Shropshire Council

Youth activities - provision from April 2015

  • Period: 08 January 2014 - 31 March 2014
  • Status: Closed
  • Audiences: Everyone, Parents/carers, Youth
  • Topics: Youth services, Big Conversation
  • Type: Public

Public services are changing. There is more emphasis on working in local communities. There is also more emphasis on involving young people in developing services. Also, there is now less money around to do this. We are looking for new ways to make sure the money we do have is spent well in local areas.

The Council and its partners want to make sure that as many young people as possible can take part in youth activities in their own area. We believe that youth activities should be enjoyable and useful to young people’s development.

By young people we mean those aged 10 to 19 in general and up to 25th birthday for those with learning disabilities.

By youth activities we mean things do outside of school, at the weekends and in the holidays. For example:  activities like youth clubs, sports / games clubs, art activities, Scout activities and many others.

We are thinking about setting up Local Youth Boards in areas across Shropshire. The boards need to understand what activities young people want, what is already available in their area and what works well. They will then be in charge of choosing activities for young people. They will also be in charge of checking that activities work well.

The Local Youth Boards will be made up of young people (at least half), local town councillors and a few adults from the community. Adults from the community could be community workers, representatives from a local school or others.

Members of the Shropshire Children’s Trust and Shropshire Members of the Youth Parliament (MYPs) will make sure that the boards are working well.

The boards and the activity providers will be helped to start up. They will also be helped to make sure that that staff, activities and premises are safe and running as they should.

For this reason, we would like to commission an independent partner organisation who can help all the Local Youth Boards and all the activity providers in Shropshire.

Read the full proposal before completing the survey.

Documents

  • 591 responses recorded, including 289m from young people
  • The survey was not a vote for options, but an invitation to comment to improve the council’s proposed commissioning model. Many valuable comments were themed.

Most respondents agreed with:

  • Future youth activities should continue and can be sustained in the future
  • Future youth activities continue to meet young people’s needs and are provided to a safe standard
  • More young people are actively involved in commissioning
  • Commissioning on the basis of achieving outcomes
  • Increased community involvement in supporting activities
  • Better knowledge and use of existing resources
  • Appointment of a Youth Activity Partner, responsible for county-wide support of LAYBs (Local Area Youth Boards) and community based providers
  • Increased integration between youth activities and other services supporting young people

Stakeholders expressed concerns or confusion about:

  • Aims & outcomes of local boards and local commissioning
  • Increased bureaucracy, leading to less money spent on activities
  • Defining the size of localities
  • Sourcing information about local needs and resources
  • Right representation for young people
  • How to make local boards young people friendly

As a result the commissioning model for post April 2015 has been amended.

Complete our online survey now to tell us what you think about the proposals for youth service provision from April 2015. This link is for parents, carers and young people..

Take the survey »

We have a slightly different version of the survey for youth service providers, councillors, volunteers and staff to take. Please make sure you select the correct version to complete.

Take the stakeholder survey »

 

If you have any queries about this consultation, or need it in a different format, contact us using the details on this page.

Data protection

Information collected in our surveys will only be used by us (Shropshire Council) to inform the immediate and future provision of our services. The information you provide will be kept confidential in accordance with our Privacy Policy. It will not be shared outside of Shropshire Council. Information collected via our online surveys (hosted on the Surveymonkey website) will be stored on SurveyMonkey’s servers in the United States of America and SurveyMonkey gives an undertaking never to disclose the survey questions or your responses to others without permission.