Youth work provides holistic support for young people which facilitates their wellbeing, social and emotional development. It also promotes engagement with formal education and empowers young people to actively participate in their communities.
Guidance for Local Authorities
Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide a local youth offer for young people and, in line with the strengthened guidance published on 28 September 2023, are required to ensure that their local youth offer is responsive to the needs of young people.
The updated statutory guidance for local authorities provides greater clarity on what is required and specifies the need for high quality and effective practice provided by trained youth workers.
Read the government’s Statutory Guidance for local authorities on Services and Activities to Improve Young People’s well-being here.
The nine ‘essentials’ of a local youth offer
A toolkit for local authorities
The NYA has published a toolkit, which provides a roadmap and tools to review the needs of young people and develop a strong local ecosystem of youth work provision that supports young people’s wellbeing, education and development.
Together with a number of supporting documents and frameworks the toolkit aims to make it easier for tier 1 local authorities to comply with the updated duty.
It has been developed to support council leaders, cabinet members, council officials, elected members, funders and partners in responding to the S507B statutory guidance to local authorities issued by DCMS. Other organisations who support young people may also find the guidance useful when planning a combined local youth offer alongside a local authority.
Statutory guidance for local authorities’ youth provision
This was issued by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport under Section 507B of the Education Act 1996. It relates to local authorities’ duty to secure services and activities for young people aged 13 to 19, and those with learning difficulties to age 24, to improve their well-being, as defined in Subsection 13.
Further support
We provide a range of resources, guidance and access to learning opportunities to support organisations to deliver optimum youth work provision.
We also offers a range of expertise – delivered by our knowledge team, youth work specialists, safeguarding and senior team, to help you better assess your local need, plan best practice services and evaluate your offer.
Get in touch to find out more by emailing guidance@nya.org.uk.
”The NYA’s robust review has resulted in a commitment from all partners to support a collaborative approach to developing youth provision in the long term. In the short term, the local authority has committed to establishing a new small youth service that supports and facilitates the third sector to increase high quality youth provision across the town.
Lisa ArnoldAssistant Director of Community & Environmental Services
(Community & Wellbeing)
