Third round of Joint Area Reviews (JARs)

The third round of Joint Area Reviews (JARs) have again revealed an encouraging number of positive references to the role of youth services. JARs examine how far children and young people in a local authority are achieving the Every Child Matters outcomes – are healthy, safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and are well prepared to secure economic wellbeing. They cover all education and social services directly managed or commissioned by a local authority, as well as health and youth justice services provided by partner agencies.

Four more reports have been published which show that youth services are contributing to meeting all five outcomes, but particularly to helping young people to make a positive contribution.

Youth services’ contribution to partnership work is more difficult to detect. However, scrutiny of accompanying youth service inspection reports reveals instances where youth services are involved in multi-agency work highlighted in the JARs. The reports also indicate the difficulties of categorising work under single ECM outcomes, since similar activities are identified under different outcomes.

Being healthy

Unlike the second round, this round identifies relatively few JARs with a prominent youth service role in promoting health. However, in Bristol drugs-related projects are carried out in each youth centre and the youth service also runs projects that complement sex and relationships education delivered in schools.

Staying safe

As in previous rounds, there is little specific reference to youth services’ contribution to this outcome. However, the report on Trafford states that the youth service does provide children and young people with information about key risks and how to deal with them.

Enjoying and achieving

Youth services and youth workers contribute to this outcome, particularly in the area of youth service provision for vulnerable groups of young people. In Bristol, the youth service is described as providing ‘a good range of targeted programmes for vulnerable groups, including young people who have been excluded from school’. The youth service also supports ‘some good opportunities for children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to be involved in leisure and recreational activities’.

Making a positive contribution

Once again this is an area where youth services and youth workers are seen to make a major contribution.

Local democracy

Two reports highlight the role of youth services in engaging young people in decision-making. In Brent, inspections of the youth service and the YOT report on their ‘good work in targeting young people to gather and use their views, ideas and energy and involve them in planning and decisions about their provision’. Young people in Brent are also actively involved in evaluating youth service programmes and are described as ‘robust in their judgements about the quality of provision’. In Trafford, during Local Democracy Week, the youth service supported young people to contribute via a local website to the consultation on the Youth Matters Green paper.

Personal development

The report on Trafford notes that ‘ a wide range of services, particularly schools and the youth service, enable children and young people to develop socially and emotionally’.

Anti-social behaviour

In Brent, the youth service is involved in a multi-agency approach to reduce anti-social behaviour, which is described as ‘having a positive impact on the range of activities available to prevent young people at risk of offending becoming offenders and in re-engaging them successfully in education programmes’. The report on Trafford highlights a prevention project that has been established in three targeted hotspots to provide street-based youth work at weekends to young people at risk of offending in the borough.

Supporting vulnerable young people

Brent youth service is supporting vulnerable young people by enabling young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to make a positive contribution to consultation events through the Youth Forum. Youth workers in Trafford are described as providing ‘effective support’ along with Connexions personal advisers, to vulnerable young people and the Davyhulme youth centre in Trafford runs a successful integrated programme for young people with disabilities which has been ‘identified as the basis for further borough-wide developments’.

Achieving economic wellbeing

Youth services’ contribution to this outcome is most evident in helping to assist young people back into education, employment or training. In Trafford, ‘effective action has been taken by the Connexions service and its partners to reduce the proportion of young people who are not in education, training or employment’. The report on Brent states that personal advisers, including youth workers, are supporting vulnerable young people, particularly young parents, to assist them back into education, employment or training.

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