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The Now What project is an innovatove partnership between 10+ VCS organisations that work with young people. The idea is to harness the skills and expertise on the VCS in reaching disadvantaged young people and offering them specialist support. The young people who are being supported are outside of work, education and training, and are 16-19, or can be up to 25 if they have additional educational needs.
a) Engaging partners and employers
The VCS organisations within this delivery partnership have strong relationships with local employers in the public, private and community sectors. In particular this project connects directly to the VCS as a major employer in the county in its own right. The project will be overseen by a multi-sectoral group, which will ensure that it is monitored against a variety of strategic objectives for the county. Quality assurance will be overseen by the VCS Learning Consortium’s Contract Coordinator. The proposal builds on evaluation of current delivery methods to the 16-19 year old NEET target group, which demonstrate the need for local, accessible independent and long-term support which is well-connected to mainstream services, and which recognises specific needs of particular groups of young people.
Delivery partners have close working relationships and strategic links with the Removing Barriers to Work Unit, NSP Business Enterprise and Skills Board, the Northumberland LSC IAG Board, FACT, the Regional VCS Skills Forum, Northumberland Care Trust Teenage Pregnancy Unit, Connexions, Business Link, JobCentre Plus, 14+ Partnerships, High Schools, Sure Start, Crime and Disorder Partnership, Northumberland College and Northumberland County Council’s Adult Learning service as well as formal relationships with district councils in rural areas and LSPs.
b)Innovative proposals or methods with added value
The proposal sets out to recruit and offer specialised support to 100 of those young people who are currently excluded on the basis of specific learning disabilities, homelessness, parenting responsibilities, a culture of gender segregation and in most cases, further compounded by rural isolation. The specification seeks various kinds of progress towards inclusion, from small steps through to gaining work, and this will be achieved by tailoring the learning and support opportunities to each individual young person, backed by one to one mentoring support. This project adds significant value by pooling the resources, skills and programmes of some of the most effective community based providers of youth support in the county. The result is a very wide menu of opportunities, many of which will be newly available to rural parts of the county. Each young person will be linked up to a local support organisation that will be their ‘host’ for the duration of the project, will receive induction and initial assessment from trained specialists and will be invited to negotiate a staged programme of learning included accredited self development, preparation for work, tasters, work experience, mini-projects in the media, environment, construction and care, leading to positive outcomes, access to mainstream services and for some, into work.
c)Assessing and addressing barriers
The project takes a customised approach to learning and support, and builds on the knowledge of delivery partners of how barriers can be overcome. The barriers we will address will include:
Access and transport issues - ADAPT will offer access to transport via the Wheels to Work scheme, providing scooters or hired cars, and support for obtaining the relevant licence, including driving lessons, the Compulsory Bike Test and appropriate clothing.
Learning disability often creates barriers to young people who are capable and enthusiastic, but who need better understanding from employers and for themselves to recognise their emotional and practical needs as employees. Young people in this project will benefit from the L.O.T.R.Y programme designed by Bliss Mediation to enable them to handle difficult situations and recognise their strengths and prepare for work. Bliss and other partners will offer solution-focused therapeutic support to help young people negotiate their rightful place in learning and into work.
Teenage parenting creates massive barriers to inclusion, from practical barriers like housing, transport, poverty and childcare needs, through to interrupted mainstream education and relationship and confidence issues. Young people have to deal with mixed messages about their role both in the home The culture of gender segregation currently severely limits young people’s choices and perceptions of choices within the county. Key labour market needs such as construction, and health and social care skills provide a unique opportunity to encourage young people to try something different without fear of peer pressure to conform, nor the restrictions of more conventional learning. The ‘Women’s Workshop’ self –build project, vehicle maintenance, media and technology, and care skills for young men are some of the accredited learning opportunities to draw upon.
d) Engagement of participants
It is well known that this client group is particularly hard to engage, and project deliverers already have tried and tested approaches in place to ensure they can make and maintain contact with young people. These will be developed across the partnership to include:
• Creating very local community-based access through specialist host organisations
• Extending the range of learning and support on offer across market towns, in partnership with rural providers that are already well-connected with local services.
• Ensuring that the programme is tailored, long term and client-driven and that every young person is provided with one-to-one support, IAG and mentoring in addition to support from mainstream services.
• Accompanying young people in their first steps into formal learning
• Offering mini-projects and work tasters that encourage young people and those that support them to think outside of the box.
e)Maximum benefit from participation whatever their starting point
The extensive menu of recognised qualifications and underpinning programmes will allow for young people to have a say in designing their own learning routes. The specialist knowledge and skills of providers will ensure that each young person’s starting point is fully recognised, and that holistic support is on offer to address specific needs and interests. Easy access to numeracy and literacy support will be integral to the programme.
Meeting the specific needs of the client group(s), LSC, employers and the local labour market
Access is the biggest generic barrier facing rural young people’s access to the world of work, along with the barriers outlined above. The project will work alongside the three new mini-projects identified within the newly completed Rural Worklessness Action Research project in Wooler, Alnwick / Rothbury and Tynedale to ensure that young people’s needs are addressed within them. The networks developing in these areas and the Coalfields will also provide the basis for dialogue with employers and increase opportunities for joint working within the context of the local labour market. The VCS Learning Consortium, which has been set up to encourage VCS collaborations and up-skilling within the sector has been developed to meet a strategic objective of the LSC; and has built links with the 14+ Partnerships in each area and these can be used to enhance partnership working.
Add value to existing provision through mainstream e.g. WBLA, New Deal, E2E etc. and current contracts. How will it enhance existing provision
This project enables locally based specialist VCS organisations to work together to provide a strong and viable alternative to mainstream provision in the first instance, with young people for whom the mainstream has not proved an easy route. The project is also committed to working with mainstream providers in a detailed way, particularly Connexions and the College to ensure that wherever appropriate, young people overcome the barriers to their exclusion for this kind of provision in the longer term. Many current E2E and New Deal providers operate most effectively in more urban areas of the county and their interventions are often short-term. This project will make good use of the high levels of flexibility within the VCS to create sustained support for access to learning and work across rural parts of the county.
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Location of your premises and the transport links and access for disabled people
The programme will operate around clusters of activity focussing on the market towns, using local development trust and skills centres as well as youth projects and specialist organisations to host courses and activities. Particular focus will be given to the NEET hotspots of Amble and Berwick. A.D.A.P.T. will enable young people to access new opportunities through its innovative transport support schemes.
Targets
100 learners recruited
30 into work
50 into FE/training
75 with a recognised qualification
80 positive outcomes
