Targeted youth support: redesigning services - developing alternatives to school as part of things to do

Issue

Youth Matters reinforces the need to provide young people with a range of things to do and places to go. Some children and young people, for whatever reason, do not regularly attend school. Worcestershire believes that it is important to provide these young people with alternative options to standard education and advice.

Background

While there was good work going on, which supported individual young people who were missing school, this was largely delivered by individual agencies like Connexions. There was need for a more coordinated and formalised multi-agency approach.

There is an extended school cluster in the targeted youth support (TYS) pathfinder area which hosts a multi-agency support team including child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and educational psychologists.

A drop-in service called Time4U providing health advice on issues such as sexual health, contraception, substance misuse and mental wellbeing support operates in schools and community youth clubs in the area.

Actions prompted by TYS

One TYS change team is working to develop and extend existing good practice around young people in the area. A second team is working on improving the engagement of young people in service development.

Although the two TYS change teams are working separately, they are feeding their work into each other to ensure that they build on the existing good work services in the area have been doing, for example, in supporting children and young people not at school.

For the first time, TYS has helped us to get all the right people in the room together to really unpick why young people aren't at school, and address these key issues and start to make changes for the better.

Joe Green, participation and engagement coordinator, children and young people strategic partnerships (CYPSP), Worcestershire County Council.

The change teams include representatives from a very wide range of agencies, including the youth service, Connexions, the multi-agency support team (including CAMHS and educational psychology), the extended school cluster, the local FE college, the district council, community safety and the voluntary sector.

A number of these agencies have representatives on both teams. They are working together to seek out the views of young people and look at how they can improve the provision of the 14-19 agenda.

One issue identified through engaging young people, is that young people have not been able to access Connexions services as part of Time4U in the evenings.

Benefits and results

A straightforward quick win of the TYS process is that schools are taking part in the multi-agency dialogue in a way they hadn't before with all the other relevant providers of education for 14-19 year olds.

The impact of this is especially significant. For the first time, there is comprehensive data about what young people want from schools and education, which has been made available from the TYS process engagement of young people. Responding to this can involve providing additional services within and outside school hours.

Senior Connexions managers have committed to support this work by making sure that the good communication with young people is maintained and that plans are successfully implemented. A Connexions PA is now working with Time4U in the evenings to help young people get back into education, employment and training. Young people can self-refer to this service.

Services for young people are being evaluated through client satisfaction surveys to ensure they are working well.

The local authority

Worcestershire is a large county authority. Its TYS pathfinder is focused on a rural area and two deprived urban sites. The authority's statistical neighbours include Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, West Sussex, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, East Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Bedfordshire and Shropshire.

Click to read more case studies on redesigning services to help young people with particular needs.