Participation Works

Tim Loughton believes local youth services should be audited by young people to make sure they meet their needs.

At a recent Conservative Party Conference event the Children’s Minister commented: "The biggest way in which we should judge whether youth services are working or not is by using young people to assess the services themselves,"

He also argues that young people could produce annual reports to judge how effectively local authorities provide services to them in their local area.

"I want these reports to be entirely transparent," Loughton said. "Then, nationally, we might do an audit of how certain authorities seem to be doing very well in the eyes of young people and others not so. We can use that as a tool to spread best practice. This is about a new way of viewing services and a new way of inspecting and auditing services where young people are at the heart."

The premise of the Young Inspectors programme from Participation Works is that young people can directly improve local services and so support the communities in which they live. An inspection ensures that existing service provision is relevant, reflective of the needs of users and can improve uptake. In the process young inspectors learn new skills and build their self-confidence.

The purpose of the programme is to:

• Enable young people to become more socially responsible, by supporting them in coming together to improve their communities;
• Increase the numbers and quality of opportunities for marginalised young people and give them the opportunity to improve services and enable change in their communities;
• Help marginalised young people to engage their peers in influencing local policies and services across a wide range of issues including locality, health, neighbourhood renewal, transport and community  service in the benefit of their neighbourhoods; and
• Enable young people to have much greater impact on local services by feeding back both their and the views of their peers.

For further information please visit our Young Inspectors page.

On the 24th November 2011 Participation Works will be holding a 1 day training course on How to Improve Local Services through Youth Inspection in Birmingham.

This practical one day course supports practitioners in developing and running inspection schemes. It covers the purpose and impact of youth inspection, and focuses on the five stages of running an effective youth inspection scheme. It also gives participants an opportunity to learn directly from a young inspector how best to support young people in this role. This course is based on the learning from the Youth4U - Young Inspectors programme.

To book a place on this course please email enquiries@participationworks.org.uk

Thu, 13/10/2011 - 15:32