Agenda item

Members of the Board scrutinised a report of the Director of Communities and an associated presentation from the Youth Service, which provided an update on Oldham Council Youth Service Performance, highlighting Key work streams.

The youth service provided an informal education service, working with people (aged 11 – 25 yrs.), enabling young people to develop holistically, working in partnership with young people to support and facilitate their personal, social, political and educational development. The service provided opportunities for young people to develop their voice, influence and place with society and supports them to make positive choices and reach their full potential as individuals, members of their community and members of society. 

The service provided a comprehensive range of youth work programmes, projects and opportunities and comprised three distinct teams.

·         The detached youth work team,

·         The district youth work team

·         The Boroughwide team. 

The Service worked to the national youth work curriculum which provided 10 thematic curriculum areas that sets out the educational process which underpin the quality youth work that they delivered. It was not a prescribed syllabus but rather a framework to support and develop their practice as a catalyst for learning. The National Youth Work Curriculum is a flexible framework which allowed youth workers to identify how their interventions and activities can be used to support the personal, social and political development of young people. Above all, their Curriculum responded to the diversity of young people’s needs, interests and to the concerns of young people.

In 2021 the service received a core investment of £80,000 to support the establishment of a core youth work offer across all five districts of Oldham. The service underwent a restructure to secure alignment with the Places based model of working within Oldham and to deliver a consistent youth work offer across Oldham.

The key objectives of the services were identified as:

·         To meet the identified needs of young people in Oldham via a range of high-quality youth work programmes and interventions, with delivery aligned to placed based working approaches.

·         To raise aspirations and attainment of young people through informal and non-formal education and community-based learning opportunities

·         To support young people to have a voice and influence in all matters that affect their lives. 

·         To support the wider youth sector to contribute to the wider youth offer, have a shared voice, and promote collaborative and effective partnership working.

·         The service is gradually getting back to pre-pandemic levels which is in line with regional and national trends.  Oldham, after Manchester, has highest visitor footfall in Greater Manchester.

As part of the Youth Service’s Strategic leadership, they had developed a children and young people’s participation Framework for Oldham to enable the service to build on a culture of positive participation. A Children and Young People’s Participation framework has been developed which is aimed at supporting the development of a culture of participation across all services working with and on behalf of children and young people. This will guarantee the place of children and young people participation as a long-term priority with its principles reflected and embedded in all future strategies and in turn practice. The Framework includes:

·         Provision of shared definitions and language.

·         The multiple benefits of participation with children and young people.

·         Legal and legislative drivers around the rights and requirements of participation work with children and young people.

·         Clear principles that should be underpinning all participation work.

·         A charter, devised by young people around putting principles into practice.

·         A series of shared objectives around participation.

·         Information around our existing participation work both collective and individual.

·         A preferred model for participation – as adopted across Greater Manchester.

·         Application of the model to our current whole system approach to participation.

·         Useful tools and links to further support participation work with children and young people.

The Framework is underpinned with a preferred participation Model – the LUNDY model, as this has been adopted within GM as the preferred model for children and young people’s participation and ensures our participation work in Oldham is aligned and compliments wider work across the GM system. The Framework has been developed with engagement from a range of key stakeholders, Including:

·         Young people supporting the development of the framework via workshops with our youth voice family. 

·         A range of stakeholders including Childrens Social Care, Childrens Commissioning, Education, Youth Services and Strategic Youth Partnership.

Members of the Scrutiny Board considered the report and presentation in some detail seeking clarification on a number of issues including budgetary provision and funding, measures to tackle anti-social behaviour, use of facilities – including community centres and an analysis of what young people considered to be the current key issues, which included vaping and violent crime and anti-social behaviour.

Resolved:

1.    That the report be noted and welcomed.

2.    That the Youth Service be invited to attend the Scrutiny Board in approximately 12 months to update members on their activities and progress against achieving their key objectives.