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Listen
Foreword
Young people, by definition, have their future in front of them. And that future will be decided by the decisions we make today. That is why it is so important that young people have a strong voice and why it is essential that young people must be full and active citizens playing an active role in their communities.
The Curriculum for Excellence set out the outcomes we want for young people today. Youth work has always contributed to delivering these outcomes and now has a key role in taking this forward.
Our vision is for all our young people to have ambition for themselves, to be confident individuals, effective contributors, successful learners and responsible citizens. And to be nurtured, safe, active, healthy, achieving, included, respected and responsible. And we believe youth work has a significant role to play in realising this vision for young people.
Youth work
Almost four in ten young people are involved in youth organisations or take part in youth work activities outside school and we know many more would like to take up such opportunities. Over 80,000 young people are involved in local authority youth work in a typical week and young people also benefit from local opportunities offered by
the 130 voluntary organisations who receive £7 million support every year from the Unified Voluntary Sector Fund.
Youth work offers a wide range of opportunities for young people to take part in new challenges, in outdoor education, in building leadership and personal capacity, in citizenship and enterprise and in environmental, sporting or cultural activities.
For some young people it can provide opportunities which engage and inspire them and benefit their communities rather than focus their energy in negative ways which may lead to crime or anti-social behaviour.
Volunteering
We saw during the World Youth Congress in Stirling last year that thousands of young people were prepared to make commitments that will have a positive impact on the world. Many more are volunteering in their communities across Scotland to help improve the lives of those around them. We are building on this by promoting volunteering through Project Scotland, our new national volunteering programme for 16-25 year olds, which has already placed over 600 full time volunteers since May 2005 and this number will grow over the coming years.
Participation
We are also working to ensure young people develop a constructive voice nationally through the Scottish Youth Parliament and Children's Parliament, and locally through Dialogue Youth Units for 12-18 year olds and through community planning partnerships.
Youth work in the 21st century
But if youth work is to continue to play a significant role in the lives of all our young people it must face the challenges ahead. We want to ensure that young people are heard, participate and can help build their communities.
Youth work providers will therefore need to demonstrate a clear understanding of the outcomes they plan for young people. They will have to show us a commitment for excellent value for money for any funding that they receive. Best value also means that young people need to be able to take full advantage of community facilities, and that includes schools, where more use could be made of facilities outside school hours.
We want to ensure that youth work changes the lives of individual young people as well as helping us tackle
wider community issues, such as health improvement, lowering the number of young people not in employment, education or training and closing the opportunity gap. We will continue to provide support for the youth work sector at national level to ensure that young people have high quality information, access to opportunities and that their voices are heard. We will also ensure that youth workers and volunteers have the support and training that they need to deliver positive outcomes for young people. We will support local authorities and their voluntary sector partners to share good practice. And HMIE will continue to review provision to ensure that it is making a difference to young people's lives.
Our consultation
To meet the challenges and needs of young people in 21st century Scotland it is vital that we capture the views of young people themselves to help shape the Youth Work Strategy. We have therefore produced a questionnaire specifically targeted at young people to go with this consultation paper. We expect local authorities and voluntary youth organisations to engage with young people to make sure that their views are included in responses to this consultation.
We also need to gather the views of youth workers in local authorities and voluntary youth organisations, volunteers, and other professionals who work with young people. We intend to use the responses to this consultation to help develop the Youth Work Strategy as promised in the Partnership Agreement for a Better Scotland.
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