Brighton & Hove Hope Hack 2024 Event

The Brighton & Hove Hope Hack was a youth event held on the 1st March 2024 at the i360 in Brighton, creating a space where young minds converged to envision a fairer, safer society.

The event was delivered by a group of local young people working with the Trust for Developing Communities (TDC), with other support from the Hope Collective, Sussex Violence Reduction Partnership, Brighton & Hove City Council and Urban Flo Creative.

ABOUT THE EVENT

Gathering around 100 stakeholders, including over 60 young people from diverse backgrounds, the day began with an inspiring speech by AFLO the Poet, which set the tone for meaningful discussions.

This was followed by a panel discussion featuring young people with firsthand experience of the issues. These discussions fed into the main workshops. The event concluded with a series of presentations from the workshop groups, where participants shared their findings and solutions with local VIPs, politicians, and senior Council Officers.

WORKSHOPS

In the morning sessions, young people identified the key issues that needed attention in the city.

During the afternoon sessions, young delegates developed their proposed solutions and prepared their presentations back to assembled adults with the power to make changes.

The four workshops explored critical issues:

1. Education

2. Mental Health

3. Cost of Living, Housing & Employment

4. Racism, Division & Community Safety

Key FINDINGS

Education

1. Funding and Resource Allocation: Insufficient funding leads to lack of inclusivity, unequal access to education resources and support, and understanding of challenging behaviour.

2. Uniform and School Food: Issues with uncomfortable, expensive uniforms and unsatisfactory, costly school food.

3. Life Skills and Modernised Curriculum: Lack of life skills education leaves students feeling unprepared for the future; calls for curricula that accommodate diverse backgrounds and focus on practical skills.

4. Discipline and Rules: Unfair disciplinary strategies, particularly concerning phone usage and isolation as punishment.

5. Trusted Support and Safe Spaces: Desire for a trusted teacher for confidential support instead of immediately contacting home, along with the need for safe spaces and designated areas for students with additional needs.

6. Voice, Choice, and Inclusion: Students want their voices and choices to be heard in school decisions and recognition and support of learning difficulties and diverse backgrounds.

7. Mental Health Support: Insufficient mental health support, long waiting lists for help, and high thresholds for receiving support.

Mental Health

1. Understanding Mental Health: Mental health needs more awareness and understanding. Plus there is a lack of mental wellbeing support in schools, need for better school-life balance and understanding from staff.

2. Cost of Living Impact: Stress from financial pressures and its knock-on effect on mental health.

3. Safe Spaces and Choices: Desire for safe spaces, flexibility to leave class if needed, and choices in communication methods.

4. Diagnosis Challenges: Difficulty in getting diagnoses for ADHD and autism is impacting mental health support.

5. Immediate Support: Need for support while waiting for formal mental health services, including independent advocates and supportive youth groups.

Cost of Living, Housing & Employment

1. Interconnected Issues and Employment Barriers: Cost of living, education funding, and employment pressures are interlinked, affecting young people's prospects, with barriers like the need for experience, qualifications mismatch, job cuts, and rejection cycles.

2. Affordable Housing and Homelessness: Lack of affordable housing and rising homelessness, particularly in expensive areas like Brighton.

3. Life Skills Education: Lack of education on life skills, finances, and job application processes, leading to uncertainty about the future.

4. Meaningful Engagement and Political Education: Need for more diverse and genuine engagement with young people, including political education and council involvement.

5. Improved Communication: Improved communication from councils, including social media updates and focus groups, to better engage and inform young people.

Racism, Division, and Community Safety

1. Equality and Inclusion: Young people from ethnically minoritised communities feel they need to work harder, face categorisation, and lack tailored communication and inclusion.

2. Community Safety: Rising crime rates in Brighton, including racism and hate crimes creating a sense of danger among young people.

3. Role Models and Celebration of Diversity: Need to celebrate differences, provide positive role models, and address underlying issues causing crime.

Solutions

After a morning of discussions around these topics, the groups then got back together to share their ideas of how to make changes related to these issues.

Education

1. Recognition and Suppor t: Recognise and support learning difficulties, and adopt more understanding approaches to behavioural problems.

2. Teacher Training and Trus t: Ensure teachers have time to build relationships and are trained to support different needs, with mandatory training on inclusion, diversity, casual sexism, and understanding challenging behaviour.

3. Flexible and Inclusive Learning: Provide flexibility for different types of learning, allow students to leave the classroom when needed, and ensure education accommodates all religions and celebrates different cultures.

4. Educational Choice and Student Voice: Increase freedom of choice in education and allow students to have a say in the curriculum, especially in PSHE and life skills.

5. Address Discrimination: Actively address racism, homophobia, and discrimination.

6. Increased Funding: Secure more funding for education priorities, addressing inequalities in resource access due to poverty

Mental Health

1. Safe Spaces and Mental Health Support: Create safe spaces in schools for mental well-being support, especially in secondary schools, and destigmatise mental health issues through education and awareness.

2. Counsellors and Support Groups: Increase the availability of counsellors within and outside schools, and establish support groups for those on waiting lists for further mental health support (e.g., CAMHS).

3. Communication Choices and Classroom Flexibility: Allow choices in communication methods, such as using phones or SMS, and permit students to leave class if needed, whether dysregulated or just needing the toilet.

4. Student Involvement and Advocacy: Involve students in decision-making processes and have independent third-party adult advocates available within schools or colleges.

5. Support With or Without Diagnosis: Provide support with or without a diagnosis, and offer education and information on obtaining diagnoses and support without a diagnosis. Formal mental health services, including independent advocates and supportive youth groups.

6. Additional Resources and Clear Pathways: Provide more resources like STEM toys and noise-cancelling headphones within schools, and develop clearer pathways to mental health support.

Cost of Living, Housing & Employment

1. Youth Hub and Support Services: Create a hub for young people to get help with housing, employment, and cost of living issues. And share positive youth stories, such as getting out of debt, to counteract negative narratives.

2. Affordable Housing: Create genuinely affordable housing so people can stay in Brighton.

3. Educational Equality and Opportunities Advertise bursaries available for education.

4. Modernised PSHE and Life Skills: Rebrand and modernise PSHE to include more relevant topics around life skills, such as step-by-step processes to getting into work, making it engaging with guest speakers.

5. Student-Council Engagement and Political Education: Enhance student voice and influence by having council members visit schools and engage with students, and provide comprehensive political education, particularly on local politics.

6. Improved Council Communication: Improve council communication through social media updates and factual information.

Racism, Division, and Community Safety

1. Celebrate Difference: Conquer racism, transphobia, and homophobia by celebrating differences and promoting diversity.

2. Role Models: Increase the visibility of positive role models.

3. Address Root Causes: Tackle underlying issues that lead to a lack of aspiration and crime.

4. Children's Book: Develop a children's book featuring a non-binary child exploring different cultures and ways of life.

Summary

The Hope Hack uncovered important insights into the issues facing young people today. In Education, we talked about how some students feel left out, and there's not enough money in the system for everyone to get the support they need. On mental health, we realised that having safe places to talk and easy access to help is really important, particularly in the long wait for diagnosis. We also talked about how hard it is to afford things like housing and find a job, and how these problems are all connected.

We all agreed that it's important to include everyone, fight against racism, and make our communities safer.

To sum up, the Brighton and Hove Hope Hack shows how young people have a powerful voice and can make a big difference. The ideas we came up with show that we're determined to make things better, just like Damilola Taylor hoped for.