What the myplace support team offers

For those who are unaware of just what the Support Team has to offer, here is a bit of a rundown of what we can do to help your project.

Project diagnostic

The term ‘project diagnostic' may seem a little technical or scary to some but it's really not. It is basically just a project review to help understand its strengths, weaknesses, future actions and support needs. The diagnostic is mandatory as without it we can't decide what support will best fit a project's needs.

We currently have two methods of diagnosing a project's wider needs. The first is a benchmarking workshop that brings together the project team, partners and young people, whilst the second method is a quick project review meeting (QPR), which involves one or two key members of the project team.

Some projects will have had a benchmarking session or QPR and so they know how it all works. However, some projects have not yet had either and they might be somewhat of an alien concept, but they are really quite straightforward. The most important thing for projects to realise in both of these methods is that it's imperative to be honest and open. It is for the project's benefit as much as anyone else's and so a frank and honest critique is vital.

Capital support

The capital support that the Support Team offers expects to achieve the following outcomes:

• Accelerated spend time - to meet increasingly tight annualized budgets
• Reduce budget overruns
• Improve the extent to which completed centres are fit for purpose in terms of design, environmental stability, and ease and cost of building management.

The key challenge for the capital support will be to identify and support projects to deliver quality buildings within the additional constraints of the spending programme. However, the type of capital support delivered will very much depend on what stage the project is at.

At one end of the scale, the projects may simply need a few days of intensive support to address a specific issue towards the end of the capital phase. Conversely, there may be projects that need intensive "hand holding" support, and this is likely to be particularly relevant to newly signed off projects that will need to address a range of capital issues in a short timeframe.

Intensive viability support

The Support Team's intensive viability support will be delivered to "live" projects only, unless a recently signed off project has a specific and pressing need.

The need for intensive viability support will be identified through the diagnostic and business plan check and challenge process, but should look to achieve the following outcomes;

• Sounder business plans demonstrating clearly the links from need, through operations to robust financial plans and clear valuable outcomes.
• More diversified income streams (leading to projects being more able to withstand changes in their environments).
• Decreased risk of revenue deficits.
• Increased use of enterprising approaches to managing and delivering services and securing income.
• Better and more integrated operational plans that clearly mesh with financial projections.
• Governance and operational management structures that match to the plans and aspirations.

Youth engagement support

Of course, myplace is all about young people and so it is only right that we offer some form of youth engagement support. The focus of this support will address two key areas: what is the youth offer? And, how will the project engage young people, generally and in decision-making?

In terms of the youth offer, we will try and investigate what the goals are for working with young people, what outcomes the project are expecting to achieve and how they'll know when they've done so, what the programme of activities is to support these outcomes, what role the lead partner has in this, and how the project is ensuring staffing meets the programme needs.

All this will also be carried out in conjunction with the YMCA and their group of Young Consultants. Some projects will already have met some of the young consultants, and have no doubt been impressed with the work they have done.

Pre-Launch support

For the big day itself we will provide support in three stages, providing your project plans to have its opening before the end of September. The first of these stages is the initial discussions and support plan, in which we will meet with the project to discuss their intended outcomes for the day and their plans so far. Following the meeting we will produce a pre-launch support plan bespoke to the project's needs. The second stage is the planning and guidance, whereby we pull together a detailed plan for the event that covers various areas such as logistics, running order and arrangements with VIPs. The third stage of support is the implementation, in which we can help with various other issues, such as liaison work and general troubleshooting.