Specialist Youth Workers (SYW) programme - East Lothian Council: Planning the project

This section includes information on the planning process, including roles and responsibilities, governance arrangements and outcomes of the project.

What staff were involved , what were the roles and responsibilities and how did you involve school staff/teachers?

There are six Specialist Youth Workers (SYWs) who link with primary and secondary school staff to identify and support children and young people by delivering one to one or small group interventions. Each SYW is aligned to a local area. SYWs have 23-hour contracts in most areas which are split between schools and community settings.

Pupil support staff maintain close links with SYWs, helping to identify young people who would benefit from an intervention from the SYWs, and co-deliver group work on some occasions.

Headteachers share the project’s ambitions with stakeholders in the school’s community and maintain links with Community Learning and Development officers.

The local authority’s Quality Improvement Manager links the work of the SYWs to the Scottish Attainment Challenge stretch aims to monitor and track progress, particularly for improving attendance.

What were the key parts of the project that you planned?

SYWs tailored their approaches in each of the school settings to ensure they had a consistent focus on early intervention. This was to prevent young people from disengaging from school and moving towards negative outcomes.

What were the shared expectations with school and what were your outcomes?

To contribute towards the Scottish Attainment Challenge stretch aims for the local authority while focusing on four core themes and their outcomes:

Engagement - provide youth work straddling the end of the school day and into evening (with some weekend activity where possible), bridging the gap between school and community. The aim is to:

increase capacity in youth work opportunities

improve the range of youth work activities

reduce barriers to access

Prevention – support young people to access universal services to reduce the need for statutory involvement. The aim is to:

raise awareness of support and activities available, empower young people to make informed choices and to co-design local initiatives

increase engagement with internal and community partners

reduce individuals' engagement in anti-social behaviour

Transition – engage with young people to support their educational transitions. The aim is to:

enhance young people’s experience of transition from primary to secondary school

increase young people’s engagement with education and our community partners to support transition to a positive destination

Wellbeing – support young people to manage their wellbeing through youth work activities. The aim is to:

improve young people’s understanding of how to manage their wellbeing

increase young people’s awareness of wellbeing support

improve the mental and physical wellbeing of young people

How was the project managed?

The project was overseen by the Connected Communities Manager (CCM) and the Community Development Officer (CDO) in each local area. Joint meetings take place with SYWs, the CDO, CCM and third sector staff to share practice, monitor project outputs, discuss barriers, and support the development of a reporting cycle that demonstrates impact.

The governance of the project has dual aspects to ensure information is fed upwards from service delivery and cascaded through formal communications. This helps to ensure continuous communication and informs clarity of roles and responsibilities across stakeholder groups.

Further clarity is provided through a flyer which details an overview of the SYW role, and the services provided, including locations and times. This information is widely distributed and regularly updated.