Child Friendly Redbridge News & Updates

The Child Friendly Partnership is excited to be supporting Andrew Brown, a local artist and educator to help shape the future of public art in Ilford and compile stories through the camera lens.

Andrew Brown is based at SPACE Studios in Ilford and has been involved with schools, further and higher education locally, nationally and internationally. He uses analogue, digital and alternative photographic processes alongside soundscapes, documents and artefacts to explore the impact on communities of rapid changes in the built and natural environment in East London.

Ilford has a strong and historic relationship with innovation in photography. In 1879, Ilford Limited, a world-renowned brand of film and photographic materials, was founded. This factory on Roden Street was demolished in 1976 (now Sainsbury’s), breaking the visual link between photography and Ilford as a place was broken.

Andrew, on behalf of UP Projects will be running workshops to help influence public art at this former site. A proposal to redevelop the site with new housing, public realm and the reprovision of the Sainsbury’s will need to understand the views of local people. The workshops will be an opportunity to influence the kinds of public art to be planned for the site with themes rooted in Ilford’s history of invention.

How to get involved?

There are 3 upcoming workshops, which will explore how public art can draw on Ilford's history to engage with diverse communities, renew links to the past and help envision and shape the future.

You will be able to explore Ilford’s role in the popularisation of photography using images and artefacts, including cameras and media from different periods of history. You will learn about analogue photography and the process behind making photographic prints. If you have any black and white photographs, please do bring them along!

Follow this link to register for workshops 2 and 3: From Ilford to the World and Back Again Tickets, London | Eventbrite

As part of the Child Friendly Redbridge Action Plan Launch Day, young CFR Ambassadors took Redbridge Council staff and dignitaries on a tour of Ilford Town Centre.

The first stop was a new billboard outside SPACE Studios. The image is called “Out of this world” and was designed by the British Congolese artist Djofray Makumbu with young people from Hainault Youth Centre.

The artwork was created during a series of workshops held at Hainault Youth Centre, where young people created and illustrated the characters and provided the art direction for the work.

The young people imagined a fun, playful alternate version of their borough, with creative ideas including a character flying on a unicorn.

During their co-design process, young people from Hainault offered fresh perspectives that influenced the eventual final design. Young people drew pictures for Makumbu to use as a reference as part of the collaborative creative process. Makumbu valued hearing the young people’s opinions on what the piece should look like.

They told the council staff and councillors that, as part of the fun interactive nature of this artwork, the artist has actually included a picture of himself in the artwork.

Can you find him?

You can find out more about the exhibition on the SPACE Studios website.

Space Studios also has an exhibition inside at the moment called Mammoth Loop by artist Cecilia Charlton. This is a child-friendly exhibition and includes workshops for children and families to learn skills with textiles. You can also read more about this on the SPACE Studios website.

To coincide with the launch of the Child-Friendly Action Plan launch on Saturday 26 February, Youth Election 2022 announcements were made by Cllr Elaine Norman, Cabinet Member for Young People and Children.

Over 12,000 people voted to elect members of Youth Parliament (MYP) for 2022-24, who represent Redbridge nationally and run Redbridge Youth Council as well as working on their manifesto promises. 96 young people from Redbridge were nominated as candidates which has been the highest number yet!

38% of young people in Redbridge aged between 11 to 19 years voted (based on 32,862 11-19 years old resident population). The school with the highest Youth Election turnout for 2022 was Loxford School with 1,255 ballots. The school with the highest percentage turnout was Ilford County High School with 98% of pupils voting.

Colin Stewart, Director of Education at Redbridge Council highlighted some of the key achievements by Redbridge Youth Council (RYC):

• Redbridge had the highest percentage turnout in London and are third in the country overall in the national Make Your Mark campaign reflecting the importance Youth Voice is given in Redbridge
• Young people co-designed artwork with Space Studios and helped to develop a nature map of Redbridge and set up Grow Zones around Fairlop Waters
• Helped to support young people with a detailed Back to School Covid-19 leaflet on what to expect when returning to school after lockdown
• Took their research and development of young people’s priorities to the External Scrutiny Panel in February 2022.

Councillor Elaine Norman, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People announced the newly elected Youth MPs and Ambassadors. She said “Congratulations once again to our 2022 Members of Youth Parliament and well done to all the candidates who worked so hard to make the 2022 Youth Election. I would like to close by once again thanking you all for attending and thanking our newly elected Youth MPs and Ambassadors in advance for the work they will do in helping to make Redbridge a Child Friendly Borough.”

A big thank you to our previous MYPs, Ahmed Rahman and Faizan Ahmed and deputy, Raul Andrei-Tinca for all their hard work over the past two years, especially during the pandemic. A warm welcome to our newly elected Youth MPs, Abdul Mateen Riaz and Annmarie Jaxen, and Deputy, Aarav Prabhkar.

You can find out more about the Child Friendly Redbridge Programme here and the people involved here: https://www.redbridge.gov.uk/childfriendly/child-friendly-redbridge/

You can also follow what we are doing on the following Instagram accounts: @redbridgeyouth and @redbridgecouncil and via Twitter @redbridgelive

Please do follow, like and share using the hashtag #childfriendlyredbridge #youngredbridge or #cfr

The Royal Town Planning Institute included good practice from Redbridge in their new practise guidance called Children and town planning: Creating places to grow. They share how the Redbridge Planning and Building Control Team have a key role in delivering Child Friendly Redbridge. Some of the actions hey are taking include:

• Embedding the UNICEF principles into the planning application process. This is being implemented by identifying opportunities to engage with youth groups on the design of developments as part of the consultation process. A pilot scheme that examines the public realm of a large supermarket with youth groups is underway
• A review of the Redbridge Local Plan will take place in 2022. This provides an opportunity for the planning team to embed the child-friendly aspirations within the future engagement process and planning policies. The planning team will engage with young people including Child Friendly Redbridge Ambassadors, the Youth Council, SEND Youth Forum, Children in Care Council, Young Carers and others such as schools and youth clubs
• Community Design Forums are due to be established across the borough. These will encourage residents to opt into a forum to be kept up to date with ongoing developments or consultations for their local area. The forums will be promoted via schools and to youth groups to ensure a diverse membership

A future goal is to develop a design guide for developers based on the UNICEF UK principles. The planning team recognises that applicants currently refer to multiple policy and supplementary planning documents to ensure that the boroughs aspirations are met. To encourage child-friendly development they are aware they need to make the process of doing so as simple as possible.

The council launched a crowdfunding campaign, Making IT Happen, to ensure that all children and young people in the borough had access to laptops to study at home. Once a child no longer needed the device it was returned to their school, meaning it not only supported the child at the time, but will continue to support more children and young people in the future too.

Cllr Elaine Norman, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, said: “Children have suffered due to the pandemic. They’ve had to put up with so many changes while also worrying about the impact on their education.

“No child under our watch will be deprived of the equipment and support they need to maximise the full experience of their education.”

Every year Redbridge Councils holds an external scrutiny meeting with young people to help the voice their concerns and priorities directly to Councillors.

In 2020, young people presented at External Scrutiny via MS Teams on four topic areas that they felt were the most important to them. These were:

• Black History
• Why Redbridge?
• Young People’s Current Concerns
• Environment

Prior to the meeting, young people met with officers from different service areas as part of their research into each topic area to help them arrive at recommendations. Recommendations were presented at External Scrutiny on 25 November at a lively session with Councillors and Officers. Councillors received a summary of issues raised by the young people for their cabinet portfolio areas to take forward.

The team working on the Fairlop Waters expansion project wanted to make sure that children and young people get a say in the facilities that are created in the park as part of the plans to preserve and expand Fairlop Waters.

To do this they created a pack used to engage with the Youth Council and Child Friendly Redbridge Ambassadors with support from the Youth Involvement Worker and Child Friendly Redbridge Programme Team. This pack was used to capture design ideas from young people local to the park. The team also made sure to engage with a diverse group including those that are further away or might not currently use the park.

To help young people get creative and express themselves during lockdown, we partnered up with Space Studios in Ilford to create a zine, called MyZine. The Zine was entirely designed by young people with the help of artist Tamu Nkiwane. MyZine intended to capture how young people were feeling during lockdown and provide a way to stay creative without being in the classroom. The Child Friendly Redbridge team distributed arts and crafts material to all young people taking part and weekly meetings were held via Zoom to discuss a different topic to help create MyZine. The group explored ideas around characters, abstract art, anime and stories through images.

MyZine has now been printed and distributed to the young people that took part. The artwork was also displayed in Space Studio’s in Ilford. You can see more about the project and some of the images from the MyZine with Artist Tamu Nkiwanev.

View the online version of MyZine

Covid19 youth survey

The Covid19 Youth Survey was created in partnership with the Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The survey wanted to find out the key concerns amongst children and young people across each of the CCG areas (Redbridge, Havering and Barking and Dagenham). Redbridge had the best response rate with more than 900 young people responding (more than two thirds of the responses across the three boroughs). Our Child Friendly Redbridge Ambassadors helped draft the questions in the survey and pushed and promoted the survey amongst their friends and in their schools.

The findings were shared across different partners and service areas to help them improve their services to young people. The key findings of the survey were:

• Mental health - young people with existing mental health issues were feeling worse and others were experiencing mental health issues for the first time
• School work - young people were worried about falling behind, not being able to study at home and their exams. This was a huge cause of mental health issues, such as anxiety and stress
• Catching the virus - many young people felt people of all ages were not taking social distancing and lockdown seriously enough and were worried about transmission

The Child Friendly Redbridge Partnership launched its Child-Friendly Redbridge Action Plan in partnership with Unicef UK and Redbridge Council on Saturday 26 February.

The launch event was planned and delivered by the Child Friendly Redbridge Youth Ambassadors. It came about as a result of 18 months of conversations with children, young people and their parents, identifying their concerns and looking at ways to work together to find solutions. These groups shared their thoughts on what they want to improve in Redbridge for children and young people and ways they could work with services and professionals to make this happen.

The Action Plan was approved by Cabinet in December 2021 by Councillors, with two of the Borough's Child-Friendly Redbridge (CFR) Youth Ambassadors sharing statements about why the Action Plan was important to them.

The launch event revealed how children, young people and families will work together over the next three years for the next two to three years.

The launch was very well received with Redbridge Mayor, Cllr Roy Emmett and the leader of Redbridge Council, Cllr Jas Athwal opening the event and sharing why Redbridge joined the Unicef UK Child Friendly Programme. The CFR Ambassadors then took over, providing further insight into the programme combined with leading a tour around the town centre, highlighting some of the changes that the Council and partners have implemented with children and young people. These included:

• Showcasing a Billboard at Space Studio’s created by artist Djofray Mukumbu and co-designed with young people from Hainault Youth Centre
• Initiation of greening works on Wilderness Street to create a vibrant space for activities and workshops in the summer
• New play equipment installation chosen by children from local primary schools
• New mosaic art installation created by local artist Sahra Hersi in collaboration with young people.

There was also a presence of the local police cadets, with one of the CFR Youth Ambassadors highlighting role of Police as partners in the Unicef programme to address safety concerns, raised by young people.

Councillor Jas Athwal, Leader of the Council, said: "Obtaining UNICEF UK Child-Friendly status for our borough is a key milestone in our mission for Redbridge to be a borough in which children and young people, regardless of their background, thrive. This action plan provides all of us with a collective opportunity to build upon the great work that has been achieved or is in progress and push youth participation, involvement and influence across the council and our partners in the areas that matter most to children and young people”.

Yusuf, a Child-Friendly Redbridge Youth Ambassador, said: "I got involved as UNICEF Child-Friendly Redbridge Ambassador because I believe young people deserve to grow up in an environment that lets us aim high and achieve our goals by reaching our potential. The council must embed a commitment to our rights in every decision it makes. Children and young people need and deserve a voice. You won't hear us unless you listen to us. We need to be included in important conversations"

As part of the launch, the Youth Election 2022 announcement was made by Cllr Elaine Norman. Over 12,000 young people voted to elect members of Youth Parliament (MYP) for 2022-24, who represent Redbridge nationally and run the Redbridge Youth Council as well as working on their manifesto promises. A big thank you to our previous MYPs, Ahmed Rahman and Faizan Ahmed and deputy, Raul Andrei-Tinca for all their hard work over the past 2 years, especially during the pandemic. We would like to welcome our newly elected Youth MPs, Abdul Mateen Riaz and Annmarie Jaxen, and Deputy, Aarav Prabhakar.

Partners including Vision Libraries, the Ilford Exchange, Ilford Business Improvement District (BID) and Space Studios all joined in the fun, providing lots of free activities for children and young people, including:

• A digital makerspace
• Tech activities for all ages
• An eco-conscious Repair Café
• Hungry Caterpillar finger puppet crafts and Children's Library trail
• A Keith Haring-inspired craft workshop
• A chance to talk to the organisers of the Redbridge Youth Festival 2022 and let them know what you would like to see included in the festival.
• The chance to speak to Redbridge’s Community Hubs team

A very big thank you to everyone that was involved in the organisation and participation of the launch, which was an absolute success attracting many people from the community!

We would like to express our gratitude to our colleagues at Redbridge Council and partners who helped us to reach this stage, these includes Redbridge Safer Neighbourhoods Team, Vision Redbridge Culture and Leisure, Redbridge Institute, Redbridge Youth Service and Centres, Frenford Clubs, Essex Boys and Girls, Mill Grove and the Rose Walton Centre, Children Centres in Redbridge, Redbridge Safer Transport Team, North East London NHS Foundation Trust, Barking Clinical Commissioning Group, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, Redbridge Young Adult Carers Project, Redbridge Community and Voluntary Service and their Young Advisors, Redbridge Healthwatch, New City College Redbridge, Local Primary and Secondary Schools (especially our Young Ambassadors representing young people from their schools), Barnardo’s, Citizens Advice Redbridge and their Youth Forum, Ilford BID and Ilford Exchange.

You can find out more about the Child Friendly Redbridge Programme here and the people involved here: https://www.redbridge.gov.uk/childfriendly/child-friendly-redbridge/

You can also follow what we are doing on the following Instagram accounts: @redbridgeyouth and @redbridgecouncil and via Twitter @redbridgelive

Please do follow, like and share using the hashtag #childfriendlyredbridge #youngredbridge or #cfr