Impact of Social Welfare Advice

The NYA Research Programme has worked in partnership with Youth Access to explore young people's needs for advice, their advice-seeking strategies and the impact getting advice (or not) has on their lives and outcomes.

The NYA and Youth Access commissioned the Legal Services Research Centre (LSRC) to re-analyse data from the 2004 English and Welsh Civil and Social Justice Survey, a survey of people's experience of and response to 18 broad types of civil law problem, including homelessness, debt, welfare benefits and domestic violence. The survey involved 5015 interviews, 11% of which were with young people aged 18-24.

The findings from the research have clear implications for both the legal advice sector, who need to do more to meet the needs of young people (particularly socially isolated young people), and the services commissioned through children's trusts as part of their Information Advice and Guidance and targeted youth support offers.

The full results paper was launched at a seminar in London in February . Delegates also heard the emerging findings from Youth Access's Rights to Access Project, which is capturing evidence of the impact of advice and optimum methods of advice delivery through a longitudinal study, outcomes monitoring and an evaluation of legal advice pilots. Together, these two studies demonstrate to policy makers the important role that youth workers, PAs, advice workers and advocacy workers can play in providing rights-based information, advice and assistance to disadvantaged young adults.

The survey results can be downloaded here:

Young People and Civil Justice

A report of the seminar held to launch the research findings is available here:

Young People’s Social Welfare Needs and the Impact of Good Advice

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