Targeted youth support: redesigning services - supporting young people through transition and preventing NEET

Issue

To prevent young people becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) and supporting young people through Key Stage 3-4 and post-16 transitions.

Background

Through the work of multi-agency teams and the ECM agenda, Derby City has made significant achievements to integrate its children's services. It has, for example, processes in place to capture and identify post-16 destination data (young people's choices after leaving school) and support young people to make positive transitions.

However, significant numbers of young people are becoming NEET a year after leaving school in the area. A key reason for this is that the agencies did not have methodical formal processes in place to identify young people at risk of becoming NEET. This supports research conclusions that early intervention prevents poor outcomes later on.

Actions prompted by targeted youth support

The targeted youth support (TYS) change process engaged a very broad sample of young people, parents and practitioners to identify their key concerns.

Three TYS change teams were set up to address the priority issues that came out of this. The teams comprised the Youth Service, Connexions, training providers, the voluntary sector, drug action teams, schools and local youth offending teams (YOTs).

One of the teams looked at key stage transitions and NEET groups. It addressed six critical questions:

1. How do we identify young people at risk of NEET?
   
   
2. How do we provide effective and impartial advice on young people's choices?
   
   
3. How do we identify opportunities and support packages for young people, parents and carers?
   
   
4. How do we help personal carers to support the young person's transition from KS3 to post-16?
   
   
5. How do we ensure young people get sufficient support post-16?
   
   
6. How to transfer data on the needs of young people from school to post-16 choice provider?

The team identified what was currently going on, looked at how it could be improved and then worked out how best to address the gaps. It proposed three action plans:

• The early identification of children at risk of becoming NEET
  This involves creating a database of all secondary school students in the area and mapping them against nationally recognised NEET triggers, such as poor attainment, SEN, social exclusion and so on. The intention is that the newly created multi-agency 11-19 team will work with schools to identify the young people who emerge from this as at risk of poor outcomes and devise an action plan to support young people either in the transition to Key Stage 4 or Post 16. This approach will support the present Y11 young people but will also identify in Years 7-9 young people who need support at an early stage.
  
  
• Supporting parents
  One of the three secondary schools in the pathfinder area has a dedicated member of staff who visits parents of children at risk of poor outcomes. The intention is to add young people identified as at risk from the new database to her existing list of school referrals. The TYS change team is also devising a list of questions which will take parents through a process which will help them support their young person.
  
  
• Focus on specific target groups of young people
  The team felt that groups at risk of having difficulty in making transition were those participating in a project called T16 across the three secondary schools. .The intention is to provide ongoing support to these groups, for example, by helping the T16 group to decide on their options, helping them prepare their CVs and targeting their parents with an action plan.  

Benefits and results

The TYS process brought together a range of agencies that have not previously worked together. Among other benefits, this has improved communication and collaboration, increased trust and helped provide more effective identification and intervention of children and young people at risk of NEET. A straightforward quick win is the help sheet for parents to enable them to support their young person more effectively.

We were already aware that we needed to address NEET at an early stage and do more to help our young people and parents through transitions, but we needed to develop processes to help us do this. TYS has really helped us explore the issues in-depth and given us the means to come up with flexible and effective solutions

14-19 Strategy Manager, Graeme Ferguson

The TYS change process has also engaged a wide range of children and young people. As a consequence, local challenges are more understood and young people feel more empowered and more able to influence their outcomes.

The anticipated results and benefits of the work of the TYS team are:

• A workable and effective early intervention process
  
  
• Better retention of young people engaged in learning both in KS4 and post 16
  
  
• A reduction in NEET
  
  
• Identification of appropriate pathways for young people so they do not drop out post 16
  
  
• Increased awareness by parents of post-16 options for their young person

The impact of the initiatives will be assessed using:

• NEET figures collected by Connexions
  
  
• Tracking of the targeted young people, who participated in the T16 programme, through their post 16 pathway
  
  
• The tracking of students and their options choices from KS 3 to KS 4.

It is hoped that the practice and processes which have been developed through the TYS will become established within the trailblazer area for integrated children's services within Derby and then rolled out across the rest of the City.

The local authority

Derby City is an urban local authority, split into five geographical areas. Its TYS project is focused on the most challenging of these areas. Derby City's statistical neighbours include Bolton, City of Bristol, Kirkless, Southhampton, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside, Walsall, Coventry and Stockton-on-Tees.

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