Routes to Success

This is a time of unprecedented change for the youth sector. Councils are facing significant challenges in shaping their local offer for young people. Radical budget reductions mean tough decisions about the services that can be provided in the future. Councils need to know what works and what will lead to the best outcomes for young people, longer-term.

This is where the NYA improvement offer – Routes to Success can help.

Building on our historic relationship, NYA as part of our our programme of work comissioned by the Local Government Association is supporting councils to:

• Improve quality and cost effectiveness

• Understand effective commissioning

• Build local capacity

• Redesign services

• Ensure effective contract management

• Measure returns on investment

• Lever additional resources

 

What is the NYA offer?

The Routes to Success programme is a new sector-led approach to supporting improvement in local authority youth services. It draws together a range of products and services from the National Youth Agency, developed through and informed by their leading role in the sector, to build a more responsive offer to councils.

Over many years, local authority youth services have been able to access a wide range of information, advice, tools, products, events and services from the National Youth Agency. Every year, we work with over 60 local authorities to support their role in developing and advocating for excellent services for young people.

This offer brings together a number of opportunities of support to form a comprehensive package for councils. It will enable all local authority areas to work with the NYA, selecting the level of support they need, and the key issues they would like to explore.

Councils are central in shaping our work as it develops – your needs and experiences will help the offer to grow and respond to the sector over this next year.

 

How will it work?

The offer has three strands available free for Local Authority young people’s services:

Foundation strand

This strand is available to all councils in England, free of charge, and includes frameworks and toolkits to support quality and participation; specialist guidance around workforce development.

Tailored Support

The tailored support strand works with councils on specific issues. This includes consultancy advice, training and peer support, in a progressively bespoke way to meet individual circumstances. NYA will work intensively with a number of councils per year who meet the set criteria, at no cost to them.

To access support on offer read the Criteria for Support and submit your application to the National Youth Agency.

Emerging Themes and Development

 

This strand ensures that the offer remains current and flexible. It develops new products and services, responding to the needs and issues identified by councils accessing the other strands.

This offer will be accessible via a new Knowledge Hub – an online gateway which houses up to date information on policy and practice, promoting and sharing, and guiding access to the different strands of the offer. The themes for this year include work on outcomes frameworks, futher work on the engaement of the private sector and work on the Troubled Families Agenda.

Keep up to date by joining the Knowledge Hub.

How will the offer help me?

The offer brings together all the expertise and key products of the National Youth Agency in one accessible package. It can help in a number of ways:

• Improved local performance

• The voice of young people is raised, and their influence secured

• High quality services are assured

• Strengthened local commissioning and accountability

• Capacity is built and value is added

• A confident, well-trained and motivated workforce

• Better informed councilors.

 

Principles

The principles that underpin our offer are:

• An offer that is build around the NYA’s core themes of advocacy and improvement

• A flexible and responsive offer, adaptable to the needs of individual councils

• A sector-led offer, driven by the experiences of councils

• A supportive offer, that will strengthen and enhance developments in the sector

• A free offer, which is available and accessible to all local authorities

• An offer that will evolve over time, taking into account new learning from across the sector

• An integrated offer, that will help councils and their partners and stakeholders work together more effectively and efficiently

• A quality offer, building on the knowledge and expertise of the NYA.

Our programme builds on the NYA’s sector expertise in providing a national perspective on all aspects of youth work policy and practice and quality frameworks to councils, and will be responsive to their needs.

The diagram below shows the ‘wrap around’ nature of the COP and highlights the main content for the offer.

 

 

 

Sector views will shape and ensure an offer that continues to meet the needs of young people’s services.