“UK Youth in partnership with 7KS, an independent provider, support young people who are excluded or at risk of exclusion from school through Youth Achievement Awards. Admission is by referral from the Local Authority…Young people are offered a variety of ways to enable them to maximise their potential. The programme re-engages students in education by offering an experience which is positive and encouraging. 75 per cent of young people who have taken part achieved a key skill and attendance rates are well over 94 per cent.” – DCSF/HM Treasury Joint Policy Review of Children and Young People, January 2007 Each Youth Achievement Foundation will commit to offering a personal development and employability skills-led curriculum approach delivered via the Youth Achievement Award programme supported by a teaching, mentoring and pastoral staff team. The Foundations will offer structured, alternative provision to the most disadvantaged young people in their local area. The alternative curriculum links to the National Curriculum, to Key Skills and to other accreditation and development such as COPE and PSHE. Each Foundation will: • Work with the most disadvantaged young people locally aged 13 –19 • Work with minority groups • Provide an alternative educational pathway with accredited learning outcomes • Engage the most disaffected young people in learning • Create and bring together local deliver partnerships between local authorities, schools, and local youth providers • Enhance the skills of youth work and learning support professionals • Provide qualified learning mentors to support young people via personalised learning • Improve the quality of provision • Be supported by an ongoing programme of advice, fundraising, management development and governance support • Improve Attendance (in 7KS’s South Park College attendance is over 90%) • Give young people not in education, employment or training an accredited qualification and put them on a pathway to success UK Youth, working with 7KS Enterprise College, will provide local partners with the training, support, quality standards and delivery framework they need to set up their local Youth Achievement Foundation. We will contract with local partners to deliver the Foundations in their local areas. A Curriculum Development Officer will oversee the programme, supporting the Foundations through set up. Schools will identify and refer young people to the Foundations which will work with those young people identified as most disadvantaged in the 13 –19 range. Local steering committees will be set up by local partnerships to oversee the delivery of the project. They will be supported by UK Youth, and through training support by 7KS Enterprise College. Why is the programme needed? “The future for young people without social and personal skills, confidence and self esteem is increasingly bleak.” – Rt Hon Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children, Young People and Families The new 10-year government strategy ‘Aiming High for Young People’ highlights the importance of resilience and social and emotional skills. It recognises that “the most disadvantaged young people are less likely to acquire these skills, leaving them at a greater risk of developing poor outcomes…. Such as becoming a teenage parent or being involved in crime.” With a clear emphasis on educational reform, roll out of extended schools, the focus on better integrated local provision, recognition of the benefits of positive activities and the need to put the young person’s motivation and aspirations at the heart of personalised learning, HM Treasury and DCSF highlight the need for innovative, alternative provision, especially to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged. “The government recognises the importance of organisations such as UK Youth which has a long history of delivering innovative youth work projects, particularly those with young people who are disaffected from formal education.” – Phil Hope MP, Minister for the Third Sector What will the programme achieve? Youth Achievement Foundations present a transformational approach to education. They offer a specific, targeted, structured programme to enable hundreds of disadvantaged young people and young people not in education, employment or training to gain access to alternative education provision running parallel to the national curriculum (remaining connected to learning and development; avoiding risk factors such as involvement in crime, teenage pregnancy; improving social and personal skills; gaining employability skills; gaining Key Skills and Wider Key Skills). Young people taking part also achieve an accredited award/qualification to mark their achievements and learning. Moreover a successful, sustainable, partnership model is established at the local level to enable better integrated service provision. Youth Achievement Foundations will help disadvantaged young people turn around their life chances.