Memorandum submitted by the National Youth
Agency
The NYA welcomes many of the proposals in the
"Every Child Matters" paper and subsequent legislation.
Its emphasis on better co-ordination of local services, including
health, social care and education, sharing essential information
among professionals, accountability and an effective workforce
are all essential in developing robust and responsive services
for children and young people.
We support the Government's acknowledgement
that youth work is uniquely placed to support young people's personal
and social development, but feel that current thinking does not
adequately reflect the particular vulnerabilities of young people,
as distinct from those of children. "Every Child Matters"
also generally presents children and young people as passive recipients
of adult care, rather than one of the partners and active citizens
with a full range of human rights, responsive to the issues and
concerns they face.
Much of our response is based on the NYA's extensive
network of Local Authority members, voluntary organizations as
well as young people.
The NYA believes that names matter. So, as a
first step, all Children's Trusts should be named "Children's
and Young People's Trusts" as an overt expression of this
concern and as a recognition of the often very different needs
of children and young people. Similarly, the Director for Children's
Services should be called the "Director of Children's and
Young People's Services".
1. THE PLACE
OF HEALTH,
SOCIAL SERVICES
AND EDUCATION
RESPECTIVELY WITHIN
INTEGRATED SERVICES
The NYA welcomes the principle of integration
of these services as long as they are around the needs of children
and young people. The emphasis of the role of the Director of
Children's Services will need to focus not only on children, but
also young people. The role will therefore require extensive knowledge
of the specialist skills required in youth work.
The Government Office for the South West[2],
looking into departmental readiness for Children's Trusts, found
that youth services had more influence if they were located out
of education departments as the PYO was more likely to be at the
table in that instance. Where they are located in education, the
youth service is deemed to be represented by the Assistant Director
or Director of Education.
The participation of children and young people
in services that affect them is essential.
2. THE PRACTICAL
IMPLICATIONS OF
THE "DUTY
TO COLLABORATE",
INCLUDING THE
EFFECT ON
FUNDING STREAMS
AND LOCATION
OF STAFF
AND FACILITIES
The NYA welcomes multi-disciplinary teams and
urges that youth services are represented in them to give youth
work a voice. However, there is no requirement on the duty to
collaborate with voluntary organisations. Will they have this
duty only if they receive funding from the local authority or
if they are working with young people? There will be significant
implications if the answer is the latter.
Voluntary organisations provide significant
services for young people at the local level, and are often commissioned
by the youth service and other departments to do so.
A good example of multi-disciplinary working
occurred when local authorities made posts for Joint Heads of
Health and Social Services—these overcame barriers effectively,
and good practice could be shared from these.
There is a common held view that staff and facilities
should be located in the place most conducive to achieving the
task and the impact ie not an automatic assumption that the location
will be schools.
3. STAFF AND
MANAGEMENT NEEDS:
TEAM-BUILDING,
LEADERSHIP AND
TRAINING
A good deal of work has been done in relation
to youth work and this may be applicable to workforce reform proposals
for the Education and Skills Committee. The NYA report "Transforming
Youth Work: Ensuring a high quality workforce" sets out a
strategy for workforce development. The group considered the priorities
to be:
— The development of work-based routes
into the youth work profession. Across all those working with
children, the priority should be the development of a range of
alternative routes into professions through work-based and higher
education qualifications based on National Occupational Standards.
— Reform of the higher education funding
system, to bring about parity in the funding of youth work provision
and equivalent professions such as teaching, social work, allied
health professions.
— Appropriate sector skills council
arrangements. Youth work should be part of the Lifelong Learning
Sector Skills Council.
— Guidance and an accreditation process
for staff development policies in youth work organisations.
All those working with children should share
a common core of skills and knowledge as well as an appreciation
of the values, ethos and approach of others working in the field,
as this will enhance the knowledge base of professionals.
The NYA with Ford Partnership Management and
in close collaboration with senior youth work and Connexions staff
have developed cross-agency management training. This is extremely
successful and offers a useful model on which to build.
We believe in the principle of shared core training
for those who will be working with young people. Youth work would
have a significant contribution to make with this for example:
— Active participation by young people.
— Methodology for reaching those who
are the most disaffected and disengaged—eg detached work
and work in PRUs.
— Approaches to informal education.
— Ways of offering information, advice
and guidance.
There will be further demands on leaders in
this new environment of Children and Young People's Services,
but it should build on the work done in response to demands which
followed Transforming Youth Work in the Common Planning Framework,
the TYW Management Training Programme and the demands for partnership
working.
4. INSPECTION
The NYA welcomes an integrated inspection framework
across children' services, covering appropriate education, social
services, Connexions, youth services and health services. The
integrated framework would build upon the child-focused approach
developed in joint inspections by tracking children's journeys
through the system and asking their views. It should also encourage
the involvement of young people in inspection teams.
Inspections must analyse sufficiency and quality.
Existing Ofsted inspections of youth services are strong and have
a high level of peer review so good practice could be learned
from these.
The emphasis on outcomes is consistent with
the drive of Every Child Matters and with all the work following
"Resourcing Excellent Youth Services" such as the recent
Credit where it's due document.[3]
5. LISTENING
TO CHILDREN
AND YOUNG
PEOPLE; THE
ROLE OF
THE CHILDREN'S
AND YOUNG
PEOPLE'S
COMMISSIONER
The NYA fully supports the commitment in "Every
Child Matters" to promote the involvement of children and
young people in local decision-making and in the design, delivery
and evaluation of relevant services. Promoting children and young
people as active citizens benefits them, organisations and the
wider community.
The NYA welcomes the introduction of a Children's
Rights Commissioner. This is essential to underpin these developments
and stand as an independent champion for all 11.3 million children
and young people in England, enabling their voice to be heard
at the highest level. We believe the commissioner needs to be
a strong, independent body with powers to champion and advocate
for children and young people's rights.
The NYA in association with the Local Government
Association, has launched revised "Hear by Right" standards
for the active involvement of children and young people' following
an 18 month pilot phase across a range of settings in the statutory
and voluntary sectors. Its aim is to offer standards for organsiations
across the statutory and voluntary sector to assess and improve
practice and policy on the active involvement of children and
young people. A Hear by Right review and planning template is
key to improving the quality of participation and services delivered.
A second template enables assessment of its impact through measuring
improvements to specific issues raised by children and young people.
Currently, the Hear by Right Standards framework
for the active involvement of children and young people is used
by Ofsted in its assessment of youth service and Connexions provision.
The NYA recommends extending them to become the national set of
minimum standards for the involvement of children and young people.
The NYA would be keen to work with Government to take this work
forward.
6. WORKING WITH
PARENTS
The NYA's particular concern is that young parents
receive the specialist support that they require. The success
of children's centres and parenting support has been largely due
to developing trusting relationships with families and attendance
being voluntary. It is essential for the success of these services
that compulsory attendance through parenting orders are used only
as a last resort and with utmost discretion. Peer education and
peer support programmes are used for young parents (such as Home-Start)
are also beneficial.
Youth work runs specialist projects for young
parents. An example is the Teenage Mothers Mentoring Project,
a Neighborhood Support Fund project in Sheffield. This works with
young mothers (aged 16 to 17) to reduce social exclusion and re-engage
them through a network of trained and support mentors, linking
them with existing provision. It recruits peer mentors who have
themselves experienced teenage motherhood to act as role models
to help young mothers deal with similar challenges.
7. THE CREATION,
MANAGEMENT AND
SHARING OF
RECORDS, INCLUDING
ELECTRONIC DATABASES
The NYA supports the better sharing of information
between agencies, and shares concerns about getting services to
all children who need them. Information sharing is vital to identify
and manage risk early on. This should centre on the needs of children
and young people and their protection is paramount.
However, this needs to be balanced against children
and young people's right to privacy and confidentiality. Unless
these rights are protected there is a risk that they will not
access a service, both for fear of losing these rights and concern
about the consequences of doing do. Any information sharing procedures
should accept the principle of informed consent, renewed according
to age and competence. There is a need to ensure that children
and young people's human rights are not infringed. (Article 8
of the European Convention of Human Rights)
It would be useful for more good practice to
be shared between organisations to illustrate where information
has been effectively used. 80 local authority youth services are
currently implementing the NYA management information system,
YouthBase, which enables them to record information about the
young people they work with.
There are significant technical, financial and
management issues in sharing data which need to be recognised.
The DfES consultation paper on "Information Sharing Databases
in Children's services" is examining many of these issues,
and the NYA will be responding to it shortly.
November 2004
2 http://www.gosw.gov.uk/ Back
3
Credit Where it's Due can be found here: http://www.nya.org.uk/Templates/internal.asp?NodeID=90410 Back
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