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Generation
Y moves into Phase II
This
exciting initiative launched by the Scottish YMCA movement
in 2002 has now passes through its initial pilot phase and has recently embarked on a second phase. Generation Y is a programme designed to establish sustainable
youth provision in local communities through the creation of inter-agency
partnerships.
The result of two years discussion and research
within the Scottish YMCA movement the programme was triggered by a fundamental review
of how local community needs can best be served by the organisation. It also reflects the difficulty faced in recruiting qualified youth workers in Scotland.
Generation Y Principles
a) Local Community Focus
The programme is built around a core principle that community needs are best assessed
at local community level and best served by local services using
local volunteers. In this respect it complements the Scottish Executive’s
Community Planning agenda by providing effective local partnership
delivery mechanisms which can feed critical information up to the
local authority plan to enable a more accurate assessment of priorities. It may also provide an alternative bottoms-up approach to community planning with useful lessons for the wider community agenda.
b) 'Grow Your Own' Staff
Generation Y seeks to confront the recruitment difficulties in the field of professional youth work by recruiting and training unqualified young people into trainee youth work posts. In this sense the project is more likely to recruit local staff who know their communities well and is building a greater pool of staff for the sector. The YMCA George Williams College in London provides a well established distance learning course over five years for the trainees with tutor support coming through YMCA Scotland.
c) Sustainability
A core element of building a Generation Y programme is
the need to build a sustainable provision rather than to succumb to the project-funded culture in the voluntary sector which sometimes runs from year to year. The funding base for each programme is carefully constructed to maximise partner contributions in order that any one or even two withdrawals from funders will not mean the demise of the whole programme. As Generation Y projects build partnerships on the programme side they also seek to build partnerships in terms of resources.
d) Partnership
Each project not only assesses local community needs as its starting point,
even as early as application, but also continues to measure its provision against changing needs as it develops.
Partners engaged in the early needs assessment exercise are asked to sign up to a partnership approach to developing programme provision for young people creating a pool of potential partners for a variety of interventions. Generation Y in this way creates best value in bringing together resources both financial and physical to contribute to the development of an emerging partnership provision responding to the needs of local young people
Update March 2005
In 2003 Generation Y launched Phase I of three local projects
in Stornoway, Banff and Denny and Dunipace via a six month process of research and selection
based on criteria such as evidence of local needs, capacity for
volunteer leadership, long term sustainability and the potential
for local partnership.
With the support of the Generation Y team in YMCA Scotland each area was successful in raising funding for the first three years of the programme.
The careful monitoring of progress and capacity of each pilot at local level led to the unfortunate withdrawal of one of these Phase I projects in Denny & Dunipace in early 2005.
In Stornoway the youth worker was appointed in the summer of 2004 and in Banff the worker has just been appointed in March 2005. Both of these projects are now pursuing the needs assessment and partnership co-ordination agenda outlined above.
Core principles for the development of each project include training
and the development of local volunteers, inclusion of young people
in leadership and effective monitoring and evaluation.
Phase II has appointed new Generation Y programmes in
Inverness and Portree, Skye and is exploring potential in Broughty Ferry.
External Comment
In 2003 the Scottish Executive Report on Youth Work in Scotland identified Generation Y as a best practice example of partnership working. Considerable interest has also been shown in the model from other agencies, YMCAs across the UK and local authorities in Scotland. In 2005 YMCA Scotland began a conversation with Communities Scotland about joint evaluation of the programme and how best to learn lessons for the community planning process over the coming years.
If you would like more information on the Generation Y project please contact Jackie Cowan.
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