Improving young volunteers’ experience in Job Centres
It's been said that to really affect change takes 10 years, well, five years in to this project and we really are starting to see some changes happening.
This project is primarily about one thing, youth unemployment, 900,000 young people are currently unemployed in Wales according to latest figures, this is down slightly on previous figures but still represents a large number of young people in Wales.
All of these young people will come in to contact in some way shape or form with Job Centre Plus - the government organisation tasked with supporting people back in to employment. In the beginning it was anecdotal evidence from young people that started to get Gwirvol interested in this relationship.
Gwirvol was supporting young people with volunteering opportunities through a range of projects, including its youth panel, Gwirforce. Through meeting with young people we started to hear about their engagements with JCP this initial anecdotal evidence was not positive with young people saying that they found JCP staff unfriendly, unhelpful and were often told that they couldn't volunteer if they were claiming Job Seekers Allowance. They also didn't have the information to effectively challenge decisions that they may have felt were wrong.
Gwirvol believes strongly that volunteering can have an extremely positive impact on young people's lives, equipping them with the skills to take a full and active role in their communities, engaging fully in civil society and being able to articulate and challenge issues that affect them.
Initially we looked at the information available online and were able to find all the relevant information, however it was noted that this was often in lengthy documents and was not particulary youth friendly.
It appeared that there were two distinct issues facing young people in their relationship with Job Centre Plus, firstly that Job Centre Plus advisors were not giving clear guidance about volunteering whilst on Job Seekers Allowance and secondly that young people were unaware of how to complain if they had a problem with their advisor.
GwirVol undertook some research
We felt that it was extremely important to have a clear picture of the problems from all sides of the argument. As such we commissioned an intern to research the issues that up until then we only had anecdotal evidence for. The researcher was asked to look at policy and guidance available regarding young people. We were fortunate to be able to gather information from a range of young people and from staff working at the job centre. The information gathered was then collated, analysed and presented by Dynamix.
The key finding from the report was that there are clear gaps in service delivery and inconsistencies in advice and information which in turn is causing barriers to young people exploring the real opportunities volunteering offers them whilst seeking employment.
The report makes a number of clear recommendations and Gwirvol would ask that JCP take on board all the recommendations and address the following issues;
· To ensure consistency of service across Wales there should be clear standards of practice in place for all JCP’s including standards in safe guarding.
· All staff, including security should be trained in communicating with young people and understanding the issues they face.
· JCP should review and promote clear youth friendly guidance of how young people can raise issues concerning the service and decisions they receive.
· There are examples of good practice when working with young people in some centres across Wales. This good practice should be rolled out across all centres.
Working with Job Centre Plus
GwirVol and its partners can support JCP in implementing these recommendations by;
· Providing young volunteers to offer feedback and support to JCP when developing youth friendly information.
· Producing clear information for young people and staff on what volunteering is and how it benefits young people seeking work.
· Promoting any youth friendly information and guidance produced by JCP to young people the organisations that support them.
· Identifying and signposting to appropriate support where young people need to raise concerns or issues with the service
· Produce a promotional film for young people and JCP staff.
At this time we also welcomed an open discussion about the report and its findings and how Gwirvol might support JCP in developing a more effective youth friendly service by implementing the recommendations from this report.
We sent the report to JCP and then to the Welsh Government.
We really didn't know what to expect at this moment and how the report and the recommendations would be received. What happened next surprised us - in a good way.
We were invited to talk about the report and youth volunteering at 4 regional JCP conferences across Wales. A somewhat daunting task with a few week's notice to put our thoughts together. The first of these conferences was held in Newport and we walked in to over a hundred pairs of eyes on us. We knew at this point that we had support from the top but this was delivering our findings both good and bad to an audience of front line workers!
Luckily we were very warmly received and this allowed us to move on the other conferences with some confidence. It was in Swansea that the next phase of the project was born. We met with some managers from the Swansea area who were very interested in what we could do to support them in the way that they work with young people. We were also invited to Morriston Job Centre to visit their youth zone. This provided us with some useful information going forward.
This led to a meeting at the end of 2013 with Job Centre Managers in Swansea, members of senior DWP staff, staff from CWVYS and the children's and young people's commissioner for Wales. At this meeting we were able to start to put a plan in place for going forward.
This included the formation of a youth panel to look at documentation, policies and procedures and advise JCP on how they could improve the way in which they deliver services to young people. They will look at the layout of JCP areas designated for dealing with young people and we will look to deliver training to JCP staff on how to work with young people. Staff have already signed up to a stepping stone to youth work, which is a huge step in addressing how services can be made more youth centric and shows a clear commitment from JCP.
This has led to two meetings, including a meeting with employers that was put on by Swansea JCP, interacting with other young people and designing and delivering a session to get their feedback on the event and their experiences with JCP. This was fed back to JCP management wholly by the young people on the panel, which really did show how far we had come. The JCP management took everything onboard and provided positive feedback to the panel.
This project was never about changing policy, it was about looking at the operations of the JCP and making them more appropriate for young people within the constraints they find themselves in. It was about empowering young people and facilitating an opportunity for them to become changemakers in their own communities.
We believe that youth volunteering provides a fantastic vehicle for young people to express themselves and become who they want to be. Along with all the practical skills that this can bring to employers. We believe that active support of volunteering within JCP can help to address the number of young people unemployed in Wales and provide a better future for everyone in the community.
David Williams
GwirVol