The National Youth Agency - eYPU, Issue 218, 20 August 2008

eYPU, Issue 218, 20 August 2008

22 Aug 2008

POSITIVE ACTIVITIES

The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) has announced extra funding for young people across the country to experience adventure, arts, media projects and residential summer camps. The £4.5m funding will run from 2008-2011 and follows a commitment in The 10 year Youth Strategy – Aiming High for Young People to build on the Do it 4 Real programme to offer more young people from deprived neighbourhoods access to residential opportunities.

Also of interest...

LOCAL AUTHORITIES - DATA

There is an on-line tracker tool on the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) website which enables users to see which national indicators have been selected by local authorities as part of their new local area agreements. National Indicator Tracker tool >>

Communities and Local Government (CLG) have established a reporting mechanism to help ensure that national indicator data need be collected just once. The Data Interchange Hub has been introduced with two main aims: to reduce the burden on collecting data for local authorities, and to ensure that local authorities have all the information that they need to gauge their own performance against the National Indicators.

CLG have produced a report that assesses key small area datasets for target setting, performance monitoring and wider contextual analysis. It is one of two reports published from the Neighbourhood-level Indicator Datasets project, which is aimed at local authorities and their partners wishing to use neighbourhood-level data.

HEALTH

Interim guidance drawn up by the Department of Health and the General Medical Council will see accident and emergency doctors informing the police whenever someone goes to hospital for treatment for wounds inflicted in a knife attack. The guidance, due to go out to consultation next month indicates that doctors will not have to breach confidentiality as they would not have to disclose the victims name and address when they first make contact. The governments campaign 'It doesn't have to happen', urging young people not to carry knife was endorsed by England football players.

Increasing the age of compulsory education and training to 18 could help to cut England's persistently high teenage pregnancy rates, according to research looking at rises in participation age in Norway and the United States, published by the Royal Economic Society. The research revealed that whilst attitudes to teenage mothers vary considerably between the countries, the impact of increasing the duration of education was similar, especially among lower achieving pupils.

The NHS Information Centre has published data on drug misuse in England for 2008.

EDUCATION

A Guardian article argues that young people with learning disabilities need better options when they leave school. There are an estimated 210,000 people with severe and profound learning disabilities in England. Many end up in inappropriate adult day centres once they have left school or find themselves isolated, without any services. Fewer than one in 20 go into paid work.

The DCSF report that this year's A-level results show that there is an increase in the number of A-level passes. The latest results mean that there has been a 9.6 per cent rise in the pass rate at A Level since 1997 (from 87.6 per cent to 97.2 per cent), and a 18.2 per cent rise in the proportion of A-C grades awarded (from 55.7 per cent to 73.9 per cent).

A North-South divide in the performance of teenagers has been reported this year's A-level results, according to a regional breakdown of results produced by exam boards. In total, nearly 50 per cent more candidates achieved A-grade passes in the South-east than in the North-east. The Association of School and College Leaders point to differences in parental aspiration and the London Challenge funding as key factors in the regional results.

Children from the poorest homes are being systematically failed in their education because their schools are not receiving the funding needed to properly support them, new research suggests.

Figures obtained by the End Child Poverty campaign reveal that in vast areas of the country fewer than one in eight of children who receive free school meals leaves school with five good GCSEs, including English and maths. Across England half of children reach that target but for the 14% of children who qualify for free lunches that figure stands at just 21%.

CRIME

Findings of recent research from Clubs for Young People (CYP), the umbrella group of 3,000 UK youth clubs, are reported as showing that more ASBOs being issued in places where fewer youth clubs exist.

Analysis of crime statistics by consultants Local Futures shows a clear urban-rural divide with the highest crime areas are being in cities. People have a one in 10 risk of being a victim of crime in the highest crime districts, but only there is a one in 50 risk in the best, the figures reveal. The British Crime Survey found 66% of people believe crime has increased nationally; 26% believe crime in their area has increased a little and 3% believe it has increased in their area a lot.

HIGHER EDUCATION

A survey of more than 2,000 students by Push.co.uk - the organisation that provides a guide for new university students - has found that student debt levels have greatly increased, with those starting university this year expected to owe more than £20,000 by the time they graduate.

INTERGENERATIONAL

The Full of Life study, a government initiative designed to celebrate the role older people play in society has found that young people aged 15 - 24 have the widest social circle with two thirds regularly spending time with friends both older and younger than themselves. Almost two thirds also reject the view that they do not have anything in common with other ages.