Targeted youth support: Deepen - achievements

This page explains how you will know you have completed the Deepen stage of the targeted youth support (TYS) change process. The achievements are linked to the activities for this stage.

Click to access the activities for the Deepen stage which are referenced below. You can also access case studies relating to this stage.

At the end of the Deepen stage...

1. The TYS team has identified the separate elements and root causes of the most significant issues. The main focus of the Deepen stage is to fully understand the root causes of significant issues and it is important that solutions are not arrived at in the Develop stage without this understanding.

How will you know you have achieved this?

• Practitioners verify the accuracy of the root causes of issues identified during Discover. 
  
  
• Findings are explored with individual senior managers prior to Decision Point 2 in a series of presentations.
  
  
• There is an acceptance at Decision Point 2 from senior staff that the presentation reflects the underlying root causes of issues affecting outcomes for young people.

Activities to support this: 

• Generic deepening workshop
  
  
• 'Week in the life of' tool

2. Services and agencies for young people and the children's trust have further increased their awareness of potential priorities and target benefits. It is important that all partners in the children's trust develop a common understanding of priorities and benefits.

How will you know you have achieved this?

• There is agreement from all agencies about the priorities for the Develop stage. This is expressed through a series of critical questions that need answering.
  
  
• Communication between participants in the change process reflects the increased awareness.
  
  
• There is multi-agency participation in workshops.
  
  
• There is increasing agreement on the measures that will be used and the actions that will be taken by strategic stakeholders through the governance structure.

Activity to support this:

• Thresholds workshop

3. The collected data has been analysed and presented to senior management at Decision Point 2 and a list of critical questions has been agreed. Decision Point 2 should be a reflection of all the data, views and opinions gathered from the focused Interviews, multi-agency workshops and engaging with young people

How will you know you have achieved this?

• Your data is checked against and consistent with the children and young people's plan and, where possible, against research evidence.
  
  
• Practitioners verify that the data in Decision Point 2 is a fair reflection of their views.
  
  
• An audit trail for all data and views is collected.
  
  
• Key findings and next steps are presented to members of the senior management group on an individual basis before the Decision Point 2 presentation.
  
  
• Senior managers agree the priorities and critical questions to be addressed for the next stage of the process at Decision Point 2.

Activities to support this: 

• Developing and delivering the Decision Point 2 presentation
  
  
• Thresholds workshop

4. Young people and the scope established in the project initiation document remain the focus of the project. It is easy to lose focus of the purpose of TYS, which is improving outcomes for at-risk young people. It is also easy for the scope of the project to creep to expand in an unmanaged and unintentional way. This should be avoided.

How will you know you have achieved this?

• Constant feedback from practitioners that your material is focused upon young people.
  
  
• Young people continue to participate directly in activities during this stage.
  
  
• The key part of multi-agency workshops is the young person's journey activity.
  
  
• The project team constantly checks it has maintained focus on the agreed scope.
  
  
• Some of the performance indicators being considered to evaluate the success of the project have come from work with young people.

Activities to support this: 

• Risk and resilience workshop
  
  
• Young person's journey (part of the multi-agency workshop in the Discover stage)

Click to access the activities or case studies for the Deepen stage, or to go on to Develop.