On 12 November, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, announced the co-production of a National Youth Strategy. We wanted to share an update with you on the vision, developments and next steps.
This Strategy will aim to put young people back in charge of their own destiny and provide them with meaningful choices and chances. It will focus on better coordinating youth services, as well as moving away from one-size-fits all approaches from central government, bringing power back to young people and their communities and rebuilding thriving and sustainable services and opportunities for young people.
We plan to publish a factual report entitled ‘Today’s Youth, Tomorrow’s Nation’ in Spring, with the final Strategy due to follow in the Summer.
The Secretary of State has committed to one of the biggest national conversations the Government has ever held with young people. To achieve this, we are working on a number of different engagement approaches to ensure that young people from diverse backgrounds have the opportunity to have their say, including:
- We are in the process of commissioning an organisation who will conduct a number of engagements with young people, including focus groups with young people; a wide-reaching national survey to ask young people about their challenges and priorities; as well as innovative engagement methods with young people to develop solutions.
- DCMS has commissioned the Regional Youth Work Units to conduct focus groups with young people and cross-sector experts
- Over the coming months, DCMS will conduct a range of engagement activities with young people, sectors working with young people and funders, including further roundtable discussions and thematic deep dives.
- We will be developing a toolkit for organisations to run their own consultation workshops with young people to feed in their views.
Co-production with young people and experts is vital to the success of the Strategy. An important part of this co-production will be our work with the Youth Advisory Group and Expert Advisory Groups. We will engage both these groups throughout the strategy development process. The first meeting of the Expert Advisory Group has taken place, and the Youth Advisory Group will meet in early February. These groups will provide expertise, challenge and a range of perspectives. They will review and give feedback on key outputs of the Strategy development and be a vital part of the process.
In addition to the above, we are keen to make sure we capture the expertise of those who work in sectors with an interest in youth policy. If you have any existing evidence or thoughts regarding the Strategy, please do send it to youth@dcms.gov.uk.
We are delighted to be hosting a webinar on Thursday 6 February from 3 – 4pm where you can find out more detail on the progress of the National Youth Strategy development and there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you are interested in attending the webinar, please sign up here.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your input and support so far.
Best wishes,
Youth Strategy Team