Preston Youth Forum’s latest meeting was kindly hosted by Sahara in Preston and there was an excellent attendance of delegates from across the sector with Tony Dawber representing Preston Community Network.

Chaired by Marc Dunne of Preston City Council’s Community Engagement Team, the event began with all groups present offering an update on their current work and activity.

Marc then gave an outline of how youth provision in Preston was developing with the support of the Invest in Youth Project.

Marc and Tony then explained how after discussion, PCN had agreed to introduce a specific ‘Youth News’ section in our weekly news update to help groups spread news and information on their work to others across the sector.

This will kick off very shortly and all groups present were encouraged to submit news of their own events and any other information and useful updates to Marc or Tony for inclusion.

If you have any youth connected news which you would like to include in this section, please send to Tony at tonyd@prestoncn.org

The team from Empire Fighting Chance, who use boxing training as a means of engaging young people who may be battling various issues, then gave a presentation on their work and how they intended to develop it in the Preston area.

There was then a discussion within groups about requirements and needs in the youth sector.

Conclusions were noted and one particular project which it was unanimously agreed would be very useful was the setting up of a WhatsApp group where youth news could be exchanged and immediate answers to requests obtained.

It was noted that a similar WhatsApp group connecting all agencies involved in food bank provision had operated very successfully for some time and it is hoped the group will be set up very shortly with a view to replicating that success.

We will advise more details as soon as these are available.

The next meeting of the Youth Forum will be on December 5 and more details will follow in a future PCN news update.