Agenda item

Please introduce yourselves and outline your roles and responsibilities.

(DC) I am the Director of Cultural Services, responsible for Library, Arts and   Sports Services, and Adult Education.

(NB) I am the Head of the Kent Youth Service and the Lead Officer for Extended Services, and oversee the countywide delivery of youth work.

Please give a strategic overview of the services you manage and how these services impact on ES in Kent.

(DC) My services support the provision of ES in schools in the following ways:-

• we advise on planning, eg for sports development and arts development;
• we advise on books and libraries, and on a range of skills provision;
• we act as a conduit or link between schools and the voluntary sector, and strengthen links between schools and communities;  
• we have a quality assurance role, eg in sports provision, as in the Find New Talent programme in Shepway;
• I see our developmental role being broad, covering other aspects of a child’s life apart from school, eg parenting training and skills development;
• we aim to broaden the impact of schools – eg 7000 people have so far taken part in Family Learning, which includes literacy, numeracy and communication skills;
• we support doorstep libraries, and support parents to read to and with their children;
• we support initiatives like Bookstart, which provides a book for every child born in Kent;
• we extend the possibilities in schools for competitive sports.  Last year, 30,000 school children took part in the Kent School Games, which were the biggest such games in Europe; and
• we have an integrating role in delivering English for Speakers of Other Languages in the community.

Overall, we are involved in some very promising work, which will have increased significance in the future.  Our starting point is to look at the child in the context of the family and community around them.

In your role as sports providers, are you involved with Sport England? Do you expect your role to increase in the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics?

(DC) Yes. Kent is the beacon authority for Olympic sports development in the UK, due to its leadership and the high standard of work going on here.

Does Cultural Services include drama and heritage?

(DC) Yes, we support art and drama in schools. Some is provided as a matter of course, while other provision is in response to requests from schools.

What is your view of Total Place?  How would you achieve integrated Directorates to benefit from this?

(DC) We already work in the Total Place way across our own Directorate and with other directorates. This linking makes is easier to add value, and has increased over the last two years. We have many joint capital programmes with other units.

How do links work in the Districts - for instance, the Youth Service linking with the Children’s Trust?

(DC)  These links work well locally as they are on a small scale.

Please describe the structure of the Youth Service and the ways in which the Youth Service is involved in providing ES in Kent.

(NB) We currently have six operational areas, each one relating to two District Council areas across Kent, but will be reviewing the structure soon. There is an Area Youth Officer in each area, who manages the frontline delivery of youth services.  East and West Kent each have an Assistant Head of Service; a third Assistant Head  of Service is responsible for Policy and Standards across the Service.  I will send the Select Committee a chart showing the full structure.

The Youth Service includes a diverse range of models:-

• 33 Youth Centres;
• 17 street-based, known as ‘detached’, projects, which are not based in youth centres;
• 17 school-based Community Youth Tutors (CYT);
• Residential Outdoor Education Centres – eg Swattenden, Kent Mountain Centre;
• Youth workers seconded to the 16plus Service Working with young people who are leaving care;
• Youth workers are included in Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), which is a good model of partnership working;
• Projects such as The GR@ND in Gravesend, run in partnership with Gravesham Borough Council, Parklife in Herne Bay and ‘HOUSE’; and
• Partnership working has a key role to play in the Youth Service, and the Service is commissioning work in this sector with a value of £400,000 in 2010/11.

Extended Services are a good focal point of Youth Service work, as many youth workers are placed within secondary schools (via the Community Youth Tutor model described earlier). ES services with other schools are in various stages of development across the county, and a good example is at Homewood School in Tenterden.

The Youth Service has varying relationships with the Borough and District Councils of Kent, and a good example is with Tonbridge and Malling and its Y2Crew holiday programme. Kent Youth Service is hosting EuroCamp in July 2010, with 240 young people attending from the 12 districts of Kent and 12 European countries.  Plans are also developing for the Youth Service to organise and deliver GlobalCamp in 2012, drawing young people from every continent and timed to coincide with London 2012. 

Many youth centres are located on school sites, arising from an extensive building programme in the 1980s, and good examples of this are at Archers Court, Mascalls and Holmesdale Community College.  These are independent centres run by the Youth Service.  The relationships they have with the host schools vary, and unfortunately are not always good.

The Community Youth Tutor model has been developed over the last 6/7 years, with youth workers being placed in school during the day for 40% of their total working hours to help deliver PSHE, and to work with the school council and young people who are at risk of exclusion etc. The rest of their time delivers Breakfast Clubs, After School sessions, evening youth work sessions and extensive holiday programmes, including residential work with young people. There are presently 17 CYTs based in host schools or academies.  The relationship with the HT of a school or academy is key to the success of the CYT arrangement, and is more important than the style of the school.  CYT posts are funded jointly by the Youth Service and the host school – 60% by the Youth Service, 40% by the school.  Unfortunately, a small number of schools have deleted this service as part of budget cuts.

What provision is there in West Kent? 

(NB) There is not so much Youth Service activity in West Kent, and we would seek to increase this.  The 33 youth centres in Kent are historically placed but are well placed, so there isn’t an issue about moving them to new locations – we just need more of them. The Youth Capital Fund might have helped develop some more, but this is due to end in March 2011. We have worked to fill the gap in provision in West Kent by using more detached youth workers and work with the voluntary sector (third sector).  If resource can be identified to increase available resource, the Community Youth Tutor model will be developed.

How are Community Wardens involved in ES?  

(NB) There are examples of good working between the Youth Service and Community Wardens.  They set up youth clubs and youth projects as part of their work, with support from my team.

What is the role of Youth Advisory Groups (YAGs) and how successful are they?

(NB)  A recent review of YAGs supports their role in overseeing development on young people’s services at district level through a multi-agency approach. The review also recommended that the groups need to improve their processes of youth engagement, whilst recognising that consultation with young people also takes place via school councils, District/Borough Youth Forums, the KYCC, etc.  I will send the SC a copy of the review guidelines for YAGs.

What are the main challenges when developing ES, and how will you overcome them?

(DC)  The main challenges are:-

·        the power of Head Teachers: this can be both a force for good and  a source of some difficulty;

·        the difficulty of achieving strategic engagement as you want it;

·        the fact that all HTs relate to their communities in different ways;

·        getting a sense of agreement of what good ES should look like; and

·        diverse funding streams can be disruptive.

But many things go right with the delivery of ES.  We need to be better at gathering evidence of successes and spreading good practice, to make ES sustainable.

What links are there with School Improvement Plans? These measure academic improvement, but other things are important too.

(DC)  There are no strategic links between ES and SIPs.  Links happen incidentally.

Can you set out some bullet points for best practice?

(DC and NB) We will send these to the SC. Subsequently supplied.

There are three things which make the difference between a school getting a ‘good’ rating and an ‘excellent’ rating from Ofsted; community engagement, truancy rates and drop-out rates.  Getting involved in drama can help develop literacy and numeracy skills, and stretch a child’s imagination.

(NB)  Young People’s development is not just about schools but about their lives outside school.  The Youth Service works mostly outside school hours, and delivers a wide-ranging curriculum offer to young people as an integral part of its offer, including sports, arts and other personal development programmes designed to support their transition to adulthood.    I hope the SC will bear this in mind when making recommendations, as this is very important.

Who benefits from ES and who doesn’t? And what can KCC do to help?

(NB) 

• in some schools, 85% of pupils travel some distance home from their schools at the end of the day, and if they are going to a community which does not have any facilities for them, or schools that do not welcome them, they will not benefit from ES; 
• addressing the provision of activities where a child lives would spread the benefit; 
• some schools specify that only pupils who attend their school will be admitted to take part in ES activities, and this excludes others in the community from benefitting.  We would seek access to ES by age, not by membership of a school;  and
• further development of the CYT model would help, as 60% of their work is done outside the school day.

So far we have only spoken about schools, but communities include people of all ages.

(DC)  Yes, that is a good point. We need to engage more older people, via Adult Education and in other ways.  We will need to look into how best to do this.   However, 60% of Adult Education courses are provided in the day time, so could not be based at school premises, as evening courses could.

(DC)  To sum up, my dream would be to have a community champion on the governing body of every school in Kent.

(NB)   Since 2007, the KCC has had a statutory duty to provide positive activities for young people, and these need to be linked to ES.