Listen Up - Social Welfare Portal

listenup!Chapter 11 | 79“Community groups and organisations are, by theirnature, small in scale and big in number and manyare simply off the radar of local statutory services.This has led many smaller community groups andorganisations to fear that their informal youth serviceor children’s service will be lost in the push to formalisearrangements. Larger groups fear the loss of funding aswell as their knowledge of local needs and concerns.”The Community Sector Partnership for Childrenand Young People (2006a)They suggest a number of ways that the voluntaryand community sector can be involved in the changeprocess, such as staff members becoming members ofa local children’s trust board. They have also publisheda set of recommendations aimed at children’s truststo facilitate and open up discussion on how trustscan engage and work effectively with voluntary andcommunity sector organisations.Gaining awareness about policy, programmesand support offered can be a challenge in itself,particularly for smaller organisations that may haveless time, people and funds to devote to strategy,planning and conferences. Staff at the partner sitessaid that forming local networks was one successfulway that the organisations shared information,although one organisation called for “stronger localvoluntary sector infrastructure and support”.The 16 to 25 age rangeWhere funding was received by the partner sites fromstatutory mental health services this was primarilyfrom child and adolescent mental health servicesas opposed to adult services. However, all the sitesworked with young people over the age of 18 and,for some, this age group was the majority. Thesevoluntary sector organisations acknowledged thatyoung people particularly need help over this periodof transition from adolescence to adulthood. This wasrecognised by the Social Exclusion Unit who reportedspecifically on the needs of the young people withcomplex needs aged between 16 and 25:“Policy structures have tended to lag behindthe reality of people’s lives: the ways in whichyoung people become adults has become morecomplicated and diverse but policies have generallyfailed to keep up with such changes. The agestructuring on which many policies are based isoften complex, inconsistent, and working against theprinciple of resources following need.”Cabinet Office, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2005There is a real need for co-ordination ofcommissioning of services for young people aged16 - 25 and the involvement of the voluntary sectorin this process as well as the statutory sector healthand social care communities.Working with statutory sector andother agenciesThis report has shown that the voluntary sector, aspart of a larger network of services including thestatutory sector, has much to offer in providingservices to the community. This has also beenrecognised by the government:“The positive attributes of the third sector aredifferent from those of government, and the twosectors working together can achieve far more thaneither can achieve alone.”Cabinet Office, Office of the Third Sector, 2006Continuing to develop good working relationshipswith other sectors will be an essential componentof improving the overall services available to youngpeople experiencing mental health and emotionaldifficulties in the future.“IceBreak has been successful in bringing together thedifferent cultures of the health and voluntary sectorsin designing a service that best helps young people.Working across these two cultures has been not somuch a constraint as a challenge for the project.”Project worker, IceBreak, The Zone, Plymouth