CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE – 28 MAY 2003
OPPORTUNITIES
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE’S TASK GROUP
REPORT OF THE HEAD OF SELECT COMMITTEE AND BEST VALUE SUPPORT
REASON FOR COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION
This report is submitted to the members of the committee as an update on the work and progress of the Opportunities for Young People’s Task Group.
ACTION REQUIRED BY THE COMMITTEE
For
information and to consider possible resources
BACKGROUND
The Task Group was formed to address the issues arising from the BV Review of Opportunities for Young People.
This is a summary of the work to date.
The main difficulty has been a shortage of resources to tackle some fairly wide-ranging issues which don’t sit neatly within any particular department’s remit. This was made more of a problem when the budget process saw the removal of the pot of pump-priming money from which bids were to be made for both a work experience co-ordinator, and to set up 3 hang-out shelters as pilot projects.
A draft “Task Group” strategy has been prepared, just including the issues arising from the review. This could be developed to include the rest of the IWC, including the major players such as Education, Social Services and the Youth Service, but the resources don’t exist to do this.
The development of a strategy is one of the possible tasks for the Youth Council when it is elected in the autumn.
The creation of such a post was not universally supported, and it has, anyway, been partly met by the Youth Empowerment Worker post. The latter, however, has a limited funding time, and resources need to be found to both make that a permanent position and to develop it into an overall co-ordinator post.
A database of young people’s projects and organisations is now live on iwight.com and is proving useful, but it was never intended to be a substitute for a proper web-site.
Initial contacts have been made with organisations such as the IW College and the Health Service, and while there is a fair degree of interest in a web-site, no-one has resources to spare.
Research into web-sites at other LA’s has shown that most are done through their Youth Councils, sometimes with some officer support, but usually with little or no other budget.
Our own ICT dept. are keen to provide a platform, along with help and advice, and the steering group for our Youth Council want to get involved, but it isn’t a high priority for them at the moment.
Our proposal is to wait until the establishment of the Youth Council in the autumn, and then give them the opportunity to drive it forward.
It is recognised that, with the exception of one or two departments, we are a very poor provider of work experience placements. This is a wasted opportunity for the young people themselves and for the Council as a first step in our strategy to grow-our-own (which is one-way of meeting the recruitment difficulties experienced by some services).
Work experience was the single item on the agenda for the task group meeting of 27th May, with Max Burton, Reg Barry and Margaret Lloyd attending. A verbal update will be given on that meeting.
Some good progress has already been made.
The Young Employees Forum have developed both a mentoring scheme to help young people on work placements at the Council, and a system for monitoring how good each placement is for both the young person and the department involved. This is currently being trialled.
This will lead on to the development of some indictors to measure our performance.
All service areas, and schools, have been asked to organise placements through our Human Resources section so that the above work can be co-ordinated properly.
All section heads are to be contacted to discover how many placements they currently take, and what their difficulties are. They will then be encouraged to provide a brief description of the placements they can offer. This will be circulated to schools to enable pupils to pick the sort of work experience they would like.
The work experience co-ordinators in the High Schools are very supportive, and encouraged by this approach. We will be looking for feed-back from them, and also more information about the sort of placements required.
Some work is also required to look at graduate trainee schemes, and the possibility of paying final year fees as part of a golden handcuffs arrangement, to attract more staff.
No progress has been made on this item. The task group would like some guidance as to whether, and how, this could be progressed.
This project is being progressed by the Youth & Community Service and the task group have not been involved.
The relevant officers in the Policy Unit were contacted with the request to specifically include the needs of young people in the two documents.
Without a source of funding for new shelters, the Council’s main contribution will be through the help and advice which the Youth Empowerment Worker can supply to local ventures such as the East Cowes and Freshwater initiatives. (Effectively pilot Hang-out Shelters on the Island).
It is also intended to develop a guidance leaflet, listing the issues which need to be addressed, including possible points from Planning, Property Services, Environmental Health etc.
This would be circulated to Town & Parish Councils etc who may be considering similar schemes.
RELEVANT PLANS, POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
BV Review of Opportunities for Young People.
CONSULTATION PROCESS
Various
as described in body of report.
None
APPENDICES ATTACHED
None
BACKGROUND PAPERS USED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS REPORT
BV Review of Opportunities for Young People.
Contact Point : Don Roe, Best Value Review Unit Manager, 823687, [email protected]
ALISTAIR DRAIN
Head of Select Committee and Best Value Support