About the Youth Access Programme

The Youth Access Programme provides fun learning experiences for young people in the east of Glasgow. The programme supports access to the learning centres which comprise the Glasgow East Learning Network (run by John Wheatley College in partnership with local organisations) and is staffed by College youth workers and tutors and with partner youth workers.

Background and development of the Youth Access Programme

JWC Youth Access Programme was started five years ago in Easterhouse.  It was developed with funding from, and in partnership with, the Greater Easterhouse Social Inclusion Partnership and was a response to requests from community partners for structured youth activities to be delivered in the learning centres in the Greater Easterhouse Learning Network.
The initial success of the programme in using ICT to engage young people in structured activities and informal learning opportunities was recognised by local housing organisations and led to Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) providing financial support to extend the programme.

Funding

The programme is now funded through a combination of College resources; part of JWC’s specific 'More Choices More Chances' allocation, Fairer Scotland Funds provided by the Community Planning Partnership, and GHA grant. 
Staff and participants
It has extended from employing three part-time youth workers and associated tutors to work with around 200 young people in Greater Easterhouse to become a Glasgow East wide programme employing more than ten youth workers and reaching over 1400 young people, in the age range of mainly 12 to 15, in 2008/09.

Operation and partnerships

The Youth Access programme is based on youth work principles and the sessions are led by youth workers.  The programme supports learning, based on the development of trusted relationships built by youth work staff and young people. The young people are able to ask for tutor support, as and when they have developed the confidence and interest in skills development, to make this appropriate. 

Drop in youth services.

The programme provides drop-in youth services which:

• engage with young people through the use of computers - in particular games, music production and the creation and development of social networking ‘websites’;
• enable young people and their youth groups and organisations to commission the learning services that specifically suit them;
• supports access to Glasgow East Learning Network Centres
• provide support based on the development of trusted relationships and within existing structures and working relationships.

Activities

The programme encourages young people to use learning centres to have fun, and to learn while they do.  The activities supported include:

• the installation, set-up and use of networked games;
• design of Bebo and occasionally other social networking pages and ‘skins’ (custom interfaces);
• creation of animations using both PC software and Web 2.0 resources;
• creation of comics supporting the development of basic story-telling skills;
• music creation using loop-based editing software;
• use of the Internet to support searches for the wide range of teenage interests;
• use of Office software and Internet resources to support homework;
• design of websites;
• anything the young people request which is suitable and within the terms of the College’s Acceptable ICT Use policy.

The activities supported are those determined by young people with support from youth workers to expand their immediate imagination.

Ground rules

The ground rules for Youth Access sessions are simple.  Young people are required to agree to:

• respect themselves;
• respect others using the learning centres and the network;
• respect staff working for learning centres and the network;  and
• respect the buildings and equipment provided by learning centres and the network.

These ground rules are further refined by young people in negotiation with youth workers.

Partnership

The Youth Access Programme is delivered as a partnership which involves College youth workers, College tutors, and youth workers and other staff/volunteers from a range of local organisations. This including both youth initiatives and learning centre host organisations. 
While in the learning centres, the College youth workers lead activities. The programme is often also delivered in the context of other facilities and youth work activities, in which other youth work agencies generally take the lead role.  The programme currently delivers over 20 sessions each week across 14 venues.

Youth workers and tutors

John Wheatley College employs both youth workers and lecturing staff in its Youth Access programme. Their roles are deliberately distinct and complimentary.

Youth workers are employed to develop positive relationships with young people and to engage them in informal activities, usually IT related, that interest them and which encourage learning.  Youth workers also facilitate and support young people to access, or progress to, more formal tutor-led learning, that is of specific interest to them.

Building trust for progress

The programme is based on the recognition that youth work approaches build the trusted relationships between young people and the college, required for successful tutor intervention to support skills development and specific learning ambitions.

Youth Access Program and the Curriculum for Excellence

The Youth Access programme and specifically the youth work aspect of it, is using ICT as a tool to engage young people in informal learning. This is supporting their personal development and is contributing to the development of the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence.
Four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence

Confident individuals

The Youth Access programme supports young people to become confident individuals who:

• are encouraged to behave in an adult manner, so that they can learn based on their own interests in an adult learning environment;
• can recognise their abilities to do more for themselves and therefore expect to achieve more;
• can recognise that they are able to take more responsibility for themselves and for their actions, therefore being more likely to do so elsewhere; 
• are challenged to explore, understand and discuss their own values and beliefs, based on their own self expression, for example through social networking presences of themselves and friends.

Effective communicators

The Youth Access programme supports young people to become effective contributors through:

• communication with both peers and adults in authority in order to form and develop good relationships often across territorial boundaries;
• working with other people to resolve differences or to collaboratively create shared work;  and
• use their skills and positive experiences to lead others.

Responsible citizens

The Youth Access programme supports young people to become responsible citizens who are more able to:

• discuss and understand issues affecting their communities;
• plan and take action on issues affecting their community, for example through Youthbank applications or through specifying their learning activities and facilities;
• make sure their views and opinions are heard and respected in service development;  and
• understand and get on with people from different neighbourhoods or with different experiences, abilities, backgrounds and beliefs.

Successful learners

The Youth Access programme supports young people to become successful learners who:

• are motivated to learn and have belief in their ability to learn;
• are more able to identify and understand what they need and want to learn;
• understand different ways to learn and can choose ways of learning that suit them in different situations;
• are better able to behave in an appropriate manner in and so take advantage of other learning situations;
• are more able share their learning with others (and at times to transfer this learning to the school setting);  and
• are more able to use their core skills (particularly those relating to IT, communicating with others and working with others).

Recognition of Achievement

The Youth Access programme has, since its beginning, supported young people to develop skills and competencies in an informal manner, but at the end of last session identified that it requires to develop means with which to recognise the achievement of the young people it serves. This was acknowledged through a combination of feedback from reports to the JWC's Strategic Management Team and through self evaluation exercises.

In session 2009/10 the Youth Access programme has been engaged in the development of two mechanisms to support more formal recognition of achievement:

• Piloting the extension of the College’s online Individual Learning Plan system to its learners, encouraging young people to identify learning targets and to recognise when these have been achieved. 
• Developing the use of Dynamic Youth Awards, in partnership with GE YouthBank and other local youth work agencies, and to a lesser extent the Youth Achievement Awards, to recognise the achievements of young people supported by the partners.

Progression

The Youth Access programme is a key part of the College’s response to young people in need of more choices and more chances.  It has already demonstrated considerable success in engaging young people in lifelong learning opportunities within their community. It is also successful in encouraging young people who are at significant risk of excluding themselves from employment, education or training, to sustain engagement with formal learning opportunities.
Of the young people who have attended Youth Access programmes prior to 2008/09:

• 25% have progressed to other more formal college programmes;  and
• 47% continue to be registered as drop-in users of the Glasgow East Learning Network Centres.

In addition: 

• 57% of the 2007/08 Youth Access cohort returned to the programme in 2008/09;
• around 10% of Youth Access learners in 2008/09 also attended a school-link programme at JWC;
• around a third (32%) of young people who attended the JWC's 'More Choices and More Chances' programmes in 2008/09 have continued to engage with the Youth Access programme in 2009/10.

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Updated 14/06/10