INTRODUCTION

Annual report for April 2013 – March 2014

The Lincolnshire Council for Voluntary Youth Services (LCVYS) is a registered charity and currently operates from Waddington Youth Centre, High Street, Waddington, Lincoln LN5 9RF. It works within the framework of its constitution of April 2008. It has been actively involved in the county of Lincolnshire since 1974.

LCVYS is a membership infrastructure organisation that is led by representatives from member groups. It supports work with voluntary organisations and groups that provide educational and positive activities for children and young people.

Our mission is:

“To actively support member organisations to enable young people they work with to reach their full potential as individuals and as part of their communities.”

The Charity is administered and managed by trustees, elected and/or reappointed at Annual General Meetings.

Current honorary officers are:

Chairman: Dr Charles Shaw - Lincolnshire Youth Association/YDA*

Vice Chair: Mr Dan Hawbrook - E Safety Officer LSCB*

Treasurer: Miss Lynne Forman - Independent

Mr Dave Rose CA. Lincoln Diocesan Youth Service.*

Ms Helen Jones – Lincolnshire Young Farmers*

Mr Jim O’Hara - Branston*

Mr Peter Read - Discover Volunteering*

Mr John Buston - Bubbles

Trustees* give their time voluntarily and receive legitimate expense entitlements as appropriate.D Rose and D Hawbrook have also fulfilled safeguarding responsibilities.

Current Staffing:

Frances Porter Development Worker

Linda Priestley Administration officer

It is gratefully acknowledged that funding during the year has been provided by Lincolnshire County Council and BASIS.

This has enabled provision of enhanced support to member organisations and young people through the secondment of the development worker.

MEMBERSHIP BODIES

NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR VOLUNTARY YOUTH SERVICES (NCVYS)

NCVYS is the national body for councils for voluntary youth services of which LCVYS is a subscribing member. It provides support, advice and training to organisations working with children and young people.

NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS (NCVO)

NCVO is an organisation that provides a mixture of training, funding advice, support, newsletters and other benefits to voluntary organisations from all sectors to which LCVYS also subscribes.

OTHER

LCVYS have representation on a range of county and regional bodies as felt appropriate by the Trustees LCVYS and works with partners together with Lincolnshire Youth Association/YDA through whom we are also members and partners with UK Youth. We work with the Local Safeguarding Childrens Board, The Involving Lincs Consortium and East Midlands Voluntary Youth.

Current LCVYS Membership

1st Barkston Guides

Action for Young Carers

Acts Trust

Binbrook Activity Night

Cherry Willingham Youth Centre

Coningsby All Sports

Deepings Youth Centre

Discover Volunteering

Escape

DMS Dance Group

Donnington Youth Centre

GFS Platform

Gosberton Youth Centre

Horncastle Youth Centre

Lincoln Diocesan Youth Service

Lincolnshire Army Cadet Force

Lincolnshire Scouts

Lincolnshire Federation of Young Farmers

Lincolnshire Youth Association

Louth 13+ Project

Louth Dolphins

Meridale Organisation

Salvation Army

Skellingthorpe Youth Centre

St George’s Church

St Giles Group for Girls

Sutton Bridge Youth Centre.

Teenzone

Tennyson Amateur Players

The Biz

Union @ The Hub

Wednesday Club

Wrangle Youth Centre

YMCA

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

The role of any Chair is to fairly manage the meetings of the organisation they are called upon to chair and to provide support and leadership to the key officers of the organisation within a framework which allows them to achieve their objectives.

To the above I would add that they need to be able to do this happily and with fun knowing that the committee (trustees) of the organisation support them and have a vision. This is not always easy particularly in times of changing landscapes for members and society alike.

Much of what happens locally in infrastructure organisations is influenced by what is happening nationally but the key dynamic is the local agenda and the needs of local organisations. You may feel that this goes without saying but Youth Services is a web of local, regional and national networks like LCVYS and individual organisations themselves such as Uniformed and other National Voluntary Youth Organisations. This is supplemented by the key dynamic of new and emerging organisations and currently the continuance of the localism agenda.

The need to keep track of new initiatives and ensure real localism and involvement whilst keeping the spirit of the voluntary sector alive has stretched resources of all involved, making Young Lincolnshire development even more relevant. Partnership with Lincolnshire County Council and the Youth Development Hub are an important part of our offer. The picture for Lincolnshire is emerging of a county building on the extensive talents of the Voluntary Youth Sector in partnership with public and private sectors to create a Young Lincolnshire which holds true to the values of a youth service building citizens of the future empowered to take part of their own choice and with confidence in a positive way for the benefit of the community and themselves.

This is not an easy task particularly in a transition to localism of a local authority service which was regarded by inspectorates and public alike as one of the best value for money youth services in country and which had held on to established delivery through a range of centres supplemented by thoughtful outreach projects.

Thanks to all the Trustees of LCVYS who have served faithfully throughout the year and to our retiring trustees especially Jim O’Hara who has continued to be a positive source of help behind the scenes and deserves his well earned rest. This leaves me to say that further reporting is outlined by Frances Porter, Development Worker in the main report and to say a big thank you to all our members and partners who are delivering or supporting service to young people who are our reason for being here.

Charles W Shaw

Chair

DEVELOPMENT REPORT

2013/14 has once again been a busy year for LCVYS.

Within LCVYS we had again some temporary staffing changes as I commenced maternity leave in July 2012.Linda Priestley, was able to step in during the period of April 2013 – August 2013 for the interim, along with our trustees, to ensure that LCVYS could offer support and continue with its key priorities. I returned to post in August 2013.

Where are we today?

LCVYS has once again had a busy year working with voluntary youth services, communities through the Development Officer, Chair, Trustees and Administration Officer. We are always thrilled to hear of new youth groups opening up and the work that our existing members are doing to support young people in Lincolnshire. At LCVYS we recognise that Youth groups have been part of the fabric of many communities for decades. Yet a surprisingly large number of people have never been exposed to them. Through the development of our website, working 1:1 with groups, putting on extensive training to support voluntary youth workers we aim to increase the quality of the provision of positive activities for young people.

LCVYS and those that work with young people through the voluntary youth services recognise the benefits that a youth group and youth work has on children and young people whether it is a uniformed, faith, individual, or sport group the skills and opportunities available are often vast and cover a wide range of issues including health, informal education, team work, specific skills and give children and young people a real sense of identity.

With rates of obesity rising nationally and locally in children and young people this is a key area. Benefits for young people attending youth groups include healthy exercise through games and sports, healthy eating through cooking. Youth groups raise awareness through informal discussion, activities on various health issues that are key in today’s health and wellbeing agenda such as smoking, legal highs, pregnancy, sexual health, alcohol awareness, and many more

Teamwork is an essential skill that children and young people need to acquire throughout their living life and preparing them for adult life. Youth groups recognise this and run positive activities that encourage the development of this skill. Activities encourage young people to work in a team. This skill stands them in good stead for future life whether in education, sport, and office based situations. The skill of leadership also is developed through team work. A lot of Youth groups across Lincolnshire offer accredited awards within this area and we are seeing more and more youth groups wanting to engage young people within this.

Youth groups provide a wide range of activities based on specific skills such as, arts and crafts, cooking, trips this use of informal education encourage the use of numeracy, literacy and encourages young people to develop skills around problem-solving. These skills are hugely important resources that embedded into young people will carry with them into their future lives.

In a time of working together and a focus on communities working together. It is important that young people feel they are core members of their community and society. Youth groups offer young people the opportunity to develop their confidence, find a real sense of well-being, and make new friends and to become part of a social group. Whilst for some this may be found through formal education or from family life for others youth groups become a key part of their lives and the relaxed approach through informal education allows these young people to thrive.

The history!

The position of youth services and youth volunteering in Lincolnshire has been a precarious one over the last five years with considerable changes in the management and operation of services that affect teenagers in general and those who work with them.

Lincolnshire had a long tradition of both Voluntary and Local Authority Youth Services and a tradition of volunteer bureau and volunteer programmes delivered through public sector services such as careers (connexions services).

This progressively changed between 2008 and 2013 as the Connexions Service which had become a major funder support and catalyst in relation the Youth Volunteering (Millennium Volunteers, V Programme/V Involved) was absorbed into the Local Authority Teenage Services and the voluntary sector support element altered and reduced. Subsequently there was a further re-organisation in 2011significantly changing the style of local authority youth services within a children's services agenda and removal of the ‘teenage services’ team approach.

At the same time and as part of this Youth and Community Centre, Clubs and other premises were being offered up to be taken forward under a banner of ‘positive activities for young people’ to be leased, managed and/or run by the community and voluntary Organisations and workers re-configured as Development Workers to give support to the process. This was a new agenda and required the skills of voluntary youth sector infrastructure bodies to make this happen and although an element of the agenda to do this was placed in the hands of the Lincolnshire Council for Voluntary Youth Services, including transfer support, training and the recruitment and support of volunteers.

Business Plan

Throughout 2013 and 2014 we have continued to work to our Business Plan which has been developed and approved by trustees.

Some key points that we have achieved over the year.

  • We continue to work alongside LCC to support Positive Activities through the county.
  • Promote safeguarding
  • Our new website has been developed and we continue to work on this to ensure development of guidance and information services to member groups.
  • Administration of Grant Aid on behalf of LCC has continued with details for applications on the Web.
  • Social Media development is being implemented.
  • National and regional links are maintained and good practise reported back from areas
  • Support has been offered to groups intending to use LCC youth centres and LCC are promoting what LCVYS can offer and how we can support.
  • Created an E Learning section on our website which is free for members. This includes training around safeguarding and also training around organisational matters.
  • We are continuing to work around NVQ provision.

Grant Aid

LCVYS is again responsible this year for administering the grant aid on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council. The grant aid we receive is £100,000. This covers and includes salary grants to Young Farmers, Scouts and the Diocese.

After discussions with LCC in 2011. It was felt that due to government cuts, organisations who received Salary Grants would also see reductions that would decrease as follows for the next three years from 65% in 2011/12 to 45% and 25% of the salaried amount being awarded to the organisations in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

LCC were given impact report from the organisations if the Salary grant were to stop all together and they have taken this into consideration for 2014/15.

We are pleased that we will still receive the full amount of the grant aid despite the reductions in salaried grant aid. LCVYS will redistribute this proportion of the money into further training for voluntary youth organisations and are looking into other avenues how we can use the funding for the best interest of the voluntary sector. Again we ask group to please let us know their needs so we can look at ways to support whether financially through the small grant aid or through resources, advice etc.

This year we were able to spend all of the grant aid supporting voluntary youth services across the county. This year 17 groups were awarded Grant aid to assist young people with the following:

Maintenance of premises 1

Equipment 6

Rent 6

Maintenance (including equipment) 1

Art/ Craft materials 1

Room hire /Equipment hire 4

Junior Camp 1

Trip to Sweden for Young People 1

Training 2

Positive Activity Day 1

Outdoor Equipment 1

We are once again thrilled to see the fantastic work that has been going on in the voluntary youth service and how the grant aid has been able to benefit some of this work:

A significant amount of accredited awards have been achieved by young people with the Scout Association awarding 93 14-18 year olds with the Gold Chief Scout Award, 20 18-25 year olds with the Platinum Award. The Diocesan Youth Service awarded 4 young people for the D of E Gold Residential (assessed) and The Young Farmers awarding a further 78 young people for Curve Training (National YFC accredited) in Leadership /Teamwork and Child Protection. These are just some of the accreditations awarded to young people from our salaried grant aid organisations.

Along with the accredited activities there has been a fantastic diverse range of Positive Activities going on around the county by our members such as pottery, music making, fitness training, entry level skills in English and Maths, camping, orienteering, Personal Development courses, dance, swimming, sports and plenty more. Each offering young people the opportunity to learn and develop a variety of new skills.

LCVYS Networking Events

LCVYS has been involved in various networking events across the county. This has been to promote the services that LCVYS provide, offer advice and support, promoting grant aid, signposting to other organisations, funding advice, supporting groups with health and safety matters , safeguarding and equal opportunities policies and advertising upcoming training that LCVYS has to offer.

Networking events were also promoted through Transforming Local Infrastructure, InvolvingLincs, LCVYS Members/ Network groups CYPVSF and Local CVS and LCC groups.

These were open to voluntary organisations, public, parish, district councils and youth groups.

Networking and events areas covered.

East/ West Lindsey

Gainsborough

Horncastle

Boston/ South Holland

Spalding

Boston

Grantham

Gosberton

Swineshead

Sutton Bridge

Lincoln/ North Kesteven

Sleaford

Branston

Birchwood

Potterhanworth

Lincoln

Yarborough (Youth Matters)

Waddington

Training

Many organisations have taken advantage of the wide range of training available through LCVYS and we have scoured the country to provide good trainers as well as our home grown talent which we are nurturing through our courses for trainers.

Over the last year we have provided the following training with the LCC/BASIS and Health and Well Being funding

Paediatric First Aid

Managing Challenging Behaviour

Introduction to Mental Health

Children and Adolescents Mental Health Awareness (CAHMS)