This month has been another incredibly exciting month. On July 8 myself along with the other members of Poole’s Children’s and Young People’s Board held the launch event of our FLIPPED project and website.

FLIPPED is a collection of resources for teachers and students to be used within PSHE covering a wide of topics from mental health to discrimination and financial skills. These topics were chosen following consultation of over 800 young people in Poole.

The aim of this project is to ‘flip’ PSHE on its head by producing interactive, interesting and memorable resources to replace the ineffective, often useless lessons currently being delivered. The best thing about these resources is that they have been developed by young people for young people.

The website also has links to various support services and other useful websites for young people to access. We hope to continue to add to the website as time goes on, in line with what young people feel they need to be taught.

The launch event was held at the Lighthouse Arts Centre and was attended by a range of adults including many teachers and other professionals and was formally opened by the mayor. Many teachers showed great interest in the project and have agreed to begin to use the resources at the beginning of the new school year in September.

On a local level we have also made progress with our bullying priority, having decided to develop and deliver workshops for teachers and students centred specifically on the bully as opposed to those being bulled. Ultimately, we hope that these resources can be added to the FLIPPED website to be used within schools.

On a national level, we have also been busy in Poole contacting schools encouraging them to sign up to Youth Parliament’s annual consultation entitled ‘Make Your Mark’. Through this consultation young people from all over the country are given the opportunity to have their say on the issues which are most important to them. The top 5 issues go on to be debated in the House of Commons by MYPs in November. Last year we doubled Poole’s turnout to over 4,000 young people and we hope to increase this total again this year!

Furthermore, on the 3rd of July, as a member of the 2015 Youth Select Committee, I attended the second oral evidence session in Parliament during which we questioned a range of panellists on the current state of young people’s mental health services including the Rt Hon Alistair Burt MP, Minister for Community and Social Care and Sam Gyimah MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Childcare and Education.

Following on from this, the committee is currently in the initial stages of drafting a report for the UK government outlining recommendations to improve young people’s mental health services.

Words by Francesca Reed