One minute guide: Child Friendly Leeds

What is Child Friendly Leeds

Our ambition is for Leeds to be the best city for all our children and young people to grow up in, with the vision of bringing together the whole city to make Leeds a happy and safe place for all children to enjoy growing up in, have fun and reach their full potential. Our aim is to work in partnership to improve outcomes for all our children, guided by the voices of children and young people (CYP).

Child Friendly Leeds (CFL) was launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in 2012 and is the thread that ties together all the work done in the city to create better outcomes for all children and young people. CFL encourages everyone to work together to take action in their school, community, business or organisation to make Leeds a child friendly city. Our commitment to being the best city for children and young people is founded on the global movement of Child Friendly Cities initiated by UNICEF.

All of our work is focused around the one vision and five outcomes of the Children and Young Peoples Plan and our 12 wishes, developed in partnership with children and young people.

The Child Friendly Leeds 12 wishes were refreshed in 2022 and developed based on consultation data from over 80,000 CYP in the city. CFL wish lead officers have been identified for each wish and an annual CFL wishes action plan - including short term and long term goals - tracks progress. The team run an ongoing communications campaign to highlight good practice for each wish on the CFL blog and through social media.

How to get involved in Child Friendly Leeds

To keep up to date with the latest Child Friendly Leeds news, good practice from across the city and opportunities, subscribe to their blog and follow @childfriendlyleeds on social media (@Child_Leeds on X, formerly Twitter). The team encourage everyone working with children, young people and families to tag CFL in their posts to enable them to champion and promote how they are making a difference to the lives of children and young people in Leeds.

Businesses, voluntary sector organisations and community groups, public sector partners, learning settings and teams and services working with families also have the opportunity to identify a lead contact to join the Child Friendly Leeds ambassador network.

Child Friendly Leeds Ambassadors receive regular newsletters and opportunities to work in partnership and support the work of different teams, services and projects working directly with families. Ambassadors also receive invitations to workshops and events enabling them to network and make connections, further their understanding about priority issues for children and young people, and work together to develop new and innovative approaches to tackle the big issues.

There is more information available on the 'get involved' page of the CFL website.

Child Friendly Leeds achievements

The Child Friendly Leeds team:

Put the voice of the child at the heart of all they do through their voice and influence work, finding out what young people’s priorities are and acting on this information via youth voice groups, projects, consultations and events.

Strengthen partnership working, increasing partners’ and ambassadors’ awareness of priority issues for children, young people and families in the city and working together to help improve outcomes.

Established a growing network of Child Friendly Leeds Ambassadors, who share their support, knowledge, expertise, resources and time to help improve the lives of children and young people in Leeds.

Some of the key highlights of their work are:

The Child Friendly Leeds Awards, which are planned by young people and recognise people, places and organisations making a difference to families in Leeds.

Establishing Baby Week Leeds - in partnership with health services and early years settings - to promote the best start for children, and supporting elevn other locations to run their own Baby Weeks.

Project work, including promoting fostering recruitment and retention, enrichment projects such as Food Means Home and the ‘Hidden Disabilities’ project, developed in partnership with young people and ambassadors.

The Child Friendly Leeds team play a central role in championing children and young people and their rights. The team lead on the coordination of Child Friendly Leeds wishes action plan and have five key work strands:

Ambassadors

Work in partnership with ambassadors to connect them to projects, organisations and services, creating a multi-agency approach to further contribute towards the Children and Young People’s Plan outcomes and 12 wishes.

Communication

Share child friendly news, good practice, raise awareness of opportunities and updates on the wishes via blogs, social media, the CFL website and films.

Play

Increase awareness of the importance and value of play, deliver the play enabling grant programme, coordinate play streets, co-manage the Play Sufficiency Partnership Board led by the Play Champion (appointed by the Executive Board), and promote and develop playful spaces, places and opportunities across the city.

Enrichment

Coordinate offers including tickets, gifts, and opportunities donated by ambassadors to children, young people and families most in need and coordinate enrichment projects for vulnerable children and young people.

Events

Organise a programme of events including the Child Friendly Leeds Awards, regular ambassador workshops, and Baby Week.

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