Please scroll down for information on the Toolkits for the Youth Achievement Awards Scheme.
ArtsArtSmart – 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
The toolkit will be available as a free download for a limited period of time (until the end of March 2010).
Please click here to download the ArtSmart toolkit.
Other interested groups, or YAA groups wanting to access copies from April 2010 can order a CD Rom version of the publication direct from Sara Kirk by sending an email to yaamaterials@ukyouth.org
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
Developing and Accrediting Financial Awareness through the Youth Achievement Awards
This three year project ran from September 2005 to August 2008 with the support of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland). The main aims of the Financial Awareness Programme was 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.
The Financial Awareness Toolkit (the FAT pack) was developed in order to enable informal and non-formal educators to raise young people's awareness of the importance of financial literacy as a key skill. This resource enables financial issues to be integrated easily into a group's Youth Achievement Award programme.
The toolkit is structured into six core sections as follows:
Challenge sheets
Each of which is 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
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
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
Each of which 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.
At the back of each Toolkit, a CD-Rom version of the activity sheets and evidence sheets is available in order to make duplication easier for workers.
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
