This resource provides an example of practice demonstrating how Stirling’s Senior Phase and Youth Participation Team adapted their services during lockdown. This allowed them to continue support and learning opportunities for the young people they work with.

Explore this resource

The adapted approach of Stirling’s senior phase and youth participation team had several different strands using different modes of delivery. The ‘Stay at home packs’ were delivered face-to-face whilst the ‘Youthie in Housie’ campaign was virtual. These new approaches were informed by data from the team, schools and a survey of children and young people on what was needed. The team also worked alongside other local authority staff to support and deliver authority wide covid-19 specific services to support vulnerable children and families.

Stay at Home packs

Purpose

• An opportunity to ‘touch base’ with young people and families.
• To maintain contact with the young people the team work with
• Ensuring young people have access to activities
• Helping young people re. their physical and mental wellbeing

Service Delivery

‘Stay at Home’ packs delivered by the team throughout Stirling at Easter and just before summer. The packs were delivered to children and young people who were already working with the team.

Easter bags included:

• an Easter egg, donated by local supermarkets
• indoor and outdoor activities
• information on how to contact the team or access further support

A YouTube video has been produced showing delivery of Stay Home Stay Safe activity bag.

Summer bags

‘Stay at Home’ bags were produced and delivered at the start of July for young people to enjoy over the summer period.

Impact

Easter Packs were delivered to 264 young people and approximately 300 bags were given out at the start of the summer holiday period.

Families tweeted pictures of young people with the packs and sent their thanks virtually to the team.

Comments from parents included:

“Thanks for the pack. The thought is really appreciated”

"Thanks to the team for this to help amuse my two rugrats!”

“. . . she will use it all, she was particularly excited about the dominos! Thank you”

Youthie in the Hoosie campaign

Purpose

A short YouTube video has been created to summarise results of the survey and next steps.

“To bring the very best service to you that we can at this time”

“What matters to you [young people] right now and how we can help”

“You’ve told us that you want help with keeping positive, staying happy, keeping mentally well, cooking healthily, budgeting and staying fit even when you’re stuck indoors”

“You also told us that you want to engage with mental health professionals, teachers and the money advice”

Service Delivery

A survey was created asking young people what they would want and need from the team during lockdown. This resulted in a dedicated digital youth work page ‘Youthie in the Hoosie’ which transitioned to a summer campaign running from 29^th June.

The dedicated Young Scot: summer Youthie in the Hoosie webpage hosts weekly and daily activities as well as important information for young people like mental health resources and information for young carers.

Young people can claim Young Scot reward points and are entered into a weekly prize draw.

Supporting the authority wide approach to Covid-19

In addition to these specially designed projects the team has continued to support children, young people and their families across Stirling in a wider sense, not limited to but including: staff working in the HUB’s; answering calls on the councils listening service and coordination of food distribution service. The flexibility of individuals has been vital as the team look to provide individualised support in response to need using a variety of methods.

In the foreseeable future the team plan to continue a blended approach and develop areas that have worked well, for example, the online accreditation process.

Improvement questions

• How do I identify the needs of children, young people and their families in the current circumstances?
• How am I helping young people to continue to engage in learning and wider opportunities?
• What support and information can I signpost young people to?
• How might the support and provision for young people need to be adapted or done differently during Covid-19?
• How can I raise awareness of the needs of young people during this time and ensure that their needs and voices are heard in recovery planning?
• How am I measuring the impact of new approaches and services and evolving these to suit the needs of children, young people and their families?