Issue - meetings

Report of the Corporate Director of Resilience

Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder for Early Intervention and Early Years, Aileen Wilson, Head of Early Help Services and Jean Case, Senior Youth and Play Coordinator, delivered a presentation highlighting the following information:

(a)  Youth and Play service at one time employed more than 100 full time youth and play workers, the current service now employs 54 workers and yet the youth and play activity has not been proportionally reduced and continues to provide effective quality sessions;

(b)  the Youth and Play Service is divided into three localities, north, south and central, with two teams working in each locality and during the past year 4,652 young people aged between 5 and 19 years of age have attended youth and play service activities within the City;

(c)  to ensure that all young people can access the services, sessions are provided at low cost or free in all wards within the city. Resources are not available to provide full time day sessions during the summer holidays;

(d)  the voluntary sector is also funded via area based grants to provide youth and play sessions to support and complement the City Council’s work. The youth and play team meet with independent providers, such as Brownies and faith groups, to ensure that they have what they need to ensure adequate safeguarding;

(e)  in addition to the educational and fun elements aspects of sessions, there is also a mentoring element which can which can result in young people being referred for further support as the environment is more relaxed with youth workers than teachers and young people often feel more able to talk about issues of concern;

(f)  61 universal sessions are held across the city and they can be accessed by people from any area of the city. Venues vary and not all are City Council owned. The service aims to try and broach some issues which young people face in everyday life. To date this has included: bullying, safe internet use/sexting, healthy relationship, drug and alcohol use, gender, and fire safety;

(g)  to enable the delivery of the above sessions, members of the Youth and Play Service have undergone training on safeguarding awareness and how to identify the non-verbal signs of when young people are experiencing or at risk of harm such as domestic abuse (not necessarily directed at the young person), self-harm and mental health;

(h)  the service works closely with Young People’s Panels and where concerns are raised, partners share information and try to identify if there are areas of common concern  within the city, such as child sexual exploitation, which is then targeted with awareness projects at youth and play sessions;

(i)  workers try to ensure that sessions are appropriate for all you people of varying ages and abilities. Groups often identify the topics which they wish to address and where appropriate, workers try to create a safe and engaging environment for young people feel they can be listened to and can share their experiences and Concerns. Jon Rea,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18