Working with SCCYP

A Day in the Life of...

Mike Cooper!

Participation Officer

One of the things I find exciting about working at SCCYP is that you get to meet a huge range of people (children, young people and workers) from all over Scotland. Today Im off to Dundee to meet with a young person who is interested in being a member of SCCYPs Care Action Group.

We have been running the Care Action Group for a year now and although we had eight members at the start, there are only five young people who are able to come along to the group regularly. The group have identified three issues they would like to work on: stigma, consistency and our future. The young people will be working on a project over the next year to look at these issues in more detail. We have been meeting with young people who have experiences of the care system so that we can get new members and increase the numbers for the Care Action Group.

I work on the Care Action Group with Kevin Browne who is a Senior Participation Worker here at SCCYP. Kevin and I travel up to Dundee on the train together so that we can prepare for the meeting and also plan some of our other work, e.g. developing childrens rights workshops. Its always handy to use travelling time to do a bit of work, otherwise when you get back to the office youre constantly snowed under.

On arrival in Dundee, we meet up with Alison from the Fostering Network who supports the young person. We had lunch with Alison and the young person and spoke about the plans for the Care Action Group. The meeting was really positive and the young person was very interested in being a member of the group. It was so useful having Alison there at the meeting as this helped the young person feel comfortable speaking with us as we were new to them. These are the things we always try to take into consideration in the Participation Team at SCCYP, i.e. young peoples needs and how we can make our work accessible to young people. Im sure that if I was going to meet two new workers when I was younger, I would want someone there who I was familiar with.

As it happens Im in Dundee again tomorrow (Saturday) as Im working with Ffion Heledd and SCCYPs Reference Group. Thats another thing about working in the Participation Team at SCCYP ?– your hours are always flexible. I was able to finish early on the Friday and see a bit of Dundee, since I was working all day on the Saturday. Some of my friends tell me they would never work on a Saturday. I used to think that too (when I worked in accountancy) but now that I work with young people it just seems natural to work on Saturdays.