Quality Mark

Providing Quality Services for Young People

We believe in the power of Youth Work and the difference it can make to young people’s lives. A wealth of knowledge exists which demonstrates a clear link between the quality of services provided to young people and the outcomes they achieve in their transition to adulthood.

A Framework for Development

The National Youth Agency Quality Mark enables organisations, however large or small, to reflect upon and review the services that they offer young people, enabling them to explore ways to develop and provide youth work to the best possible standard.

Quality Mark is built on the National Occupational Standards for youth work. We recognise that strong relationships are the foundation for all good youth work practice and the standards within the framework provide an opportunity to celebrate the many skilled and effective youth workers who practice educational and developmental youth work, supporting young people to identify their strengths, and to use those to learn, grow and become active members of their communities. The three standards are:

Young people’s personal & social development and learning
Quality of youth work practice
Leadership and management

Quality Mark is an organisational reflective tool built on a framework of three standards with 12 indicators to create and embed a culture of learning and growth.

Using Quality Mark creates a dialogue for professional practice and supports organisations to embed a culture of learning and growth. It is a development path for those seeking excellence; bringing about positive change.

There are three levels within Quality Mark which have been designed to provide a progression ladder to inspire growth and are applicable to a small, one night a week projects, through to a large multi-site youth work organisation.

Quality Mark reinforces the theory that if we know the needs of young people, respond to those by delivering quality youth work delivered by trained people then the outcomes for young people will be strong.