To receive a presentation on the Youth Service within North Northumberland.
Minutes:
S Pearson, Senior Manager - Specialist Services and G Younger, Accommodation Lead, were in attendance to provide Members with information on the Youth Service. A copy of the power point presentation would be filed with the signed minutes and circulated to Members after the meeting.
Northumberland Adolescent Services (NAS) was made up of services to meet the needs of all adolescents across Northumberland and included:
· Youth Service Participation & Advocacy and Prevention/Detached
· Sorted Substance Misuse Service
· Youth Justice Service, Missing & Exploitation
· 14+/18+ Teams One & Two
· Accommodation Team
· Business Administration Team
An explanation was provided on the role and function of each of the services and how they supported young people in Northumberland around three distinct strands:
· Prevention
· Participation and Advocacy
· Early Help/Missing
The provision of universal youth services were developed and delivered across Northumberland working in partnership with the Voluntary Sector and it was through data analysis and feedback from partners it was decided in which area to deploy resources.
In response to questions from Members the following information was provided:-
· In the press it had been reported that NCC had over the last four years suffered cuts to budgets, however the Youth Service joined with Northumberland Adolescent Service (NAS) four years ago, which gave an opportunity to broaden/extend the resource to look at all different aspects of services. Northumberland were very fortunate and proud that we still have a youth service provision as no other County Council in the region had this service.
· In respect of sexual health and promotion of information, there had been a dip during the pandemic with a lack of training being undertaken during this time. This was now back and online training was available for all the adolescent service workers within Northumberland this also was available for the voluntary sector.
· In relation to homelessness there was an excellent joint housing protocol (JHP) in place which was signed up to by a large number of organisations who supported the provision and for all young people who were referred there was a multi-agency team in place to help. More would be done to ensure that the voluntary sector were aware of the protocol.
· An offer was available for volunteer organisations to receive face to face training and there was also some training provided to voluntary organisations but this would be at their request. There was no offer to assess any external person for the Assessors Award at the current time.
Councillor Renner-Thompson advised that youth services was not a statutory function and the Council provided this service voluntarily and confirmed we were the only local authority to do so. S Pearson advised that there were 35 staff with an office base in Cramlington and detached youth workers were deployed to identified targeted areas. A meeting between all third sector parties was being developed to discuss how we could support them rather than duplicate service delivery and work was also ongoing on how local communities could grow their own provision.
Officers were thanked for their attendance and presentation.