At the end of November of 2022 Alice Crockett, the Young Persons Champion for Somerset’s Local Offer, started working on the Preparing for Adult Life section of the Local Offer: Preparing for Adult Life Here is her experience!
I first started by looking through the old pages in the Preparing for Adult Life section to see what needed to be updated and how I could do it. I talked to The Unstoppables to find out what information they want to look for, where they find it now, and what they want more support with. I also talked to young people with SEND at the Careers Fairs, and the people supporting them, to find out what information they use to make decisions about their future.
I broke down the sections even more into smaller pages with a lot more detail. We used to have a lot of links with no explanation of why people would want to go to that link. Now we have information to walk you through decisions you may need to make. There was so much information to find out and add that young people requested. There are some topics we do not enjoy asking our parents about! Here are 10 of our favourites of the new pages:
- Retaking exams
- Choosing your employer
- Making decisions and voting
- Assistance Animals
- Learning to drive
- Puberty
- Friends, relationships and community
- Alcohol
- Getting help with finances
- Banking
In May we went over to Strode College to share our draft pages with students accessing Learning Support and got a good load of feedback. We also got some of the Unstoppables and Somerset Parent Carer Forum to look through the drafts and make changes.
We also updated the Leisure pages just before summer. Feedback from young people was used to make it easier to find out about accessible or inclusive options. In case you missed this, take a look at https://www.somerset.gov.uk/leisure-you-said-we-are-listening/, where you can find information on all the newer pages and some of the older ones we updated. We’re always updating our pages, but if you think we have missed anything, please email: localoffer@somerset.gov.uk.
Keep an eye on our November issue to hear more from Alice and the work she has done in My Important Stuff!
