The National Youth Agency: Partners wanted!

Working within the Department of Health's Section 64 funding scheme, it is looking to team up with suitable organisations in two separate areas to do two short pieces of work, simultaneously, from October 2008 to March 2009. The Section 64 programme is aimed at improving the health of young people in multi- agency, integrated services. Its objectives are: to enable providers of youth work and other non-formal education to improve services so that young people in contact enjoy better physical and mental health; to expand the understanding and raise the effectiveness of adolescent health within the non-formal education sector; and to promote non-formal education approaches to young people's health among primary care trusts and relevant health providers. The scheme has been working hard in children's trusts partnerships in Rotherham and Portsmouth over the past nine months, focused on issues identified by local partners; these include specific work around youth voice and influence in health service provision, the role of healthy youth work within targeted youth support arrangements and how statutory youth services can benchmark their health provision prior to improving it. The work areas are negotiated with The NYA by partners at a local level, so what takes place is locally owned and driven. On offer are a number of days consultancy input from the YW4H team and associates, a range of support functions including training, information provision and policy refinement, and small cash sums to be spent on focused projects locally. If you would like to register your interest, email Vicky West on vickyw@nya.org.uk to receive your S. 64 outline and expression of interest form, which will need to be returned by Monday 21 July