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Tags: case study | east midlands | strategy Westfield Folk House - Mansfield, Notts
Partnership and co-locations of service
 Objectives
A scheme to transform Westfield Folk House Young People's Centre in Mansfield has won a £5 million myplace grant. This case study shows how the project developed from a logical and well structured plan to boost youth provision following years of under-investment. Successfully involving young people in planning and decision making has played a major role in this.
Background
Youth provision in Nottinghamshire suffered years of under-investment in its capital assets, until recently the investment in a new youth centre was in1985, partly because the Council's youth service was in the leisure department before it moved to the new Children and young People's Services department. The service's capital infrastructure was largely forgotten about until schools started being demolished and rebuilt using large Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts which caused the demolition of several youth centres.
Assessing the need for action
To improve provision, the Council and its partners had to develop a logical plan and rationale for the service and this involved detailed mapping of the populations of 13 to 19, but also younger, age groups. They mapped where the age groups were coming from and put the data into GIS. They also mapped voluntary sector provision with partnership and then looked at the gaps in service and provision. The resulting information on demand and need fed into Youth Opportunity Fund (YOF) applications and youth forums and assemblies.
Taking action
The assessment of need for youth facilities in the area in 2004/05 resulted in a capital bid to the Council. This included £5 million for five new youth centres and a £1.5 million bid to refurbish Westfield Folk House. The County Council had approached the area's voluntary sector partnership about its ambitions and developed the bid with the partnership. The Council's formal approval of this ambitious capital programme was the basis for the £5 million additional funding myplace application to transform the Westfield Folk House into a state-of-the-art facility. The building is a Grade II listed building. It has been a youth facility for many years but has become too small to meet demand. The investment plans had strong political support arising from internal reorganisation and the transfer of the youth service into education.
Youth involvement
Young people have had a say in the project right from the start. A formal system for consulting with them at all levels and involving them in decision making is in place through youth forums and assemblies. The Council consulted with young people - particularly those around Mansfield - and arrived at a consensus around redeveloping Folk House. This was partly because it is neutral territory, but easily accessible to a large catchment of people at the same time. Young people also gave their views on how to make best use of the building.
A major consideration was to cater for the significant disabled lobby among young people in the area and the wide catchment of and good transport links to and from the centre are clear advantages. There are plans to use the outdoor games area for wheelchair use to encourage integration. And homeless young people will be able to use the washing and laundry facilities.
The Folk House building has a seventy-year history of youth involvement. The design process for refurbishment involved identifying who the users and tenants would be and ended with a list of twelve organisations that young people approved as suitable.
 How participation works
The youth service is recording feedback that comes in from young people through the Tell us surveys in schools. On top of this they do their own annual survey on satisfaction ratings using the Have your say questionnaire.
The diagram is an example of how the structured consultation mechanisms Nottinghamshire work:
- The detached team forms a core group for a focus group type consultation;
- Findings go to area based representatives from smaller groups;
- These feed into district youth assemblies and then into the County Youth Assembly;
- A county wide youth engagement team of five people supports this process.
A world-class facility
The new youth centre will be an integrated hub for young people. The project will see Westfield Folk House refurbished and extended, to create two large open spaces, multiple smaller rooms, a cafe, performance space and dance studio. The grounds will offer a multi-use games area and allotments.
The centre will offer a free sessional opening schedule that involves a range of uses, ranging from specialist services in the day time Monday to Friday, through to a wider range of informal positive activities uses in the evening and weekends. Opening hours will suit different types of users. There is also a community mediation team that deals with youth problems and antisocial behaviour in particular hot spots.
The project team has recognised the ability of young people to personalise environments is important and possibly more important than the design of the building itself.
Wider environment
The centre's wider environment involves five other youth centres Nottinghamshire County Council is building across the area. Like Westfield Folk House, their design has been developed after consulting local young people. The council has also refurbished most of the smaller existing youth centres in the county. Some have benefited from Youth Opportunity Fund money to buy, for example, disco equipment or minibuses. Eight mobile youth centres that serve the area have proved to be successful in more difficult areas because they do not carry any issues about territory or ownership.
However, negative attitudes of communities towards young people and misunderstandings have been a problem. To address this, the Council is starting to pilot community advisory groups for youth centres.
A successful approach
Project partners have identified some key things that helped to make their approach work:
- The project had a robust rationale;
- Partners engaged in a widespread dialogue - this involved lots of PR and encouraging politicians to visit;
- There is a direct link between young people and politicians through the youth forums, assemblies and the councils.
Contact:
Chris Warren
Temporary Head of the Youth Support Service
Nottinghamshire County Council
County Hall
West Bridgford
Nottinghamshire
NG2 6BJ
Tel: 0115 9774430
Email: chris.warren@nottscc.gov.uk
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Resources 
Nottinghamshire CC Case Study (
