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Targeted youth support (TYS) redesigning services: Services respond to the views of young people

Contact:
Tracey.Moore@southtyneside.gov.uk
Provider:
Training and Development Agency
Topics:
Targeted youth support
Type:
Emerging practice
Date:
December 2006
Region:
North East England

Issue

South Tyneside was aware its services were not meeting the needs of all young people.

Background

To try and improve its services, the authority was sending out lots of questionnaires and surveys to young people to get their views, but this didn't fully achieve the detailed feedback and insight needed to start changing services for the better.

The surveys and questionnaires often targeted young people in mainstream settings and not the hard to reach. They frequently repeated previous work. There was no coordination of the surveys and no action taken as a result of them.

The authority's youth parliament held the database containing young people's feedback from the surveys and questionnaires and other sources.

Actions prompted by targeted youth support (TYS)

The targeted youth support (TYS) pathfinder engaged children and young people, particularly the hard to reach; in a number of different ways to ensure their views and experience of current service provision were captured in full.

One finding is that young people wanted to be asked for their views directly, face-to-face, and not through questionnaires and surveys. Another key finding is that although there are lots of things to do and places to go in the area, they are frequently not what young people want to do or where they want them to be.

The feedback has been fed into a TYS change team which is evaluating current service provision and exploring ways to improve it. Young people are involved in deciding on the improved provision. The team, with the help of young people, is also looking to improve the way activities are currently publicised.

The TYS change process has brought staff from a range of agencies together in a way that they haven't worked before. This helps them understand each other's work better as a multi-agency team, and enables them to focus on listening to and acting on the needs and views of young people.

Benefits and results

A youth audit team, a sub-group of the youth parliament, has been developed to assess the quality and delivery of activities on an ongoing basis. The audit team is currently exploring and deciding on the assessment measures it will use.

We've always listened to young people in South Tyneside, but this hasn't always changed what we do. The TYS process has helped the agencies that provide activities to really focus on what young people are saying and make changes in a very productive way

Tracey Moore, youth parliament coordinator

The young people's parliament chairperson is being paid and supported to manage the youth opportunity fund and capital fund. These will be used to fund the range of new activities that local young people have decided they want. 

Also, members of the youth parliament are going out to meet with a wide cross section of young people from the local area using a variety of methods. This varies from a straightforward chat to much more imaginative methods of engagement, such as using video film to capture the views of the hard to reach. 

The LA

South Tyneside is an urban deprived metropolitan borough authority. Its statistical neighbours include:

Click for more case studies on redesigning services to help young people with particular needs.

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Last updated on 01/12/2006