Our Presentation to Birmingham Children & Young People's Parliament

On Wednesday 15th July 2009 we visited the Children Young People's Parliament at Birmingham Council House to share a presentation about road safety to the people of the parliament.

First of all, Cassius spent 5 minutes introducing the workshop to the parliament then followed by Sam's 20 minute quiz. This allowed the parliament to discuss answers within small groups and think about what their safety knowledge is like as individuals, but also in relation to their peers. Cassius then spent a further 10 minutes talking about what they could find in the pack which was first handed to them when they arrived. In this pack it contained a booklet about RoSPA and road safety with profiles of Cassius, Leah and Sam which introduced us to them and talked about what we are doing here at RoSPA. It shared our aims that we wished to achieve by doing our presentation, three examples of some young people who have tried to do something to raise awareness about road safety.

There was also a road facts and statistics sheet in the booklet and a page that included website links, so they could research more on road safety and other safety organisations in general. Finally, the last page was about the Youth Network group on Facebook. It briefly told them RoSPA was launching a Facebook group to raise awareness to teenagers about road safety and gave members of the parliament the details, so they could become members if they would like to.

A school that Cassius has been working with, called Park View, came along to the parliament with us and spent around 15 minutes sharing what they had learned about road safety. Their presentation contained, a short video clip and a poster with some 'did you know facts'.

The final part of our presentation was Cassius's asking for feedback from the parliament on the presentation and Sam's final question of her quiz that asked them to discuss something they could do about road safety. The group responded well to our presentation and had a lot of questions to ask as well as sharing about projects that they had already developed with their schools.

Overall, we agree that the presentation went very well and the children and young people from the Parliament enjoyed what we did and gained a good understanding of road safety.

- Leah Maleady and Samantha Ashworth, Swanshurst Students