Youth Opportunities

Next month, young people from Sandwell, Cumbria, Bradford and Plymouth will come together to discuss how the number of young people not in education, employment or training can be cut if different agencies meet their needs more effectively.

Unlike the usual top down approach where activities and programmes are devised in an office and filtered down to young people, the National Youth Agency (NYA) has set up an engagement network to work with young people in finding solutions to the problems they face.

The first residential meeting of the network will take place next month at Brathay Hall, in Cumbria. Young people from the Sandwell, Cumbria, Bradford and Plymouth local authority areas will join forces to plan how other young people not in education, employment or training can be recruited, trained and supported to advise strategic managers in councils on the services they offer young people.

In effect, these young people will become consultants to local authorities, shaping the provision for other young people in the same situation and giving them a genuine influence over local services. The hope is that this will lead to better services and fewer unemployed youngsters.

The young advisors will also participate in the NYA’s national reference group, joining young people from other areas involved with the LGA-funded Hidden Talents campaign. Here they will be supported and trained to contribute to the content of national policies on young people not in education, employment or training as well.

Working with four core local authorities, the NYA is planning to increase its network of young consultants so that by the end of the year, it will be working with some 50 local authorities.

This is a really exciting project for the NYA to be involved in, and one that can potentially make a huge difference to the expectations of young people not in education, employment or training across the country.

How to help and support these young people is a question that has long vexed national and local government politicians alike. The need to find new solutions has been bought into sharp focus by the economic downturn and at a time when responsibility for 16 to 19 education and training is being handed back to local authorities.

We all believe that young people have the energy and potential to improve their own lives and those of their community. Their voices need to be heard on the issues that most affect them, both now and as they grow up.

With the support of the LGA, through its Hidden Talents campaign, the engagement network will help to ensure this happens.

In time, we will find out how effective the programme has been, as it will be evaluated by the National Foundation for Educational Research. In the meantime, turning up the volume of young voices across the country will help to ensure that more are empowered to realise their hidden talents.

Fiona Blacke is chief executive of the National Youth Agency