Youth sector unites to prove worth

Three major youth work umbrella organisations have released a blueprint for the future of youth services that calls for greater collaboration between providers and across sectors.

The transformation plan was presented to youth leaders at a central London meeting last month. It has been put together by Ambition, the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS) and UK Youth in response to feedback from grassroots youth charities at six consultation events held last year. These concluded there is a need to:

• Develop cross-sector alliances to support agreed outcomes
• Produce a "clear and concise" youth offer including a shared vision for young people
• Demonstrate the positive impact youth work has for young people
• Identify "key players" to provide sector leadership in the future
• Create new business models to ensure the sector is sustainable
• Improve access to new forms of income
• Develop skills of the workforce

The organisations' blueprint for the future includes a series of actions to address these issues.

With budgets shrinking, Anna Smee, chief executive of UK Youth, says the organisations started by asking "what can we get on with now that doesn't require significant extra funding".

They are planning to launch a "collective impact project" to devise new ways the sector can collaborate. This will involve appointing project champions across the private, public and third sectors.

"Essentially, there needs to be cross-sector working - not just within youth sector charities, but also the private sector, government and other charitable organisations," Smee explains.

Ambition, NCVYS and UK Youth plan to take the lead in achieving a "clear and concise" youth offer by mapping the impact the sector has on outcomes for young people. They also plan to create a framework to identify where and how the National Citizen Service and apprenticeships can be strengthened.

The blueprint envisages a key role for the Centre for Youth Impact, with the organisers looking to provide evidence on what youth service interventions work well.

In addition, through the collective impact project, the organisations want to create a taskforce to identify partnerships and merger opportunities.

One partnership that could happen is between Ambition and NCVYS, whose chief executives announced at the London launch that they have started merger talks (see box).

The blueprint also outlines plans for the creation of a new fund to provide social enterprise training to existing youth organisations and youth work training to new delivery bodies. It is also hoped that a taskforce can be established to boost social investment, new sources of philanthropy and trading income.

Paul Miller, interim chief executive of the National Youth Agency, welcomes the action plan.

"We are fully behind attempts to better articulate the impact of youth work for young people, particularly given the increasing investment in social action and the need to ensure young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are able to benefit from these opportunities," he says.

"New sources and models of funding are vital to secure the future of the sector. We also believe there is a need to focus on the next generation of youth workers and those who want to become qualified, and invest in training them to be the best they can be."

Rosie Ferguson, chief executive of London Youth, says more collaboration will help youth charities thrive.

"Together, we can better make a bolder case for the importance of the social and emotional outcomes that good youth work successfully develops, as well as articulating why the third sector is well placed to deliver this," she says.

YOUTH WORK LEADERS WELCOME MERGER TALKS BY UMBRELLA BODIES

Ambition and the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS) announced last month they have started discussions over a possible merger. If successful - a decision will be made by the end of March - it would bring together organisations with a combined 170 years of history. Ambition represents 3,000 youth clubs and community projects, serving 500,000 young people, while NCVYS has 260 members. Here, youth leaders react to the proposed merger:

Rosie Ferguson, chief executive, London Youth: "We have been involved - as a member and partner of both organisations - in the consultations about this potential merger, and it is a really good thing, as we hope it will strengthen the voice and impact of good youth work nationally, which should be good for us, our members and young people."

David Reed, director, Generation Change: "Any merged organisations should be more effective if there is a really clear distinction around what those roles are, so it should be an exciting initiative if the parties involved are taking a level-headed approach."

Jon Nott, general secretary, Woodcraft Folk: "Collaboration and more co-operative working have got to be a good thing. Certainly having a number of different umbrella bodies in the youth sector complicates things and having clarity in the sectors' voice can only be helpful for providing improved services."

Alastair Jones, chief executive, Frontier Youth Trust: "Youth work has been waiting for clear leadership. For us to be able to explain and display that, and for the government to be able to understand what is happening in communities, is really important and NCVYS should be able to do that - and I hope this merger will enable them to do it even better."

Kevin Munday, managing director, ThinkForward: "Better co-ordination and collaboration between youth sector infrastructure bodies is a good thing, but I don't think mergers are the only way of arriving at better co-ordination. I'm not that fussed whether it is one organisation or more organisations, but I think it needs to be co-ordinated and coherent".