In this section:
- Youth Achievement Awards Disability Project
- Financial Literacy Project
- Welcoming Achievement Project
- Gulbenkian Project
- Accenture
- Investing In Success
- The Validity of Informal Learning in Providing Progression Towards Key Skills Achievement
Youth Achievement Awards Disability Project
The Community fund gave a grant of £197,396 to UK Youth for the Youth Achievement Award Disability Project. The three year project aimed at making the Awards more accessible to young disabled people and in turn increase the number of young disabled people receiving accreditation and recognition for activities they have done through non formal learning.
Since the beginning of the project in 2003 we have been working with young disabled people and youth workers to make Youth Achievement Awards and youth work more accessible.
One of the main outcomes of the project was making young people’s Award Booklets available in a variety of formats. Award Booklets at each level (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum) have been produced in Braille, Online, using Pictures & Symbols, large Print and Audio. We have also worked with four deaf young people to produce a BSL DVD/video giving an explanation of the Awards and guidance on completing an Award Booklet.
Young people are being encouraged to complete their Award booklet and their portfolios in their preferred format. For example a deaf young person who has BSL as their first language may choose to produce a BSL video based portfolio.
Angela Moore played a large part in the project and as part of her Platinum Youth Achievement Award she produced a Toolkit of worksheets designed to help young people gather evidence and build portfolios.
Throughout the project it became apparent that there was a need for some training for youth workers around inclusive practice. In response to this we built Inclusive Practice Training in to UK Youths training calendar. It is a two day course accredited by ABC and is designed to equip people with the knowledge and skills to run inclusive youth projects for disabled and non disabled young people.
Participants who attended the last course said:
- “It was an excellent two days, I learnt so much.”
- “The knowledge I have gained will certainly help me to improve my organisations practice.”
- “The course has changed my life.”
The project is due to end in October 2006 with the launch of a new and exciting resource pack - We are in the process of writing a new and exciting resource pack – ‘So What is Inclusion?’ The writers of this resource having been working over a number of years to develop inclusive youth work, they have used their experience to produce a dynamic, interactive resource which gives workers an opportunity to explore in their own way their understanding of what inclusion can be. As well as being able to explore a range of issues the pack provides practical examples of best practice. One of the writers John Kelly described the pack as “this is a challenging resource, it is an in your face attempt to change the face of youth work.”
Statistics recorded by ASDAN and UK Youth show that the number of young disabled people doing the Youth Achievement Awards and receiving national accreditation and recognition has increased over the last three years. In 2005, 3290 young disabled people completed a Youth Achievement Award compared to 1119 in 2003.
To download the Accessible Youth Achievement report click here
For more information about this project please contact Abby Oatway.
Financial Literacy Programme
This three year project began in April 2006 with the support of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland). The main aims of the Financial Literacy Programme is to raise the level of financial literacy amongst young people within UK Youth's membership network and to provide encouragement and support for young people to select a challenge at any stage of the Youth Achievement Awards that demonstrates the acquisition of financial skills.
Background info
The Financial Challenge was devised as a way of raising young people's awareness of the importance of financial literacy as a key skill. This programme will enable financial literacy to be integrated easily into a group's Youth Achievement Award programme. The Youth Achievement Awards provide a setting for raising financial literacy levels, where young people have access to opportunities.
The Key stages are:
Materials development
The project is in the process of developing a Financial Literacy Toolkit of activities and resources for workers to use with young people. We will also devise promotional literature to encourage young people to have a financial literacy focus within their Youth Achievement Awards.
Training
The promotional and resource packages will be supported by training opportunities for workers, which will be designed to enable them to make the most effective use of the resources.
Recognition
The programme will recognise, celebrate and reward both groups and individuals who engage with the programme. A reward programme will encourage young people to complete the Financial Challenge. The number of incentives at each level will be agreed for each year of the programme.
For more information on the Financial Literacy project, please contact Yvonne Richards
Welcoming Achievement Project
The Home Office Refugee Integration Challenge Fund funded the “Welcoming Achievement Project” for one year from August 2004 to September 2005. The project made the Youth Challenges and the Youth Achievement Awards available for young refugees and worked to integrate young refugees in the community. The project aimed to:
- Improve young people’s communication skills in English
- Improve educational opportunities
- Develop a sense of belonging
- Tackle negative images of young refugees
- Improve the quality of youth work provision for those working with young refugees
Whilst many of these aims are much longer term than can ever be realized during the course of a 12-month project, we feel we have begun to meet the aims by:
- Making the Awards accessible in a range of languages spoken by young refugees. The Youth Achievement Awards and Youth Challenges booklets have been translated into 11 languages spoken within the refugee community in the UK. These booklets are now widely available to the UK Youth network and are accessed through our main materials order form
- Introducing training and awareness raising sessions, which highlighted the difficulties of being a young refugee in the UK. This has both tackled some of the negative perceptions about being a young refugee and also enabled youth workers to offer more appropriate services to young refugees.
- Developing links with many agencies who are not familiar with youth work processes who have benefited from training and support, as well as the Awards programme.
The project also enabled UK Youth to create links with key refugee organisations and promote the role of youth work in their work with young refugees. The following are few examples of the feedback we received:
“We wanted to reach young people who don’t attend our projects, and introduce them to local provisions available. We have managed to do this”.
Tameside Youth Service
“The Awards will help young refugees in our project to gain entry in colleges. It has helped a lot with integration of refugees in the community”.
British Red Cross
For more information on this project contact Yvonne Richards
To view the materials produced specifically for the project , see below:
Gulbenkian Project
This UK Youth pilot project began in April 2005 and aims to demonstrate the potential of using the arts as a focus for learning through the Youth Achievement Awards. This project builds upon the successful work funded by the National Learning and Skills Council into progression routes from non-formal Awards to formal qualifications, i.e. Key Skills.
The project aims to establish the validity of an arts-based, process driven curriculum (utilising the Youth Achievement Awards and the Arts Award) in developing the personal, social creative and key skills of young people being educated in Pupil Referral Units. The main objectives of the pilot are to:
- Raise the awareness of educators within PRUs about the value of non-formal learning approaches: as typified by the YAA and the Arts Award and the opportunities available for progression between these and onto Wider Key Skills qualifications within an arts-based programme.
- Link with the Arts Council England to access their training programmes and materials that will equip workers with the skills and confidence to deliver an arts-based non-formal learning programme.
- Provide opportunities for young people participating in the programme to acquire one or more of the following accredited awards: YAA, Arts Award, Wider Key Skills qualification.
The pilots are based in two Pupil Referral Units in the North West of England and supported by Lancashire Youth Association.
To download the Gulbenkian Project's Evaluation Report, please click here
Accenture
This scheme is currently in its first year and will continue until March 2009, during which time we aim to have enabled 41 new organisations from all over the UK to deliver the Awards and over 3,000 young people to access to Youth Achievement Awards.
This is an opportunity for registered charities who aren’t successful in obtaining funding from ‘V’ to access support in order to deliver the Youth Achievement Awards with their young volunteers. This project has been funded through the generous support of Accenture (the international Consultancy firm) and will enable your young people to join the growing network of young people nationally who have their achievements and volunteering activities recognised through the Awards.
In line with the priority groups highlighted in the Russell Commission’s report we are looking to target charitable organisations which work with (or are seeking to work with) a significant number of young volunteers from one or more of the following groups:
- Black and minority ethnic young volunteers
- Young disabled volunteers
- Young volunteers from faith groups
- Young volunteers without qualifications
For more information, please contact Yvonne Richards
Investing In Success
The project was funded by investment bankers JP Morgan and ran from April 2003 to March 2005. The programme aimed to support youth workers to utilise UK Youth’s model of quality youth work in order improve the opportunities for young people engaged with their service. In addition, young people are encouraged to gain recognition for their achievements during the project through the Youth Achievement Awards.
The main objectives of the Investing In Success project were to:
- Enable disadvantaged youth groups across England to access UK Youth’s Youth Achievement Awards.
- Provide training and ongoing support to youth workers in the accreditation of informal learning.
- Identify and support a number of young people with the potential to become young group leaders and peer educators.
The key stages of the project were:
- Training for youth workers on how to deliver the Youth Achievement Awards.
- Local support and mentoring by Accredited Learning Development Officers.
- Leadership training- in each of the participating groups, young people had the opportunity to participate in a residential training event designed to promote leadership skills and build self-confidence.
A range of youth groups throughout England participated in the project including Island House Community Centre, Youth Act!, Princess Royal Trust for Carers and North West Youth.
“Investing in Success has given us the opportunity to accredit the young people at levels that they can lead. It has allowed us to work in partnership and be more co-ordinated in ensuring that the young people are accessing services from other providers and using them in their award groups. For one Bronze award the young people can do challenges with different local small scale groups and still pull all of that together for one award. By co-ordinating this more we a setting up a sustainable working relationship with the other organisations and look at the possibilities for internal moderation between groups. The Investing in Success programme has broken down local barriers and been a vehicle for us looking at the overall experience that the young people have of all of us.”
Louise Pears, Director, Island House Community Centre
For more information, please contact Yvonne Richards
The Validity of Informal Learning in Providing Progression Towards Key Skills Achievement
A proposal by UK Youth and ASDAN was accepted by LSCNO and a joint pilot project ran from April 2003 through to March 2004.
The pilot was designed to demonstrate that:
- Informal education programmes are an effective way of enabling young people to develop the personal and social skills that are a precursor to their ability to develop self-esteem and the confidence to move on to further education, training and employment.
- Young people respond positively to the 'voluntary' engagement facilitated by informal education and youth work, where they can gain key skills and awards from programmes based on their motivational interests.
- Outcomes from informal education can be measured against a nationally recognised framework.
- There is a need to develop and provide training to 'up skill' youth workers to enable them to support young people in gaining key skills via informal education programmes within a nationally recognised accreditation framework.
Outline of project
The aim of the project was to establish the validity of informal learning in providing progression towards key, personal and interpersonal skills within the context of the national framework for qualifications.
The key objectives were to:
- raise the awareness of youth workers about the value of national accreditation and the opportunities available for progression to Key Skill qualifications, within the concept of Life Long Learning.
- develop and produce quality training materials and a training programme that will equip workers with the skills and confidence to deliver informal education within a national framework for qualifications and support young people gain key skills.
- provide opportunities for young people to acquire key skills (wider key skills and communication) from participating in youth work and informal education programmes.
Project Outcomes:
Individual Units Achieved by young people as a result of the pilot
| WWO | IOL | PS |
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 1 | Level 2 |
| 7KS | 4 | 1 | 8 | 1 | | 1 |
| Barnsley Learning Centre Network | 21 | | | | | |
| Braunstone Motor Project | | | | | | |
| City of Exeter YMCA Trust | 4 | | 1 | | | |
| Knowle West Youth Forum | | | 2 | | 3 | |
| Rathbone Community Industry | | | | | | |
| Young People First | 4 | | 4 | | | |
| 33 | 1 | 15 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Total Units Achieved by young people as a result of the pilot
| Number of young people achieving at least one unit | Number of young people achieving two or more units | Number of young people close to achieving a unit |
| 7KS | 9 | 5 | Unknown |
| Barnsley Learning Centre Network | 21 | | Unknown |
| Braunstone Motor Project | | | 6 |
| City of Exeter YMCA Trust | 5 | | Unknown |
| Knowle West Youth Forum | 5 | | Unknown |
| Rathbone Community Industry | | | Unknown |
| Young People First | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| 47 | 6 | |
Practitioners achieving IOL Level 2 as part of their Competent Assessor programme
| Improving Own Learning and Performance – Level 2 |
| 7KS | 3 |
| Barnsley Learning Centre Network | 4 |
| Braunstone Motor Project | 0 |
| City of Exeter YMCA Trust | 1 |
| Knowle West Youth Forum | 3 |
| Rathbone Community Industry | 0 |
| Young People First | 1 |
| Totals | 12 |
| Total number of units achieved by Young People | 54 |
| Total number of units achieved by Practitioners | 12 |
| Total number of units achieved as a result of the Pilot Project | 66 |
To download External Evaluators Report (Tom Leny) click here
To download Project Manager’s report click here
For more information, please contact Yvonne Richards
