‘I am delighted to be writing in the Politician’s Opinion Column once again.

Trustee Update

I’m delighted to have officially taken up my role of Trustee for Policy and Advocacy at the Scottish Youth Parliament, allowing me to take the lead in this portfolio area for the whole organisation and for Scotland’s young people. Since taking up my role I have attended several meetings and assisted some of our members with policy motions they are thinking of proposing at SYP70 in Dunfermline.

YoungScot

I’m also delighted to have been able to attend my first meetings as Trustee of YoungScot, Scotland’s national youth charity for 11 to 26 year-olds. YoungScot’s Advisory Council met for the first time last week to discuss mental health and young people and what the situation will look like if we do nothing. I’m excited to say this generated a lot of discussion and work is underway. I also attended my first board meeting last week and look forward to further working with the SMT of YoungScot and my fellow board members.

CafeInc

It’s nearly that time again for the school holidays and I’m pleased to say that CafeInc will be returning throughout Fife. CafeInc will be hosted in local venues so keep an eye out on social media and ask your child’s school for more information. CafeInc provides a meal and social space to those families and young people, who may have been isolated during the holidays and is benefiting us all and I would urge you all to go along to your local CafeInc and have your lunch.

ACEs

The work on ACEs and Childhood Trauma has been going well. I have accepted the draft toolkit from the young people who were designing it for us and I’m now in the process of writing my speech for our special launch of the toolkit in Dunfermline at our national sitting at the end of October. This toolkit will allow us, as MSYPs the chance to speak to young people and constituents to see how we can support them on the topic of childhood trauma.

School Meals

I was pleased to meet the Soil Association Scotland to discuss their work on making school meals nutritious, tasty and affordable across the whole of Scotland. This is around my work on school meals in the area, and I will be excited to see Fife Council’s report on the meals at October’s Cowdenbeath Area Committee, to provide it with proper scrutiny on behalf of young people.

If any young person (12-25) has an issue/concern they’d like me to raise, please get in touch at Bailey-Lee.Robb.MSYP@sypmail.org.uk or follow me on Twitter: @BaileyLeeMSYP.