NYA Update: NYA to provide route map to guide young people's services to success

Routes to Success - Supporting the Change Journey for Young People's Services is a dedicated, free package of strategic materials and opportunities for senior local authority youth work managers, commissioners and members, which have been developed by the NYA, for the organisation's 2011/12 work with the Local Government Association, and made available through a new online community.

The package of opportunities has been created by building on the success of five pilots, held in Croydon, Gateshead, Leeds, Sheffield and Shropshire. Each area has shared current challenges, knowledge and learning to support the development of this offer for local authorities.

Fiona Blacke, National Youth Agency chief executive, said: "These are challenging times for local authorities and radical budget reductions mean some tough decisions about the services that can be provided in the future have to be made.

"Routes to Success has been developed to provide a resource for strategic leads for young people's services to freely access materials, events and discussion opportunities with other authorities facing similar challenges so that they can identify the right route for their young people's provision."

The Routes to Success package is made up of three strands for local authorities to access for free.

The first, foundation, includes frameworks and toolkits to support quality and participation, and specialist guidance around workforce development, all made available through a dedicated community of practice.

The community of practice will also host discussions with key sector specialists, policy updates and briefings. In addition, a series of regional events and workshops are to be run nationally throughout the year, based on the feedback provided by the pilot work and community.

The second tier is tailored support, where the National Youth Agency will work directly with a number of local authorities, providing free consultancy and support on specific issues.

The final strand ensures the offer remains current and flexible, and is based around emerging themes, where the NYA will be developing new products and services that respond to the needs and issues identified by authorities. One identified theme is commissioning and a number of tools are being developed to support authorities in undertaking this effectively.

For further information, visit www.nya.org.uk/routes-to-success.