disposal Schedule.
If you have any queries regarding the processing of your personal data or wish to withdraw your consent to the processing of it, please contact the Belfast City Youth Council team on 028 9032 0202 or email belfastcityyouthcouncil@belfastcity.gov.uk
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