Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by Hartlepool Integrated Youth Support Service

· The relationship between universal and targeted work.

The relationship between universal and targeted work is fundamental to the early identification of young people and ensuring that young people get the targeted services they need at the appropriate time. It also enables young people who have accessed specialist services first to become involved in universal services as an ongoing source of support. An example of how this approach has been successful is the TASS (Team Around the Secondary School) universal services (including Youth Work) and targeted services come together with the school to identify young people (with their and parental consent) who would benefit from a co-ordinated response to early intervention. Young people receive a package of support which may include universal youth provision (to encourage social skills/build resilience/ ensure peer support/ prevent isolation etc), reviews are undertaken and if they have had a more targeted approach (for example youth workers engaged on specific areas of concern i.e. teenage pregnancy or CAMHS etc) they will be referred into universal services for ongoing support. Many of these early indications of concern come from universal services. The first indications of concern are often raised by universal provision either via the School or Youth Work, who by the nature of their relationship with young people can identify behaviour that happens outside of the school day

· How services can meet the Government’s priorities for volunteering, including the role of the National Citizen Service.

In Hartlepool the IYSS will be key partners in ensuring the success of the National Citizen Service and we are working in partnership with Safer in Tees Valley (project leads) to deliver on a local level. Through its strong links with the local voluntary sector, other departments and its own staff it will recruit a workforce for the programmes key workers to enable an adequate skills mix to ensure the needs of all young people taking part are met. The co-ordinator role will be supported and line managed by the service to recruit young people, ensure programme delivery and support the key workers. There are no local voluntary organisations that have the capacity to deliver this alone and this approach will ensure that all who can contribute to the delivery will have the opportunity to do so. The infrastructure of the National Citizen Service will be highly reliant on youth work for its success – young people have established relationships with workers locally including a mix as diverse as under represented groups to high achievers. Where young people don’t currently access youth provision the links exist to gain access to young people to ensure all young people are given the opportunity to participate. In relation to volunteering, the Youth Work, Participation and Targeted Youth Support elements of the service have distinct lead roles and work collaboratively to ensure that young people have access to a range of volunteering options. This includes decision making: UKYP, Young inspectors programme, which supports young people to inspect services for young people locally and has included the anti social behaviour unit, voluntary organisations, CAMHS etc, young people are co opted onto Children’s Services Scrutiny Forum, input into local decision making structures, etc. The Youth Work element ensure that young people have the opportunity to develop skills to be able to volunteer effectively by providing informal education to develop communication, finance, budgeting, assertiveness, confidence skills etc. They also offer the opportunity to ‘practice it in real time’ by providing senior member and level one training for young people to develop and deliver their own programmes. Volunteering through the service section of Duke of Edinburgh, which the service support throughout the borough, and extensive work is done within clubs around social awareness through fundraising for other groups such as Butterwick Hospice and Children in Need. Peer education also offers young people the opportunity to educate others as they learn, for example work on alcohol issues DVD. Targeted Youth Support ensures that under represented groups such as young carers, etc have access to the full range of opportunities offered by the service. Terms of reference for social responsibility may change, whether ‘big society’ or ‘citizenship’ the empowerment of young people to respond and contribute to wider community and social concerns within informal education has always been a key feature of young peoples personal and social development. The extent to which this is done depends on the skills of the workforce and capacity to do it.

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

Hartlepool IYSS (Youth Work element) had a reach to 76.3% of 13 to 19 year olds in Hartlepool in the year 2009-2010, of which 23.8% participated on a regular basis. The service continually seeks the views of young people. As the nature of the relationship is voluntary young people vote with their feet. That stated, approaches to engaging young people in service design vary dependant on the views being sought and the context, a range of methods is necessary depending on the skills and knowledge of young people taking part and the framework of the decisions to be made. Examples of this may be as global as the annual user/non user survey in which views are sought on what young people value about provision and what could be improved, and for non users reasons for non attendance and what would attract young people into provision where appropriate. In the last annual survey users identified a satisfaction rate of 90% good or better. On a more local scale young people decide on their/local community need and seek to address these with the support of Youth Support Workers. An example of this would be the detached team who worked with a group in an area of the town where right wing extremism was identified as on the rise (in some instances deliberately targeting young people) and tensions between young people and the local community where high. Youth Support Workers worked with young people to fundraise to do a reusable shopping bag with anti racist messages on to give out to the local community and the group made Christmas decorations for a local residential home. Another example of detached and mobiles contribution to the impact of working on a local level to address town wide issues (taken from Supporting young people: an evaluation of recent reforms to youth services in 11 local authority areas, OFSTED)

"It’s a stereotype reinforced by films, television and the media in general – find a number of young people loitering on a street corner and you’ll find trouble. Hartlepool Councils answer was to work with young people in their environment. That meant taking to the streets and finding out what they wanted. As a result they identified a need for a local skate park and over 40 young people have been involved in discussions, planning meetings and public consultations for two and a half years…. A key finding in the report is that there is a growing recognition of the value of involving young people more directly in developing services and decision making. Steve Sproston, Senior Youth Worker at Hartlepool Borough Council, says, " Working on the skate park project has given the young people an insight into how local authorities and different agencies work. They are now more politically aware and conscious of how they can influence change. Its about personally developing wider responsibility and engaging their community. And although recent events have thrown up funding issues, everyone is determined to raise local support and keep the project live"

– the project is currently under construction. In relation to the weekend working initiative the initial stages of the project (involving statutory and voluntary/community providers) was to consult with young people and enable them to design programmes that would be attractive enough to encourage young people who would usually be visible in communities on weekends to attend provision. Consequently with ongoing support from youth support workers in week day provision attendance was much higher than anticipated. Young people currently sit on the Children’s Services Scrutiny Forum and are leading their own investigation into the use of social networking in promoting positive activities to young people and associated safeguarding implications. This process and commitment to real change for young people raises participation beyond tokenism into young people shaping council wide decisions. The Young Inspectors Programme are also currently involved in inspecting council services for young people (not just services directly under the control of IYSS) to make recommendations for service improvement. Although the efforts of young people in these developments, can and should be commended, much of this work is dependant on a skilled workforce who can break down complex issues so young people can make informed decisions based on knowledge and develop the necessary skills and abilities so they have the confidence to articulate them.

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

The Youth Offer is a complex network of providers including, for example, community groups, voluntary organisations, health, youth justice, etc., as well as the local authority (IYSS). The latter plays an important role in harnessing the endeavours of partners in facilitating access to personal and social development for 13-19 year olds. This can include diverse issues such as drugs or leisure facilities and can assist in the achievement of shared targets in community order and safety, health, citizenship, education, training and employment.

The diversity of Youth Offer is underpinned by having in place a shared set of values and by the use of distinctive methods (e.g. group work), which seek to promote learning and achievement through relationships with adults and peers, that have been freely chosen by young people themselves.

All partners have a valuable role in providing services for young people indeed many of these services locally are complimentary and add to the full offer of activities to young people. The local context is relevant in that amongst the community sector most organisations in the borough are neighbourhood based. This leads to capacity issues both in terms of training, co-ordination, funding and quality assurance. The IYSS has traditionally taken the lead on supporting organisations across the town in relation to the broader youth offer including supporting the annual training programme (NVQ) for part time staff for all organisations as well as basic training in a variety of specialism’s and areas of work to enable improvement in practice. The level one in Youth Work is extensively used by volunteers to gain an insight into the profession. Through the Youth Work Group (headed by IYSS) organisations have the opportunity to form partnerships for commissioning/bidding processes, gain information on quality assurance, training and have a chance to share information. They also have the opportunity to gain information on how they can contribute to national agendas such as NCS, as it can be difficult for small organisations to keep up with the national agenda. Although there will always be some tension in information sharing, as all providers work within a competitive framework for most resources, the process of sharing information resources and building partnerships has proved mutually beneficial in relation to improving opportunities to young people locally. The IYSS commissions two providers locally which have an evidence based track record and can demonstrate they are best placed to deliver in those communities. Stability within such contracting is important to enable projects to develop within longer term goals rather than focussing on short term output. The private sector at present have limited input into non profit youth offer activities although do add to the range of activities locally through profit making clubs, coaching, activities etc. The extent to which activities can be supported through corporate giving is limited both by the economic situation locally and the scarcity of these opportunities nationally.

· The training and workforce development needs of the sector.

As discussed the IYSS do offer opportunities to part time staff locally however professional qualifications (JNC recognised degrees) are offered by the universities (Durham, Teeside and Sunderland locally). The IYSS have good links with these and provide employer advice on course content to two of them. The training needs in the sector are influenced mainly on a national level. For example recent investment into the leadership and management of the sector by FPM has produced good results. There are however concerns. Although the professional level of a full time worker is degree, locally a large reliance is still with part time staff (as we seek to engage young people on evenings and weekends this remains the most cost effective way to provide coverage) and it is unclear around JNC recognition what will happen to recognised qualifications. On a professional level with uncertainty around career opportunities (with a significant number of LA’s ceasing to provide Youth Services and other being in the midst of making cuts and associated job freezes) will limit the amount of graduates coming through, pay in relation to other occupations is not great in the sector and as traditionally Youth Work attracts more mature students than other occupations tuition fees will affect this further. The uniqueness of the youth work approach has also been subjected to some watering down in some qualification frameworks through the introduction of integrated qualifications – concerns around this within the field (both from statutory and voluntary/community sector and academic communities) can be evidenced through campaign groups such as in defence of youth work. A national steer which safe guards the specific skills and contribution that Youth work makes is needed – rather than encouraging staff to be all things to all people.

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

The impact locally of cuts has been less severe (at around 15 %), however several councils have announced their intention to stop youth service funding all together, than in other local authorities. The impact of this however in older services, that do not have large supplies and services budgets, is disproportionate. The youth work budget had minimal supplies and services budget and reductions to management had already taken place. This has meant that the only place to take reductions from has been staffing. Although the aim has been to protect frontline services wherever possible this in reality is not wholly achievable. This may in part be down to the contribution that has been made to overall aims of the council locally and the relatively high performance of IYSS in comparison to other LA’s. That being said the spending cuts will affect both statutory and voluntary organisations both in terms of mainstream budget and initiative based funding. Voluntary organisations will also be affected by the level of competition for charitable funding, as more organisations try this avenue the chances of success will lessen and will also be affected by the public’s ability to support these charities. Notionally we have indications locally that several voluntary sector organisations will be redundancies within their youth offer in the year 2011-12 as will the local authority. This will affect young people disproportionately as there is evidence already of an increased demand for services. In relation to funding cuts the maximisation of resources and need has been key in thought processes around reductions. In relation to payment by results, where projects are struggling to keep professional staff in employment this would not be viable as smaller groups, which is the local picture, would not be able to accept liability for upfront costs. Even the larger national organisations would struggle in the current environment to make such a commitment.

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

Much progress has been made within the field of youth work over the last ten years both in relation to the quality of provision and providing an evidence base of its impact. The statutory inspection by OFSTED offered a system where all services were judged on a comparative basis and was a widely understood baseline of quality. Without this the possibility of variable judgement of services exist and comparisons on performance will be difficult. This also has implications for commissioning as if there is no external measure of quality how can high performing services evidence this in the statutory or voluntary sector? Although rhetoric around bureaucracy has built over the last ten years, evidence of impact was thin within the field for those who where performing and equally there was difficulty in making decisions around those who were not. External measures and nationally understood frameworks for provision are vital. Quantitative measures have been difficult to measure within the field for example how do you compare small group work with young people with complex needs to those say offering universal youth work with an informal focus. Quantitative measures for example participation, recorded outcomes, and accreditation have been developed and evidence progress and give comparators in relation to like for like provision. This enables an objective assessment of the effectiveness of work undertaken. Although numbers are never likely to be the only measure of effectiveness due to the difficulty in evidence some of things youth work seeks to develop in young people, for example confidence, leadership etc they give an objective like for like assessment.

On a local level the IYSS head up an inspection process including the voluntary and community sector that ensures that consistency in standards is maintained. This happens through mini inspections (annually) by senior members of staff drawn from the whole sector. We then join with Redcar and Cleveland staff annually to do cross border inspections. This ensures that internal inspections are verified and good practice can be shared. It also builds the capacity of all involved to develop their understanding of what is required from a quality service for young people.

December 2010