Please scroll down for information on the Toolkits for the Youth Achievement Awards Scheme.
Moneyaware
Developing and Accrediting Financial Awareness through the Youth Achievement Awards
With the launch of the Financial Awareness Toolkit, UK Youth is delighted to support the current national initiative to raise the standard of financial awareness amongst young people. This important new resource provides a fantastic opportunity for young people to develop their awareness of financial issues whilst working toward a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum Youth Achievement Award.
In addition to providing lots of useful information, the materials contained in the toolkit provide an ideal stimulus for discussion, further investigation and research. The toolkit has been designed to provide practitioners with a range of resources that are easy to access, easy to duplicate, easy to understand, and easy-to-use.
The Toolkit includes:
• Sample Challenges
Sample challenges are presented at three levels of the Youth Achievement Award - Bronze, Silver and Gold, and provides suggestions for challenges and targets using language designed to help young people adopt the appropriate degree of responsibility for the level of award being undertaken.
• Information Sheets
Each of which contains core information about the topic covered (e.g. Borrowing), and is designed to provide a starting point upon which to base further research and discussion.
• How To Sheets
Each of which provides young people with information about how to carry out certain financial tasks.
• Financial Documents
Each of which has been designed specifically to give young people a feel for the ‘real thing’. Although based upon genuine documents, in order to respect client confidentiality, each one has been carefully edited whilst maintaining a high degree of realism in order to maximise their value as learning tools.
• Activity Sheets
This section of the toolkit contains a range of activity and recording sheets, designed to help young people engage with the other materials supplied in the pack.
• Signpost Sheets
Each of which focuses on a particular aspect of the theme being covered (e.g. Benefits) and is designed to provide young people with information about where to start looking for further, and more in-depth, information.
• Glossary
The Moneyaware Toolkit costs £25.00 plus P&P. To order the toolkit, please contact Sara Kirk on 01425 675107 or sara.k@ukyouth.org
ArtSmart – A Toolkit for accrediting an Arts Based approach through the Youth Achievement Awards
Funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, UK Youth are pleased to launch their challenges toolkit for developing the arts in your youth setting.
Written by Caroline Ash, Artswork Academy Development Manager, the toolkit is bursting with practical ideas, session plans and recording sheets to help you get started in the arts.
The toolkit covers the key arts themes of:
- Craft
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Drama
- Fashion
- Film
- Journalism
- Music
- Photography
- Poetry
- Visual Art
In addition it offers some starting points for addressing additional cross-arts themes with your young people, such as:
- Personal Experiences
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Emotions and Feelings
- Heroes and Heroines
- Where I Live
UK Youth have published ArtSmart, a CD Rom based resource, which aims to develop creativity through an arts based approach to non-formal education. The resource is designed to act both as a self standing resource for youth workers as well as highlighting how to accredit the arts activities through the Youth Challenges and Youth Achievement Awards programme. In addition there is considerable scope for the resource to complement and support young people's work towards the Arts Award suite of qualifications especially as a step on from their achievements with the Youth Achievement Awards. We hope this resource will help youth workers to offer more arts activities and will open doors to further arts development and recognition for young people.
To access copies of the toolkit, you can order a CD Rom version of the publication for £15+ VAT direct from Sara Kirk by calling 01425 675107 or by sending an email to yaamaterials@ukyouth.org
Please note that there is an update to the Child Protection section in the ArtSmart toolkit (pages 28 -29). Many thanks to SAFEchild for providing the most recent information. To download, click here
Youth Active Challenges Toolkit
UK Youth were funded by Youth Active (a UK wide multi-agency partnership)to develop a toolkit to assist workers to develop and deliver accessible sports and physical activity programmes with their young people in a range of settings.
Ringbound in an A5 polypropylene folder, the toolkit is designed to be robust and easily carried when workers are out and about. The resource contains the ideas and starting points for workers on the following sports and activities:
Simple games and activities, cycling, swimming, basketball, football, athletics, cricket, racket sports, dance, action sports, circuit training and fitness building,
There are also plenty of session plans and recording sheets to help your young people evidence their achievements for their portfolios. The toolkit also features signposts to other sports focused awards and organisations. Included with each toolkit is a CD Rom to enable workers to print out session plans and evidence sheets easily.
To order a copy, please go to UK Youth Store at Lulu.com at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=3228881
The Drinkaware Challenges
Recent research shows that young people in Britain are drinking more and drinking more often. During the 1990s, the average amount of alcohol consumed each week by young people in the 11 to 15 years age group doubled. By the age of 13, young people who drink out-number those who don’t.
Whilst most young people who drink at any early age will not develop any serious problems as a result, this increase in drinking amongst young people can have serious consequences.
Youth work has a vital part to play in providing young people with opportunities to learn about alcohol, and to discuss and explore their own attitudes and opinions towards alcohol. It is important that this takes place during the period in their lives when they are most likely to be forming beliefs and behaviours for later life.
The Drinkaware Challenges are an additional aspect to the Youth Achievement Awards, UK Youth’s flagship peer educational programme, developed in collaboration with The Drinkaware Trust with funding by the Big Lottery Fund. The aim of the Drinkaware Challenges is to engage young people in the practical elements of alcohol education and awareness raising.
The Drinkaware Challenges address alcohol abuse by encouraging young people to think up their own alcohol education projects, for example campaign media like posters, youth club alcohol policies, first aid projects, presentations, or drama. Young people engage first hand with the challenge of how to change people’s attitudes and behaviour for themselves and learn key skills along the way.
The Drinkaware Challenges Resource supports practitioners working within formal, non-formal and informal settings, such as youth clubs, voluntary organisations, colleges and schools, to assist them to develop awareness around issues related to alcohol and sensible drinking, and to link these activities to the Youth Achievement Awards.
The information and activities have been divided into five key themes:
- Alcohol - Facts and Fiction -
providing young people with the facts and information about alcohol, and the consequences of using and abusing alcohol. - Alcohol in Young People’s Lives -
focusing on the role that alcohol plays in young people’s lives today and seeks to explore the beliefs, attitudes and ideas that young people have about alcohol. Alcohol in Young People’s Communities - focusing on the part that alcohol plays in young people’s communities and the way alcohol can affect different people such as young children, adults and older people. Alcohol and the Media - focusing on the relationship between alcohol and the different forms of media. Alcohol, Young People and Risks - containing activities that encourage young people to consider some of the risks associated with alcohol, and the ways to recognise, handle and minimise the risks associated with alcohol. Under each of the five themes, there is an explanation, challenge sheets and activities sheets. There is also a promotional flyer to encourage young people to have an alcohol awareness focus within their Youth Achievement Awards which can be downloaded below. The resource includes a free CD Rom with printable worksheets and activities and a DVD featuring good practice examples of informal alcohol education projects with young people.
To order a copy, please go to UK Youth Store at Lulu.com at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=3228881
Training
UK Youth are able to provide workers with training designed to enable them to make the most effective use of these resources. This training is delivered as an in-house day (maximum 12 delegates) and can be adapted for workers who have already been trained in the Youth Achievement Awards (as a half day session) or for workers who need a full introduction to the Awards as well as the resource (full day session). To book please contact Charmaine Simpson at yaa@ukyouth.org
