The National Youth Agency - Eighth round of Joint Area Reviews (JARs)

Eighth round of Joint Area Reviews (JARs)

Ofsted has published the eighth round of Joint Area Reviews (JARs) which once again have 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 – ie are healthy, safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and experience 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.

Eight reports have been published in this round, which show that youth services are contributing to most of the five outcomes, particularly helping young people to make a positive contribution and stay healthy.

Also of interest...

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

Being healthy

Half the reports in this round highlight a key role for youth services in contributing to young people’s health and wellbeing. In Bexley, ‘health matters are taken seriously by the youth service’. It works with young people on issues around drugs and alcohol and runs initiatives to improve sexual health, as well as being involved as a partner in delivering ‘an effective teenage pregnancy strategy’. Cheshire youth service is a partner in the Drug Intervention Service in Cheshire (DISC), which is ‘well known and highly respected’. The service also works in collaboration with a number of agencies delivering initiatives which have ‘resulted in a significantly lower rate of teenage pregnancy’. The youth service in Kensington and Chelsea is involved in multi-agency work that tackles drug, alcohol and substance misuse, as well as working with young people on the issues of sexual health and personal safety. Dudley youth service is part of a multi-agency initiative which has ‘worked well together on a range of projects to implement healthy lifestyle programmes for children and young people’. It is also involved in partnership work to support CAMHS staff.

Havering youth service is part of the newly formed Youth Support Service (YSS) within the local authority, offering a range of integrated support services to young people. A joint project with the youth support service has been established to increase health promotion to hard to reach children and young people, and the service has also been involved in delivering training to health promotion staff working with young people in the community. In Kensington and Chelsea, the youth service works alongside schools to provide opportunities for physical exercise ‘with excellent outcomes’. It also provides accessible sports facilities in most of its youth centres ‘to encourage hard-to-reach groups, such as young Muslims, to participate in activities’.

Enjoying and achieving

The contribution youth services and youth workers make to this outcome is through informal learning, particularly with vulnerable groups of young people. Havering youth service offers a range of youth groups that ‘provide good support for young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to develop greater autonomy and take on responsibility’. In Kensington and Chelsea, ‘good opportunities are provided through the youth service for young people’s personal and social development, including for those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities’. Bexley youth service has established a new youth club for special school pupils, and the report notes that in 2006, 90 children and young people with a disability represented Bexley at the youth games.

In Birmingham, ‘the youth service, through its many projects and activities, provides young people with enjoyable opportunities to develop personal qualities, self-esteem and skills’. Sefton youth service ‘is contributing well to the development of opportunities that enable children and young people to enjoy and achieve’. In Cheshire, young people take part in ‘challenging activities to reinforce learning and enjoyment, for example the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award’ and the report states that many young people gain accreditation through these activities. The youth service in Kensington and Chelsea also provides ‘a wide range’ of voluntary learning activities through which young people ‘make good progress’.

Making a positive contribution

This outcome is now established as the area where youth services are seen to make a major contribution.

Local democracy

In Havering, ‘the youth support service acts effectively as a champion for participation of children and young people’. Initiatives run by the service include the training of youth inspectors and a young people friendly award. In Dudley, ‘there are some very good examples of children and young people influencing service provision and development’. Young people air their views by serving as associate governors, participating in the youth council and through the web. They are also involved in the development of the Children’s Fund, staff appointments, commissioning processes and the evaluation of services. Young people in Bexley were involved in the development of Howbury Youth Centre, and young people on the youth council are responsible for the allocation of Youth Opportunity Funding to projects across the borough. In Cheshire, the Youth Voice initiative, led by the youth service, is cited as an example of young people’s participation in decision making being well supported.

Kensington and Chelsea has a ‘vibrant youth forum’ where members contribute ‘effectively and sensitively to decisions on bids for grant funding and are involved in key appointments that affect them’. The report on Kingston upon Hull notes that ‘there was an infectious sense of fun and enthusiasm among young people at a meeting of the youth parliament. Their contribution to proceedings was impressive, taking responsibility for discussion groups and determining the priorities for action’. In Sefton, ‘the regionally recognised youth bank project provides a good example of children and young people making decisions to improve the lives of others’, and the local youth parliament is described as playing ‘an important role in developing an understanding of democracy and citizenship’.

Personal development

In Dudley, young people are ‘well supported in their personal, social and emotional development’ and the report highlights The What Centre, supported by the youth service, as providing ‘effective information, advice and counselling’. The report on Cheshire states that ‘the youth service contributes well to developing young people socially and emotionally’. In Kingston upon Hull, ‘effective work by schools, the youth service and voluntary sector partners enables children and young people to form positive relationships with adults and each other’. The proportion of young people taking part in youth service activities is described as ‘well above average’.

Volunteering

The report on Kensington and Chelsea describes volunteering and youth action as ‘particularly strong within the youth service’ and states that ‘more young people in RBKC are involved in volunteering than is the average nationally, especially girls’. The youth service also runs a ‘thriving volunteer programme’ supporting disabled young people in the borough.

Anti-social behaviour

This round of JARs highlights a number of examples where youth services are involved in effective multi-agency work to help divert young people away from crime and reduce anti-social behaviour. Partnership work involving the youth service in Kingston upon Hull has ‘resulted in an increase in the range of activities available to prevent young people at risk of offending becoming offenders’. The Ball Court Street Football League in Bexley, a diversionary scheme run jointly by the youth service and a local professional club, is effectively engaging hard to reach young people and has contributed to ‘the number of young people with anti-social behaviour orders [being] lower than that of statistical neighbours’. In Sefton, the youth service is working with Connexions and schools to identify those young people who are at risk and engage them in diversionary activities which are helping to raise their self-esteem. This integration of services has led to ‘improved monitoring and support of young offenders’.

The youth service in Kensington and Chelsea operates programmes in the school holidays which engage young people in positive activities to deter them from either being involved in, or the victims of, crime. These activities are described in the report as ‘particularly successful’. ‘Good detached work’ in Havering is helping to engage vulnerable young people and contributing to a reduction in anti-social behaviour in identified ‘hot spots’. In Cheshire, detached work is also described as part of ‘a good range of effective intervention strategies’ that are significantly reducing first-time entrants to the criminal justice system and improving re-offending rates. In Birmingham, ‘outreach work helps to reduce anti-social behaviour by providing alternative activities’.

Supporting vulnerable young people

The report on Birmingham notes that ‘the youth service promotes equality, inclusiveness and diversity particularly well’. The youth service in Cheshire uses detached work to successfully target hard to reach groups, such as young parents. Young parents in Dudley also receive support through the Brierley Hill young parents group. In Havering, ‘youth action groups are enabling more young people from hard to reach groups to be involved’.

In Kensington and Chelsea, there are some ‘outstanding examples of young people with disabilities being fully integrated into key activities such as the youth forum’, and in Kingston upon Hull, targeted youth work sessions at the Kingston Youth Centre provide ‘good support and advocacy services’ to young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities who are looked after.

Achieving economic wellbeing

The contribution made by youth services and youth workers to this outcome is most evident in helping to assist young people back into education, training and employment. In Dudley, the youth service is a key partner in initiatives to target support at the most needy groups. As a result, the report notes ‘there has been a considerable reduction in the number of young people not in education, employment or training’. The youth service in Havering is also working with Connexions and the youth offending service to ‘maintain a good proportion of young offenders in education, employment or training’.