The Welsh Government Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015  and the recommendations from Donaldson’s Successful Futures review gives youth work in Wales a refreshed opportunity to prove its value and create for itself a sustainable future.

This article explores the contribution youth work can make to these Welsh Government policy agendas.

Jamie Jones-Mead was awarded a bursary from Youthworkwales to complete this article.

Jamie is a professionally qualified youth and community worker.  He has 15 years’ experience as a youth worker and has worked in a number of settings in Wales, the UK and globally. 

These include in statutory youth services, with young disabled people, young offenders, young cancer patients and significant experience in the third sector.  As well as being an experienced practitioner, Jamie has a particular interest in health and wellbeing, having spearheaded and managed ASH Wales' youth tobacco and smoking programmes, and is currently working in a public health setting.

Autumn 2015 paper from the Principal Youth Officers' Group (PYOG) on the role of youth work in the current policy environment in Wales.

This paper, prepared by a UK-wide alliance of representative youth work bodies, sets out the basis for a fully developed and properly resourced youth policy which the country needs now.

       

 

This strategy sets the direction for youth work organisations for the next four years and builds on a consultation exercise undertaken in 2013. The strategy recognises the value and role of open-access youth work provision; promotes a stronger connection between youth work provision and formal education; identifies the need for closer working between statutory and voluntary youth work organisations; and identifies the need to significantly strengthen the evidence base on the impact of youth work across Wales. The Welsh Government, national and local voluntary organisations, as well as local authorities, will need to work together to successfully implement the identified actions and drive youth work forward.

Issue 11 Summer 2003

CONTENTS
4 News 
8 The role of the Youth Service in Extending Entitlement - John Rose
12 Sexual health clinic for Wrexham Infoshop
14 Opportunities for international work plus project management training
16 Supervision in action
20 Caerphilly Youth Forum
22 Learning Pathways 14-19 - the voluntary sector contribution 
24 European experience for Welsh youth workers 
26 Staff College and the new QCA Level 4 programme 
28  Tooled up - toolkit for curriculum planning 
29  Dafydd Baker of Chequers 

Issue 12 Winter 2003 

CONTENTS

4 News
9 Good practice in photographing young people
10 Social inclusion, partnerships and learning – the role of the Youth Service in Extending Entitlement - John Holmes
14 Llanrumney generation project bridges the age gap 
16 Overview of the European YOUTH funding programme, plus connecting futures in Azerbaijan 
18 Veronica Wilson discusses the concept of young people’s participation
21 Courtney Taylor poses the question, is youth work training in Wales standing still or moving forward?
24 Bert Jones talks about sustainable youth work at the Youth Cymru conference
28 The Handy Guide to Self Assessment and YWSPP Toolkit 
30 Janice Roberts of Denbighshire Youth Service 

 

This document is focused on reducing the number of young people aged 11 to 25 who are not engaged in education, employment or training (NEET). All parts of the system from Welsh Government, National Partners, local authorities and providers will need to work together to successfully implement this plan. The plan sets out the different roles and responsibilities of key players and expectations for how each partner will deliver. Partners include senior leaders in local authorities, Careers Wales, the Youth Service and providers (schools, further education (FE) colleges, work-based learning (WBL)). 

The Youth engagement and progression framework – Implementation plan has six key elements:

1. Identifying young people most at risk of disengagement.
2. Better brokerage and coordination of support.
3. Stronger tracking and transitions of young people through the system.
4. Ensuring provision meets the needs of young people.
5. Strengthening employability skills and opportunities for employment.
6. Greater accountability for better outcomes for young people.

There are two new offers to young people through the framework.

• The first is the allocation of single point of contact (a lead worker) to the most at-risk young people to help ensure that support is delivered in a joined up and coordinated way and that works to meet their needs.
• The second is the development of a proactive and positive Youth Guarantee that will help to ensure that every young person has access to a suitable place in learning post-16. 

The Youth Engagement and Progression Framework (YEPF) aims to reduce the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). The Framework has six components, proven to be effective at increasing youth engagement and progression when implemented together as part of a strategy. These are: early identification, better brokerage and coordination of support; stronger tracking and transition of young people; ensuring provision meets the needs of young people; a focus on employability skills and opportunities for employment among young people; and greater accountability. Local authorities (LAs) have been charged with the role of leading implementation of the Framework, working closely with Careers Wales, youth services, schools, training providers to those aged 16 and over and other partners.  

The evaluation aimed to assess progress made to implement the Framework and the effectiveness of implementation processes with a view to considering whether the non-statutory guidance is sufficient to achieve the Welsh Government’s ambitions and targets and identifying learning to improve guidance and implementation. 

This document is in support of the Youth engagement and progression framework. This document provides initial guidance to local authorities and key partners regarding the Youth Guarantee and the key processes that need to be put in place to ensure young people remain engaged in education, employment or training. The document will be informed by pilot activity and will be finalised in autumn 2014 before the Youth Guarantee is implemented across Wales.

In the Youth Engagement and Progression Framework Implementation Plan we commit to introducing a guarantee to a place in education or training for young people leaving compulsory education for the first time. Our Youth Guarantee is the “offer, acceptance and commencement of a suitable place in education or training for a young person making the first time transition from compulsory education at age 16.”

The Youth Guarantee is being piloted in the North and West regions of Wales from November 2013 to October 2014. It is planned that the Youth Guarantee will be rolled out across Wales from November 2014 to October 2015. This means that the first young people will take up their offers under the Guarantee in September and October 2015.