The National Youth Agency - Nineteenth and twentieth rounds Joint Area Reviews (JARs) (August 2008)

Nineteenth and twentieth rounds Joint Area Reviews (JARs) (August 2008)

A further two rounds of Joint Area Reviews (JARs) have been published by Ofsted which continue to include an encouraging number of positive references to the role of youth services. JARs explore the extent to which children and young people are healthy, safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and secure economic wellbeing. They focus specifically on children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, those who are looked after and children at risk or requiring safeguarding. They evaluate the collective contribution made by all relevant children’s services to outcomes for these groups. There are further sections on equality and diversity and safeguarding, and additional investigations are carried out into issues such as child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), other health inequalities, and the 14-19 strategy.

Also of interest...

A total of seven reports have been published in these two rounds which show that youth services are contributing in particular to helping vulnerable young people make a positive contribution.

While it is sometimes difficult to detect youth services’ contribution to partnership work, scrutiny of accompanying youth service inspection reports reveals instances where youth services are involved in multi-agency work highlighted in JARs.

Equality and diversity

Youth service projects in Halton that deal with anti-racism and attitudes to gay and lesbian young people have had a ‘positive impact’, and the report praises the Positive Futures project for effectively re-engaging socially excluded young people in positive activities. The report on Bradford states that ‘the youth service makes a valuable contribution to community cohesion’.

Safeguarding

In Bradford, the youth service and youth offending team have established an anti-bullying project which offers young people a first line of contact and advice and signposting service. The report describes the project as ‘an impressive response to a locally identified issue’.

Being healthy

The report on York highlights the work of the Castlegate one stop shop which provides a wide range of information, advice and support services for young people aged 16 to 25. A research project conducted by looked after young people resulted in health services for them being redesigned, and the research concluded that overall they felt well supported in staying healthy.

Making a positive contribution

Local democracy

Young people in Kent are described as making ‘an excellent contribution to civic life and local politics’ as a result of the ‘very significant role’ played by the youth service. In York, the work of a consultation group for looked after young people, ‘Show Me That I Matter’, is described as ‘highly commendable’. Through the group looked after children and young people have achieved many improvements to services aimed at them. A celebration event held for looked after young people, organised by the group, received ‘excellent’ feedback from officers and guests, and young people themselves described the event as ‘brilliant’ and ‘the best ever’. Older young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities have had a ‘significant influence’ on CAMHS delivery through ‘The Heard’ project. They are represented on the strategic board and have secured the provision of a telephone support line and website which they run themselves. The report notes that they ‘feel empowered and consider that they make a difference’.

There are various participation structures in place for young people in Halton. The Youth Bank is collecting the views and opinions of young people as they express them through Youth Opportunity Fund bids. The ‘Involve’ project offers young people a say in how Connexions is run. The council also supports a number of celebratory events which attract a large number of youth groups. The report states that through these opportunities young people ‘gain knowledge about democratic structures and their part in them. They have raised expectations and a more optimistic outlook on what can be achieved in life’.

The Bradford and Keighley Youth Parliament has representatives on the Champions for Children Board, the Children and Young People’s Strategic Executive and the Young People and Education Improvement Committee. The report notes that they ‘make an effective contribution, challenging officers and councillors’ plans’.

Anti-social behaviour

The youth service in York takes the lead on a number of successful preventative initiatives including the Inspired Youth Arts and Media Project, Playspace and the Chill Out Zone. The police and local communities have reported that these projects are effectively reducing anti-social behaviour in some of the most deprived areas. Targeted youth work is also helping to reduce the numbers of looked after young people involved in re-offending and offending behaviour. The report on Halton highlights a diversionary initiative called ‘On the Streets’ where the fire service, youth service and Connexions work together in areas where incidents of arson had been increasing.

Kent youth service actively participates in crime reduction panels in each district and the report highlights the work of a partnership between the youth service, police and Charlton Athletic Football Club in providing an effective diversionary activity for young people. The report on Croydon cites the Positive Activities for Young People programme and youth work as examples of ‘good work’ to promote community safety and community cohesion which is helping to reduce fear of crime in the area. In Shropshire, the youth service is described as ‘working well with partner agencies to develop community safety and reduce anti-social behaviour through club, outreach and detached work’.

Personal development

The report on York states that ‘targeted work by the youth service and partners to provide alternative activities to engage young people is consistently good’. Youth workers and neighbourhood wardens worked successfully together to identify reasons why young people were not engaging in leisure activities and as a result deployed mobile resources to fill gaps in provision. The ‘Potential’ social cohesion group also effectively re-engaged a group of young people who had been affected by the murder of a friend to achieve well at GCSE and become youth leaders themselves. The youth service element of the integrated structure in Halton is described as ‘sensitively managed and focuses well on informal learning’. In Solihull, young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities ‘develop impressive inter-personal and social skills in youth provision, including representing others in the UK Youth Parliament’.

Supporting vulnerable young people

The youth service in Croydon ‘makes an important contribution’ to the cultural and leisure activities provided for young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. They are well supported in making applications to the Youth Opportunity Fund, and young people with physical disabilities take part in challenging overseas trips and outdoor activities. In Halton, the youth service uses ‘creative approaches’ to engage young people with a learning difficulty and/or disability and looked after young people in youth work activities, including making sure they are fully integrated with their peers in open access projects. An increasing number of looked after young people undertake voluntary work through the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. The youth service also undertakes ‘well conceived’ work with young gay and lesbian people and promotes anti-racist approaches. The report notes that ‘such work has also had a good impact on young people’s attitudes towards minority groups more generally’.

In Bradford, the youth service runs an ‘innovative’ peer education project that supports young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to deliver awareness raising sessions for youth groups. The youth service in Shropshire provides ‘effective support’ for older young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to develop teamwork and leadership skills. Solihull youth service has recently invested in a mobile youth facility to help provide more out-of-school provision for young people in rural areas.

Economic wellbeing

In Kent youth workers are involved in a partnership between the council and the Rainer Foundation in providing 16+ services for looked after young people and care leavers preparing for independence. The report notes that ‘the work of youth workers is particularly valued’ by young care leavers. Youth workers are also involved with partner agencies in providing ‘high quality, well-integrated support’ to young people excluded from school or at risk of becoming disengaged with learning. Improvements have also been made to careers education and the provision of information, advice and guidance, and a web-based county-wide prospectus for 14-19 education and training opportunities has been developed. The report states that ‘collaboration between Connexions and the youth service has made a major contribution to these developments and to the provision of high quality, targeted support for vulnerable young people’.

Youth workers in Croydon support Connexions advisers in helping prepare young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities for learning, training and employment post-16. The youth service also supports young people refusing to attend school. Halton youth service has worked alongside Connexions and the YMCA to develop a range of projects which engage hard to reach young people. The report on York states that ‘the youth service and other partner agencies work diligently with those young people who are ‘hard to reach’ and have achieved considerable success in getting reluctant learners back into mainstream schools’.