Lessons youth sector can learn from NCS

The National Citizen Service (NCS) was launched in 2010 to help bridge social divides and build a more cohesive society by empowering young people at a “rite of passage” moment in their lives aged 16-17.

As the last chief executive of the NCS Trust, I am extremely proud of the incredible impact that NCS has had. I am sad and disappointed that NCS is closing but confident that our knowledge, learnings, and impact will live on.

Over its lifespan, NCS delivered almost 1.5 million experiences, resulting in more than 18 million hours of community-based volunteering and social action. It worked – 76% of participants felt more positive about people from different backgrounds to themselves after participating, and for every £1 spent, an economic benefit of £3.05 was generated. It changed over time to meet the needs of young people – from an extended residential trip to varied, year-round experiences in the community and online.

At times NCS was not widely supported – it came at a difficult time for the youth sector and was not always popular. No matter your view on NCS, it was one of the most significant youth policy interventions and funder of youth opportunities in recent history.

Key learnings

Here are four of the key lessons for the sector and policymakers.

• The space to build effective partnerships. The youth sector is hugely diverse and that is part of its strength – small, local organisations work alongside national big names. Young people have varied preferences and needs and a rich tapestry of organisations is needed to reach them. However, from our experience, organisations might even be working in the same area, or with the same young people, and not realise – this risks silos, missed opportunities for shared learning, competition for limited resources, and ultimately fewer pathways for young people. Creating meaningful connections takes time and resources. As a funder, we found it important to actively invest in activities like local conferences, and supporting regional bodies like the Regional Youth Work Units.
• The importance of the education sector. Many other sectors such as education and justice have complementary goals to the youth sector. We found time and again that the education sector in particular is crucial to success, but there are many barriers in place to sectors effectively and sustainably working together. Many youth organisations spend a lot of their resources trying to access schools and colleges – this was a constant challenge at NCS. You cannot escape the reality that the education system is the most effective place to reach young people with programmes and experiences. Local infrastructure that connects these sectors on the ground is invaluable, such as what we explored in our work on education and enrichment and the Enrichment Partnerships Pilot.
• The challenges of data collection and evaluation. NCS was always privileged to have an extensive evaluation, funded by the government. This enabled us to highlight what worked, and advocate for the value of youth opportunities. But to ensure a robust and effective evaluation, there needed to be stringent data collection requirements which resulted in little flexibility for local partners, limiting their creativity. On the flip side, when we moved to a more flexible and varied offer, this posed significant challenges to conducting a rigorous evaluation. Funding is often focused on the direct delivery of activities with young people, leaving limited resources for management activities such as data collection. Local organisations need tools, resources and proactive support to participate in essential activities such as evaluation – the recent closure of YMCA George Williams College makes this even more imperative.
• Integrating youth voice is essential and takes effort. Like many youth organisations, NCS placed a high value on youth voice in our governance. Our practice evolved significantly over time, and by the time of our closure we had a remunerated Youth Advisory Board, paid youth advisors on our board, young apprentices as part of our staff, and regular representative youth surveys used to enable effective decision-making. This takes investment and effort, but I would encourage all youth organisations to continually expand and examine your own practice in this way. Is it representative? Do you pay young people for their time? Do you close the feedback loop? Do you build it in from the beginning?

Future considerations

I welcome a new National Youth Strategy driven by what young people need and co-developed with young people and the sectors that support them.

I regularly heard that what made NCS unique was our focus on social cohesion and our narrow age range of 16-17. These might sound niche at first but remain just as crucial now as they were when we were founded.

Our recent Fractured Futures research highlights that challenges affecting social cohesion such as increasing ideological division and youth loneliness are more important than ever. Many youth organisations focus on these constituent parts, but I encourage all to retain an explicit focus on enabling young people to build new connections with others who are different and new to them.

The upper teens are a challenging time of transition and with levels of NEET (not in education, employment or training) at an 11-year high, this age group needs dedicated support. Youth opportunities and participation drops off at this point and we frequently heard from those that received NCS grants that our funding enabled them to extend the ages they worked with.

Broader functions

The NCS Trust increasingly provided broader functions than just commissioning NCS experiences – we connected local partners, supported with data and evaluation, explored in policy and practice how to support the youth sector to work closer with the health and education sectors.

There is an important role for infrastructure organisations, at both a regional and national level, that can fulfil vital enabling functions to support local organisations to do what they do best and work with young people. Such organisations can also help join dots, identify cold spots in opportunities, deliver economies of scale, and drive better cross-sector partnerships – as I've stated, the education sector is crucial but we should also be hand-in-hand with the health and justice sectors.

NCS may be closed, but it lives on in the young people we had an impact on, the organisations we worked with and funded over the last 15 years who are supporting their communities, and of course our passionate staff.

The National Youth Strategy will set a new, co-produced, 10-year direction for young people and an action plan to ensure that every young person can thrive. An interim report, Today's Youth, Tomorrow's Nation, presenting young people's challenges and priorities will be published in the coming weeks and the strategy will be published in the summer.