Influencing your local area

Do you:

  • Feel that you would like to change your community?

  • Feel passionate about something?

  • Like to help others?

  • Want to get your voice heard?

It is important that everyone has the chance to have their say and that people listen to you, especially when this is about you.

How do you get your voice heard?

There are groups that you can join, you could have a part in deciding how this website is developed, or you can take part in consultations about the things you feel are important.

Some ways you can give your views are:

  • Barnet Development Team Youth – this is a group for children and young people with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND), ages 0-25, to help shape the way Barnet delivers services and support for children and young people with SEND. For more information, email [email protected]

  • The Local Offer group want to hear your views on the Local Offer website and the way we deliver services for children and young people with SEND. We want the information to be easy to use, easy to understand and have all the information you want to see. If you have any thoughts, please send us an email with any thoughts you have to [email protected]

  • You can take part in consultations online and register your opinion

  • Barnet Council’s Youth Voice Offer has a variety of other groups and ways you can get involved in giving your views and changing the way Barnet Council works in the community

  • If you are 18-years-old or over you have the right to vote in local and general elections. Before you can do this you must have registered to be on the electoral register.

Voting in Local and General Elections

Harry and Charlotte who work for Mencap and have a learning disability, have shared their own experiences of voting in a polling station.

To help make voting easier for people with learning disabilities, they suggest:

  • polling stations have posters with pictures on how to vote
  • polling station staff could wear badges to show that they are there to help people with learning disability vote

If you need any advice, just ask the staff at the polling station – they will be happy to help you. If you are disabled, you can ask for help and the Presiding Officer can mark the ballot paper for you. You can also ask someone else to help you (e.g. a support worker, as long as they are either a relative or an eligible elector and have not already helped more than one other person vote).If you have a visual impairment, you can ask to see a large print ballot paper or you can ask for a special voting device that allows you to vote on your own in secret.