The National Youth Agency - Eleventh and twelfth round Joint Area Reviews (JARs)

Eleventh and twelfth round Joint Area Reviews (JARs)

Ofsted has published two more rounds of Joint Area Reviews (JARs) which continue to include 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 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.

Also of interest...

A total of eight reports have been published 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.

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 JARs.

Being healthy

Half the reports provide good examples of how youth services are contributing to young people’s health and wellbeing. In Wolverhampton, the youth service is involved in Base 25, a ‘well-used’ multi-agency centre that provides a wide range of advice, guidance and support for young people. Services available at the centre include an open-access contraceptive service and programmes around drug and substance misuse. Hospital-based youth workers are described as ‘a good example of partnership working’ and have helped to develop a better understanding of the support needs of children and young people, particularly those with physical and mental health needs.

The KISS project (Knowledge and Information about Sex and Sexuality) is a youth service partnership project in Nottingham that has helped make sexual health services more accessible and young people friendly. The report also notes that young people have been ‘effectively involved in reshaping the services and are used as mystery shoppers to evaluate the quality of services’.

In Thurrock, the youth service provides good support to substance misuse services, providing young people with the opportunity to act as peer mentors and educators on a ‘very good youth service drugs project’. The youth service in North Tyneside is described as making a ‘valuable contribution to sex and relationship education’, which has aided a ‘sustained and marked downward trend in teenage pregnancy’.

Enjoying and achieving

Youth services and youth workers make a valuable contribution to this outcome through the provision of informal learning, particularly with vulnerable groups of young people. The X21 (exclusion to inclusion) project in Thurrock helps young people excluded from school achieve basic skills and develop their self-confidence. The youth service is also described as providing ‘very successful recreational activities’ such as a music studio and street football sessions. In North Tyneside, the Youth Project also provides ‘very good provision’ for excluded young people, supporting them to develop interpersonal and social skills and enabling them to gain awards for their achievements.

The Hainault Youth Centre in Redbridge offers personal development sessions for young people at risk of exclusion, and youth service provision for children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is described as ‘good’ with many young people ‘making tangible progress in their personal development’. The report on Bedfordshire notes that ‘youth workers are successfully engaging an increasing number of young people in a variety of projects and programmes in a range of settings within and beyond the youth service’.

Making a positive contribution

Reports show that youth services consistently make a major contribution to this outcome.

Local democracy

Young people in Wolverhampton ‘actively participate in the Youth Council and other major initiatives such as YouthBanks’. The report describes the Youth Council as having a well established democratic process that takes account of the widest views of children and young people. It highlights the Youth Council Disability Sub-group as an ‘excellent example’ of this process. Its members are given training to communicate with and seek the views of children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, including those with complex needs. The report on Merton notes that ‘young people feel positive about both their opportunities to “have their say” and the way their views are listened to’, and cites a number of examples of how young people have been able to influence the improvement of services. Young people are routinely involved in the recruitment of staff, and the quality of local parks has improved as a result of their views. The deployment of the Youth Opportunities Fund by a panel of young people is described as a ‘particularly good example of how young people’s participation benefits all those involved’.

In North Tyneside, the chairs of the Youth Council and area youth forums meet regularly with members of the council, and a group of young people have been trained to support the Elected Mayor in making decisions about the allocation of bids to a ‘well-being fund’. Young people are also involved in staff recruitment and training for foster carers, and are members of neighbourhood groups and management committees in statutory and voluntary services. The report on Thurrock also notes that members of the Youth Cabinet are ‘frequently consulted on a range of issues and consultation days engage larger numbers of young people’. Young people in Bedfordshire have been effectively involved in improving the quality of youth service sessions. In Redbridge, members of the Youth Council influenced an initiative on improving school meals and trained young people to administer the Youth Opportunities Fund. Young people in Barking and Dagenham ‘speak of their participation with enthusiasm’ and are working on a video to help combat bullying.

Personal development

The report on Merton notes that ‘youth workers are a source of highly valued personal support for some young people at key moments of need’. In Nottingham, young people express ‘high satisfaction’ with the quality of their relationships with youth workers. Youth work in Thurrock has led to ‘increased self-confidence’ among young people in touch with the youth service and the report notes that they have made ‘tangible progress in their development’.

Volunteering

There are many examples of good support for young people’s volunteering. In North Tyneside, ‘significant numbers participate in volunteering activities’. Young people are involved in offering peer support to children with disabilities participating in volunteering opportunities, and the Millennium Volunteers Scheme for young people with disabilities has received national recognition. In Nottingham, ‘effective arrangements are in place to encourage children and young people to take part in and to initiate voluntary activities’. Young people in Merton are also described as receiving ‘good support and encouragement’ to engage in voluntary activity, and in Thurrock, ‘volunteering is both encouraged and monitored in order to promote its further development’.

Anti-social behaviour

Nottingham youth service’s involvement in multi-agency working to address anti-social behaviour is described as ‘a strong feature’. The partnership focuses on early intervention and prevention and the youth service operates a ‘hot-spot tasking’ initiative to deal with local issues. In Wolverhampton, ‘good partnership arrangements’ between Connexions and the youth service ‘ensure that young people at risk of becoming involved in anti-social behaviour receive good additional support’. Two full-time youth workers are seconded to the Positive Activities for Young People programme. Young people in Wolverhampton say they have good contact with the police through youth clubs, complimented by diversionary programmes delivered by the Base 25 centre. In Bedfordshire the youth service supports outreach work that is making an impact on crime reduction. The mid-Bedfordshire youth-led action group for disengaged young people is cited as one of ‘numerous examples’ of projects to tackle anti-social behaviour. In Thurrock, links between youth workers and the Safer Thurrock Partnership are also described as ‘effective’.

Supporting vulnerable young people

The Base 25 centre in Wolverhampton is described as offering ‘an excellent range of services to support vulnerable children and young people, including young carers and those affected by alcohol-and-drug-abusing parents and carers’. In Redbridge, the youth service alongside a special educational needs project is described as making a ‘particularly strong contribution to the personal development of children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities’. Looked after children and young people in Nottingham have two representatives in the Youth Council and the report notes that they ‘are becoming increasingly involved in making decisions about their own lives and influencing services’.

Economic wellbeing

Youth services’ contribution to this outcome is most evident in helping to assist young people back into education, employment or training. In Thurrock, young people not engaged in education, employment or training (NEET) have been ‘successfully targeted’ through the GAPP and X21 projects run by the youth service. The report notes that ‘all the young people who attended the X21 project in 2005/06 were subsequently in training, education or employment by June 2006’. The youth service in Bedfordshire delivers an ‘effective programme on money matters to groups of Year 11 students who are undertaking an alternative curriculum programme’. In Redbridge, the youth service works closely with Connexions and other partners to provide young people with advice and guidance in schools and drop-in centres. The report also describes the youth service as ‘particularly effective’ in supporting young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to increase their confidence and enhance their personal development. Young people have also been involved in a major public consultation on a regeneration project which will extend leisure and recreational facilities to make them more appropriate for young people and other community groups.