Child Friendly Redbridge News & Updates

The planning department at Redbridge Council has integrated a child-rights based approach into their work so that children and young people are involved in place making in the borough.

The aim has been to promote more and better youth engagement on new housing and building developments in the borough, and for child-friendly design principles to be followed in the design and process. The activity undertaken in recent developments includes:

In future, young people will be consulted on the Local Plan, which details the overall development plan for the entire borough for the coming years.

An event was held in Redbridge Town Hall, to give your people a platform to give their views on mental health support in the borough. Councillors and council staff gave young people the opportunity to lead the discussion and have their opinions meaningfully listened to. The event was inclusive and included members of the Children in Care Council. Some of the young people at the meeting were more disadvantaged than their peers. All young people were given an equal platform to discuss their thoughts. 

The Impact

Young people had direct and genuine input in the formation of policy that will affect them.  

Play streets allow children to play safely and freely in their neighbourhood. Residents can apply to close their streets to cars for specific periods of time, and enable families to play out on the street, safely. Play streets have gone from strength to strength and we now have 32 play streets in the borough. This is a free activity that anyone has the right to apply for.

Impact

Nargis Jahan, resident who lives in a play street said, “It’s great to see children playing outdoors together, ad different generations and cultures coming together and bonding. I can honestly say Play Streets has brought our street alive. We’ve created our own little community and some of my closest friends are some of the ones I made through play streets.”

One in Five Reception age children in Redbridge are overweight or obese, and more than two in five Year 6 children in Redbridge are overweight or obese. The level of need around excess weight in Redbridge is higher than the national and regional average and there is a worsening trend over the past decade. This suggests there is a significant risk of an individual’s BMI increasing over the course of their time at Primary School and increasing risks of poor health into older years. 

How Redbridge Council has addressed this issue

The aim of Mega Mix is to provide low-cost activities over the easter and summer holidays for children and young people within Redbridge. Mega Mix offered short taster sessions and workshops, providing opportunities for children and young people to try new activities.

Activities are available for children from 5-16, or 5-18 for those with special educational needs.

This service is contracted to deliver the Healthy Child Programme (Health Visiting and School Nursing service).

Training

All operational leads attend child rights training, and this is also included in the induction for new staff. This training has enabled the team to think differently to ensure they always bring children’s rights to the fore of their service.  

Listening to children

The service asked for children and young people’s views on their experience of the service, through questionnaires. Children have contributed to resources, including a school nursing resource to be used in schools by school nurses. Children have been included in developmental review videos (with parental consent).

Embedding principles

This service has already been accredited under the UNICEF Baby Friendly initiative and have carried these principles through their work. Policies, procedures and practices have formally changed, to ensure the rights of children and young people are central to the delivery of this service.

Example: embedding the rights of children seldom heard

An inclusion health visitor has been introduced into the service to work with underserved families in the borough, including with families placed in Refugee hotels. The inclusion health visitor collaborated with colleagues to address unhealthy meal provision in one of the refugee hotels, and arranged a tasting session with a hot meal food provider for the residents of the hotel. The supplier subsequently agreed to provide fresh healthy meals that can be reheated, and agreed to roll this out across the other hotels they supply. 

Feedback

From a parent: “We're so grateful to have a health visitor who has our son's best interests at heart and who continues to help, guide and signpost us to additional support.”

National democracy week in Redbridge, unlike in many places, ensures children and young people are brought into the conversation, so they can express their views, andbe listened to at the highest level of local democracy in the borough.

Democratic services staff met with the Youth Council to identify issues they felt were important to young people in the borough. Youth Council members highlighted poverty and climate change as some of their highest priority issues.

Using this feedback, staff visited secondary schools to workshop the issues with local young people. A menstrual cup scheme was investigated following this, to help alleviate period poverty, and plans were drawn up to help reduce the use of single-use plastics in the borough.

Young people were subsequently given the opportunity to speak at an extraordinary full Council meeting, attended by Councillors, cabinet members and MPs.

They presented their ideas and proposed solutions to the issues that they felt strongly about in Redbridge.