Our Annual Report - YouthNet

Trustees’ report
ACHIEVEMENTS
AND PERFORMANCE (continued)
5. Evolving the technology behind our services, to improve our users’ experiencee (continued)
Do-iof our strategic partnership following with the coalition government’s spending review
in
continued
to receive transition funding from the Office of f Civil Society, after the end
2010/11. The Cabinet Office support for Do-it has helped us too continue to t deliver a first
classs service; thiss has been crucial for supporting volunteers and organisationss across the UK
and fund developments for both user and
partner experience andd benefit of the service. Due
to the funding we have beenn able to; open up the Do-it service so that organisations with
an
annual turnover of under £10k can post their volunteer opportunities directly
for free; made
it easer for organisations to implement the Do-it syndication service, so more
volunteers can
find opportunities from the Do-it Database where they are searching; increased registered
volunteers and applicationss to volunteer throughh Do-it; and established skills search
functionality so that organisations can identify skills that aree required for f a particular
opportunity, but also skills that can be gained skills by a volunteer.
The Departmentt of
Work and Pensions has also supported Do-it for the second year, at a key time of supporting
young people to
develop skills and benefit from the experience of volunteering to help
improve their job prospects. Through this funding we have been able to introduce skills
matching, allowing organisations to match volunteerss to opportunities by the skills they have
to offer, or the individual wished to gain. The Department of Health support has enabled
Do-ihealth and sociall care area.
to focus upon increasing the number of partners and volunteer opportunities in the
The
development on Do-it has also enabled us to continue to ensure the robust nature of our
syndication platform which is shared with over 40 partners p including Grantt Thornton and
Centrica.
6. Great impact through t collaboration
YouthNet has always believed in collaborating and not n re-creating, and recognises the value
of working in partnership to have a greater impact onn young people’s lives.
The
Barclays Money Skills ‘champions’ consortiumm continues with The National Youth
Agency (“NYA”) leading the partnership comprisedd of YouthNet, UK Youth, Rathbone,
Youth Access and a Citizenss Advice. Together we are working on a peer engagement
programme designed to build the financial capabilityy of young people and equip them with
the skills to share this information with their peerr group. The consortium
will provide
money awareness training too support workers, who will w work with and support up to 5,000
young people to
become Barclays Money Skills ‘champions’ andd share this knowledge with
their
peer group. Through this model, the partners aim to reach 100,000 young people who
are not in employment, education or training. The pilot for r the programme began
in
September 20111 and the initiative went live in February F 2012. YouthNet has led on
developing ‘Supportzone’, ann online platform for users based all over the country, including
youth workers and the youngg people they
are working with.
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