The National Youth Agency - Portsmouth - Section 64 project work report

Portsmouth - Section 64 project work report

The overall objective of the Section 64 work undertaken by NYA and Children’s Trust partners in Portsmouth was originally commissioned thorough the Primary Care Trust.

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The detail negotiated with the local authority and specific local providers from the statutory and voluntary youth sectors, was summarised as follows:

“Joint working to improve the health of young people in multi- agency, integrated services through work with key partners at local level…”

Read the report on the Young People's Health and Targeted Youth Support (TYS) Seminar held at the John Pounds Centre in Portsmouth at the end of June 2008.

Young People's Health and Targeted Youth Support (TYS) Seminar - June 2008

The main recommendations of the report are outlined below.

There was a reasonable level of acceptance for the locality team proposals, with a keen sense from delegates as to how they might be improved at community level and what the immediate sticking points might be, especially in regard to positioning individual young people at the centre of the process of support.
However, having started the consultation process openly, there is an expectation – if not a demand – that this process is strengthened through continued “communication and information sharing” in a wide variety of ways (network meetings, e-mails and other formats) and that recommendations made at the event should be “acted on”
Despite one identified gap, the CAF training and preparation seems to have been well received, but there is a request for continued support in this area, especially with forming an understanding of the role of the Lead Professional both within professional groupings, and at the centre of locality teams and groups.
There is a demand for a fresh look at who works with young people on the ground, and how this work can be broadened to include newer skill sets (Community Wardens for example) and a plea to look again at the key arenas for young people, especially schools, and how to make better sense of the professionals working in different ways in those arenas.
Throughout the day, there was a repeated concern that the new TYS service should – perhaps above all else – listen to and take note of the young people at the centre of this system, and their parents and carers. Whilst the phrase “team around the child” has become accepted shorthand for the ideal relationship between professionals and client in TYS, perhaps we need to include in this notion a greater sense of two way communication and negotiation, rather than an encircling of helping services.

The report states that “the intention is to use this feedback to further shape and improve local TYS plans”, it will be used to help induct the new locality Service Managers appointed to help take Portsmouth’s IYSS forward.

For further information contact Richard McKie – National Programme Manager, Health