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Tags: case study | London | strategy | young people involvement | youth facilties Hornsey Road Baths - Islington
Creating a compelling case for change
 This case study highlights the work done by Islington Council in securing local buy-in and agreement to a forward strategy for youth facilities. This allowed them to engage over 3500 stakeholders and create a compelling case for change that resulted in an overarching strategy for young people aged 11-19.
Background
Thanks to the sturdy challenges presented by Every Child Matters, the Council members and officers realised that they needed to take steps in improving life chances for young people. These steps included taking account of strategies such as:
- Youth Matters and Youth Matters Next Step,
- Aiming High for Young People: A Ten year Strategy for Positive Activities, and
- Targeted Youth Support - A Guide.
They also realised that by December 2008 every Local Authority had to get themselves into gear and deliver Integrated Services for Young People. The Council also wanted to respond to findings from a Joint Area Inspection and Enhanced Youth Inspection and take a pro-active approach in building on these findings. They considered that prevention would be better than cure and so wanted to ensure that enough emphasis was but on preventive approaches. And as someone once said, children are the future, so the Council wanted to work with all key stakeholders including young people to decide on future priorities. The Council hoped that all this would create a compelling case for change and keep all key parties involved throughout the process.
Approach
The Council undertook a comprehensive needs assessment, gathering all sorts of information such as data, evidence, and stakeholders views and opinions. And a massive 3,500 people were consulted as part of the process, all of whom were motivated and committed to getting involved. These included young people, staff at all levels from across the Children's Partnership, parents and carers. The Council then set up a Virtual Change Team (VCT) to manage and drive the change process forward. Again, this involved all sorts of people, both on a flexible and more solid basis, who acted as advocates and supported stakeholder events.
Presentations and workshops took place throughout the process, which were particularly helpful in ensuring that everyone was in the know about what was going on, where, and involving whom. External support was also of great help. The Training and Development Agency acted as critical friends, telling us what we were doing right and wrong and giving us a gentle nudge in the right direction where needed. Having an independent perspective added much value and helped in making progress.
The VCT played a vital role in involving important stakeholders in all processes, and in helping to identify, agree on, and implement key decisions.Important elements of the process were to identify the root causes of the barriers facing young people, work out how best to address these, agree resources and priorities and then carry out the created strategy.The whole process took one year of hard work to complete. Hard work such as:
- Mapping the services available to young people and their location
- Gathering and analysing performance data
- Gathering and analysing service user feedback
- Pulling together data on demographics
- Auditing the physical assets within the Council area.
Young People
The project is all about young people and so it's important they are involved as much as possible. Young people were employed to undertake tasks such as gathering documents, data analysis and report writing. The Council also recruited young people as researchers and this involved:
- Going to places where young people gather;
- Carrying out street-based research working in partnership with detached youth workers; and
- Working with professionals to engage with vulnerable young people.
Key Messages from Young People
They talk and we listen. That's how it works. Young people said that they wanted more to do at youth centres, more affordable indoor facilities, more youth clubs and more youth facilities. They also want more facilities and environments to socialise in that are engaging and up-to-date. They also wanted to be more involved in supporting other young people in a way that they themselves have been supported.
Location, location, location. A seemingly very important issue for young people. Some feel there should be more facilities on their estates, while others feel more neutral locations would be better to combat territorialism.Also, those aged 14-19 have pointed out they feel they have different needs to those in a younger age bracket and should have facilities and support geared specifically for them. The message was that all young people are different, they shouldn't all just be labelled as ‘young people'.
They need help and education in important issues such as sex, relationships and drugs. They are all issues that we have had to deal with growing up, and now more than ever are they relevant to today's young people. They wanted the Council to look into neglected services like access to counselling and to take action on these service needs.It is important we provide support at such vital transition periods in their lives, such as moving from primary to secondary school, helping them make the difficult and daunting change from children into young adults.
Youth Capital Strategy
A key outcome was the decision for the Council to develop a Youth Capital Strategy to direct capital investment to much needed areas and to address current gaps in services for young people.
Creating a commissioner/provider split
One of the recommendations in the strategy was to create a commissioner/provider split and develop a clear set of commissioning standards and priorities. This would mean:
- More focus on outcomes
- Improved value for money
- A level playing field for providers
- Greater co-ordination of resources
- Improved services for young people aligned to their needs and aspirations
This would ensure services have a greater emphasis on meeting the needs of young people, support market development enabling a broader choice for those young people, and making sure the Council is using resources effectively.
The ideas and solutions produced through the Needs Assessment and stakeholder activities then became the commissioning priorities for integrated services for young people. This was a powerful way of creating ownership. As a result, the Commissioning Strategy was easier to develop and implement as the needs assessment and change process undertaken had secured sign up and ownership of the recommendations at all levels of the Children's Partnership and beyond.
The Council used participatory budgeting to allow stakeholders and community members to help decide on how best to use resources. A key concept of participatory budgeting is that participants have to think about real world scenarios and how best to budget for them.The participatory budgeting enables participants to:
- Identify needs and key issues
- Produce and explore options on how to address the needs and issues
- Look at costs to develop/commission these services
- Consider the desired impact and outcomes of services
- Assign the correct resources
Participatory budgeting was used to:
- Agree the commissioning priorities to support young people to move from NEET to EET
- Develop a Youth Capital Strategy
- Identify a core offer for young people in each area
When looking how best to meet the needs of young people the Council were mindful not to affect any of the existing services already in place. They felt that continuity of services was important, with a focus on not destabilising something that works well and young people are familiar with. The Council took some key decisions around decommissioning including:
- Moving to a single Connexions contract
- Continuing existing funding arrangements for youth provision until 2011 and working with providers until then to realign their offer to meet the needs of young people and deliver on agreed priorities
- Using added investment to improve services for young people in areas where there are current gaps in provision
- To develop a commissioning strategy for services for young people aged 11-19 for April 2011 to April 2015
A key recommendation of the strategy was that the Council should develop a Youth Capital Strategy. They did this over a five-month period. The capital strategy is a key part of the overall strategy for young people aged 11-19. Its delivery is a critical part of improving the life chances of some of the most vulnerable young people and transforming young people's life chances through high-quality, ambitious services.
Having a clear strategy for young people and a linked capital strategy has been critical in securing funding from myplace and the Cross Government Co-location fund.
Messages from young people
Young people said that centres should:
- Be in accessible, neutral locations
- Offer a range of services
- Be of a high quality
- Be large enough so one group cannot take them over
Political Buy-in
Members of the Council were involved and engaged at all stages of the needs assessment and strategy development work.A major part of the needs assessment was to undertake an analysis of current spend and service use. They analysed spending by theme and area and then assessed this against key priorities and needs of vulnerable groups. The Council applied best value principles and equalities issues when deciding.The process was open, honest and transparent. The Council and its partners gathered and analysed data and information to provide a clear picture of the current challenges, highlight key strengths and challenge assumptions. This meant that everyone had the opportunity to make informed, educated decisions.
Making bids based on strategy
A clear shared strategy helps the Council and others develop strong bids for extra resources.Being able to identify need and demand in specific areas is crucial in running the strategy. Having clear principles and priorities means everything will work a lot more smoothly and everyone will benefit. Having a clear set of priorities means you can respond quickly to chances for getting more funding or spying a particular opportunity.
Taking the strategy forward
Once the strategy is in place it is important that stakeholder engagement continues and the strategy remains alive, providing opportunities to share and celebrate achievements, identify challenges and develop strategies to overcome them.Communication and engagement are key. It is vital that communication with stakeholders continues to make the best decisions possible.People need one central point of contact and this needs to be continually promoted and communicated across departments. This means you can make the best use of opportunities such as Section 106 Planning Gain.
Viability
To ensure long-term viability, capital and revenue planning needs to be thought out and practical. Partners need to challenge and revise assumptions on generating revenue and maximise existing resources. It is also essential that partnership works effectively across all sectors. Effective partnerships across sectors can offer:
- A greater range of opportunity to local people
- Progression pathways
- Investment security
Contact
Rachel Egan
Strategy and Commissioning Manager Integrated Services for Young People
Islington Council
159 Upper Street
Islington
London
T: 020 5277026
E: rachel.egan@islington.gov.uk
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Resources 
Islington Strategy for Youth Facilities Case Study (
