Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by 7KS

1. Executive Summary

1.1 Better co-operation between providers from statutory, private and Third sectors facilitated by an enabling local authority

1.2 A broad learning offer to empower all young people combining social, vocational and academic learning

1.3 The active involvement of young people in the design and delivery of services

1.4 Training to support a workforce comprising volunteer, part and full time staff

2. About 7KS

2.1 7KS is a private company that operates two registered, quality assured Independent schools (with two more awaiting formal registration) that deliver a structured curriculum to meet the requirements of a wide range of marginalized, disaffected and excluded young people. We seek to be a ‘Prime Contractor’ for local authorities in the provision of education for at risk and excluded young people.

2.2 We work with young people who are excluded or at risk of exclusion from school; with young people Not in Education, Employment or Training; with young adults who are long-term unemployed, or at risk of long-term unemployment. Our students typically have multiple barriers to education and work; with health, behavioral, educational and psychological problems; young people from dysfunctional families who often lead chaotic lifestyles.

2.3 In the course of delivering our work directly to young people we work collaboratively with a range of organizations from both the Statutory and Third Sector, seeking to build effective alliances and lever support that enables us to develop the best solutions for the young people we support. In recent years we have collaborated closely with UK Youth in the development of Youth Achievement Foundations – small independent schools that have been established with support from the Youth Sector Development Fund.

2.4 Utilising a curriculum approach that combines personal and social skills development allayed to vocational skills and qualifications we support and enable young people to formulate personal goals and develop the skills and self esteem to take control of their own lives. We also train adults who support young people and young adults in developing the range of educational, vocational and life skills required in today’s complex world.

2.5 Our students achieve a wide range of practical qualifications and life skills including; Numeracy, Literacy, IT, Personal Effectiveness, Personal and Social Development, Career Planning and Employability; vocational education and training in Horticulture, Animal Care, Arts and Crafts, Mechanics, Administration, Retail, Child Care, Hair and Beauty, Construction, Catering, Sports Development and Country Park Management; applying non-formal learning practices leading to a menu of formal qualifications on the QCF and NQF.

3. The relationship between universal and targeted services

3.1 We believe that all young people benefit from the opportunity to participate in non-formal learning programmes that assist them develop self regulatory, social and life skills that are essential in an ever changing world where the ability to network, plan and evaluate life and career choices are increasingly important.

3.2 For some young people however there is a need for targeted, specialist support in order to assist them cope with and overcome factors that have led to them being marginalised or excluded from mainstream provision.

3.3 In our view, more could be done to ensure a coherent plan is developed in each local authority area that addresses the need to provide a broad, inclusive, learning offer for all young people. This would require providers from statutory, Third and private sectors (with young people) working together to plan for the commissioning and delivery of both universal and targeted services and developing methods to lever additional support to underpin costs.

4. How services for young people can meet the Governments priorities for volunteering, including National Citizens Service

4.1 A learning offer to empower all young people

Whilst the current school curriculum enables more young people to achieve higher grades than ever and enables more young people to access higher education, paradoxically there are more young people truanting from school than ever before and the numbers show no sign of diminishing. Partly due to the current recession we also now face a situation when many highly qualified young people as well as those with few or no qualifications are in the same job queue for what jobs are available. 

4.2 Recent education policy has led to a situation where many young people today lack the skills to make the decisions necessary to take control of and plan their lives and careers. In short many young people lack the self regulatory and pro social skills necessary to apply knowledge to life. We have invested in an education system that has focused heavily in the development of young peoples Human Capital (qualifications) at the expense of their Functional Capital (personal competencies) and this at a time when the breakdown of many traditional societal networks has left young people with little or no access to the traditional positive networks of family and community from which to develop their Social Capital (Interpersonal skills).

4.3 There was a time when The Big Society of teachers, youth workers, volunteers and families worked together to provide this learning offer in communities across our country. In order to help our young people make sense of and plan for their future we must rebuild the structure of people and facilities that facilitated this learning offer for young people and make it relevant for the 21st Century.

4.4 Citizen Service would, I believe, fit well into this model as it legitimises the ongoing importance of personal and social skills within the educational curriculum, provides a vehicle for the overall learning community to collaborate with young people on a programme that promotes an inclusive and intergenerational approach to experiential learning and provides a specific focus for practitioners of alternative education, youth work and youth workers to manage. It also enables organisations from all sectors to collaborate on a level playing field.

5. Which young people access services and what they want from those services and their role in shaping provision

5.1 In our view the majority of young people want to access high quality services that enable them to develop skills that assist them develop a range of skills and interests that are not a core part of the national curriculum.

5.2 Key elements of what young people want from these services are:

- Impartial, confidential and trusted advice

- positive peer relationships

- the opportunity to shape provision to meet their needs

- the opportunity to develop skills and abilities (not available through the national curriculum) and have these formally recognised

- available from a variety of locations/providers to suit their needs

6. The relative roles of the voluntary, community, statutory and private sectors in providing services for young people

6.1 We believe that all sectors have a potential role in providing services. We would like to see the development of a coherent local plan that encourages better joint working to develop such an offer. Such a plan may well be best facilitated by the local authority – in conjunction with young people – but commissioned from appropriate providers who would agree to work collaboratively to deliver the most effective and efficient local service.

7. The training and workforce needs of the sector

7.1 The delivery of a learning offer to empower all young people demands a combination of people with complimentary skills working together to ensure the needs of all young people are met. Teachers, lecturers, youth workers, community based volunteers (young and old) and young people trained as peer educators working collaboratively in a co-ordinated manner to support young people achieve outstanding results. Sadly this rarely happens as management silos concentrate on small picture needs rather than big picture solutions.

7.2 The people required to deliver this offer already exist in communities across the country but they are all too often prevented from doing so by a combination of over regulation, over professionalisation, limited access to existing facilities and the lack of workforce to act as a catalyst to co-ordinate the delivery of a ‘big picture’ learning offer to empower today’s young people. Youth workers and learning mentors could and in some cases already do play this role to great effect, providing young people with the skills necessary to embrace an exploratory and inquisitive learning habit for life. 7KS along with many organizations in the Third Sector have developed training programmes that support workers develop the necessary skills to operate universal services to young people and we are aware that CWDC have already undertaken much helpful work in this area.

8. The impact of public sector spending cuts on funding and commissioning of services, including how available resources can best be maximised, and whether payment by results is desirable and achievable

8.1 It appears that the most likely impact of the cuts on funding and commissioning services for young people is that services may well be cut with minimum levels being commissioned. It is early days however and this impression may well be due to the relative low priority given to this area.

8.2 As previously mentioned, we believe that the development of an authority wide coherent plan (engaging all sectors) is the best method of maximizing resources.

8.3 Payment by results can be an appropriate commissioning tool with two major caveats:

- Organisations need part-payment in advance to ensure sustainability during the delivery period. There also need to be staged interim payments based on progress so that the full risk of external events is not borne by the provider;

- A reasonable proportion of commissioning opportunities should still be paid on outputs rather than results to ensure that there is always scope to pilot innovative ways of engaging and working with young people.

9. How local government structures and statutory frameworks impact on service provision

9.1 We believe the main priority of these structures should be to enable the widest range of providers to collaborate in order to deliver the highest possible quality of service to young people.

10. How the value and effectiveness of services should be assessed

10.1 Assessment by outcomes is appropriate, so long as a proportion of funding is available upfront and there is scope for innovative projects to be piloted without fear of claw-back of funds.

10.2 Where assessment by outcomes is used, there needs to be flexibility to use the whole range of outcomes, including innovative ways of measuring the personal and social development of young people.

December 2010