Issue - meetings

1.

Title of Item/Report

Bright Minds Big Futures – Annual Update

2.

Record of the Decision

Consideration was given to a report on Bright Minds Big Futures – Annual Update.

Cabinet were reminded BMBF was a youth-led movement working together with the Council to make the Borough a great place to grow up.

The report was presented by representatives of the BMBF team and a presentation was also given. Some of excellent progress had made in the last 12 months.  Some examples were:

•           Recruited 21 young people as SBC Correspondents at SIRF (August 25).  This has led to some of these young people joining BMBF and provided young people with important volunteering experience that they can reference for college, university and job applications.

•           A Second Dance Prom Project has raised £1,460, providing 98 prom outfits to young people.  This funding will be reinvested for 2026/27 to continue the project.  Many of the young people supported by the scheme may otherwise not have been able to attend their prom due to the high cost of sourcing an outfit.  

•           14 young people joined in Take Over Day at the Council, giving them experience of working in various departments within the local authority.  A number of these young people are keen to do further work experience within the Council and has also given inspiration of which career path they would like to take.

•           806 young people from across the borough responded to the Have Your Say North East campaign in March 2026 and voted that Health & Wellbeing and Jobs, Training & Opportunities are their top 2 priorities.  This enables BMBF to focus on the issues that really matter to the young people in our borough.

•           Other social action volunteering projects have included BMBF members supporting the Community Gift and various Community Fun Days.

•           Health & wellbeing initiatives such as voting to provide match funding to run a series of boxing sessions in the Ropner area to provide diversionary activities for the young people in this area.

An ongoing recruitment campaign was in place to increase membership of BMBF. This activity sought to ensure that BMBF was representative of the young people across the Borough.  Strong links had developed across Council services, including the Leaving Care Team and Home School Team as well as YUSA and other partners.

Members were also asked to note that BMBF were now represented locally through Youth Focussed North East, with young people from BMBF attending the first regional session in May 2026.

From March 2026, BMBF’s new objectives, which came out of Have Your Say North East consultation with 806 young people, were Health and Wellbeing and Jobs, Training and Opportunities.  BMBF had already started working towards these and ongoing takeover days, for example, would provide opportunities for BMBF members to learn more about council roles and functions.

BMBF were undergoing a recruitment process to form a Youth Council from which two  ...  view the full decision text for item 6.