VOYC Devon weekly news briefing

27
Mar

WEEKLY NEWS FROM VOYC DEVON

VOYC members, Young Devon, have been commissioned by the Exeter Board (Devon County Council, Exeter City Council and other strategic partners) to deliver the #ExeterYouthVoice with young people in the city over 2018/19. This will build on the work developed in 2017   Exeter: A Young People Friendly City – towards a youth strategy for Exeter. Young Devon will be using a mixture of ‘photo journalism’ and ‘social media’ to capture young people’s stories on a series of key themes which relate to the priorities identified in the ‘A young People Friendly City’.

Cassie who is leading on this work for Young Devon would like to know any details / times / venue of any groups you may run or within your organisation within Exeter as she would like to come along and meet your young people to inform them of the exciting project and gather interest for the youth forum. Her contact details are as follows:

Tel: 01626 356720 or Mob: 07525225558

Email: cassie.brennan@youngdevon.org

 

Have you heard about county lines exploitation?

County lines, sometimes referred to as Dangerous Drug Networks (DDN’s) is the police term for urban gangs supplying drugs into our local market and coastal towns using dedicated mobile phone numbers, often referred to as ‘graft phones’ or ‘deal lines’. It can often involve child criminal exploitation (CCE) through the use of children from the urban source area or the targeting of local children and vulnerable adults to move both drugs and money. Gangs having established a market base can typically take over the homes of local vulnerable adults by force, coercion and or deception in a term referred to as ‘cuckooing’. County lines activity and the associated violence, drug dealing and exploitation has a devastating impact on young people, vulnerable adults and local communities.

There is a guidance document  available primarily aimed at frontline staff who work with or are aware of vulnerable persons, either children, young people or vulnerable adults.

 

 Best Wishes,

Mark Goodman mark@voycdevon.org.uk

 

Contents:

  1. VOYC Training
  2. Local News
  3. Diary
  4. National News
  5. Funding
  6. Jobs
  7. Resources

 

1. VOYC TRAINING

31st May 10am – 1pm Bideford, Group 2 Child Protection Training – 3 places left

The Group 3 Child Protection session on the 19th March was postponed due to the severe weather and we are re-scheduling this as soon as we can. If you are interested in Group 3 training for Designated Safeguarding Officers please contact Juliet at the Office (admin@voycdevon.org.uk) and she will add you to the list.

 

2. LOCAL NEWS

Plymouth Opportunities: Evolution and Get into Construction

Evolution is an event put together by The Prince’s Trust, Pluss and Street Factory. Our aim is to show the young people of Plymouth all the amazing opportunities the city has to offer.

They have lots of organisations attending who have some fantastic live vacancies, opportunities, volunteering roles and apprenticeships. We want the event to be as fun and as interactive as possible so have asked all our organisations to provide an activity so that young people can get involved.

They have had a brilliant response from lots of organisations wanting to participate in Evolution so far. It will be held at Street Factory, 2 Sawrey Street, Plymouth, PL1 3LA at 6pm-8pm on Thursday 16th April. So far we have an indoor bungee run organised for the day and are also going to have some free food at the event!

Get into Construction programme.

This programme Helps young people aged 18 – 30 who are interested in working in the construction industry. They will gain a CSCS card, level 1 health and safety qualification, on site work experience and job opportunities offered at the end of the programme. Travel expenses and lunch provide.

Please Contact either Hollie or Jenny on 07425 632049 for any more details.

 

Update on changes to benefits and impact

The new Universal Credit has already gone live in Plymouth, who have already had a significant take-up of new claims (those where all evidence is verified and a claim is in process).  Another 500-600 are waiting to be verified.

Rollout dates are as follows:

04/07/18 – Tiverton, Honiton, Barnstaple, Bideford jobcentres

05/09/18 – Torbay, Newton Abbot, Totnes

26/09/18 – Exeter

 

Member News from Space

Youth Work Training Opportunities 3rd April - 6th April 2018

Thank you to Space for kindly extending their training offer to youth workers from other organisations within the voluntary and community sector.

Space has an annual training week where they deliver workshops to Space Youth Workers. These training workshops are held in the evenings and are appropriate for those new to youth work or for those who would benefit from refocusing and refreshing their skills and knowledge.

Space has kindly extended their offer to youth workers in the voluntary and community sector with a discount if you’re a VOYC member meaning you pay a bargain price of £10 per session.

The Workshops include: Relationships and Sex, Group Work (L3), Truth About Rape, Drugs/alcohol and the road to exploitation, Safe Youth Work Practice - in and out of the Centre, ESD- Sustainable Development, Young Carers and Safe Online ? - Let's Look at Digital Romance.

Please have a look at the options and complete the booking form and return the form to christine.clark@spacepsm.org. Places will be limited so book now to secure a place!

 

The latest Devon SEND Improvement Programme Newsletter is available now

View the newsletter online

 

Devon Early Help Roadshows

These are scheduled for June 2018 and are intended to improve awareness of Early Help. They will incorporate the new Working Together guidance and the revised Devon Threshold Tool. 

 

Sirona Therapeutic Horsemanship

The Charity have just announced that they have planning permission for a new equine assisted therapy and learning centre on the Dartington Estate near Totnes in South Devon. Their current site at Hannah’s at Seale Hayne is being developed for housing and so they are raising funds for the move. The new site will give them a secure long term base which will include a new stable block, arena and classroom. They have a Crowdfunding campaign to raise money towards the stable block and you can find this and watch a mini film about their work on this crowdfunding link or their website

 

3. Diary

April 18th 2018

Learning outside formal education: opportunities and threats for philosophy-inspired practices

A seminar led by Graeme Tiffany Babbage Building 415 Plymouth University : 3pm-5pm. All welcome: please register your place by April 15th by emailing R.Passy@plymouth.ac.uk

25th May 2018

Date of the General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR) implementation.

VOYC have provided GDPR guidelines for its members.

28th June 2018

VOYC Devon AGM

 

 

4. NATIONAL NEWS

Amanda Medler has been appointed as new chief Guide. She was a volunteer who joined Girlguiding when she was seven and has led groups of Guides for more than 30 years and has been announced as the new chief Guide. Girlguiding UK said Amanda Medler wants to focus on supporting the network of over 100,000 volunteers who give their time each week.


An 11-year-old boy with autism has received £42,000 in compensation after his family accused a Cub Scout group of discriminating against him. The Guardian reported that Ben Gleeson joined the 10th Harpenden Scout group in January 2015 but was later told he could not go to camps or take part in athletics without supervision. Pack leaders are said to have imposed restrictions, which his parents - both lawyers - said amounted to a ban, after Ben had a short episode at a camp in March 2016.

 

Young people are to take a central role in designing initiatives that will receive funding from a £90m programme, the government has said. Young people are to be consulted with over the next two months on how the £90m funding should be spent. Funding of £90m announced in January is part of a £330m pot from dormant bank and building society accounts that will be used to support good causes in the UK over the next four years. The progamme is being designed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DDCMS), Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions and the Big Lottery Fund. Over the next two months the Big Lottery Fund will stage a number of "engagement opportunities" for young people and youth organisations to help shape how the programmes are designed. This will include targeted workshops with young people who have or are experiencing multiple barriers to finding

 

5. FUNDING

Recently added funding streams include:

The Garfield Weston Foundation 60th Anniversary Fund – In 2018 the Weston Garfield Foundation is celebrating its 60th anniversary. As part of these celebrations Foundation have launched the Weston Anniversary Fund. This one-off grants scheme will fund Capital projects that provide new, or improve existing community facilities for people across the UK. The fund is open to UK registered charities, CIOs, state maintained schools and places of worship, where the project has a clear benefit to the local community and will provide grants of between £30,000 and £150,000 per project. Closing date 30 June 2018.

The Postcode Community Trust will re-open its Small Grants Programme on the 14th February 2018 for Expressions of Interest. The Trust was established in 2014 to support marginalised groups in obtaining the skills & resources to effect change in their own communities. In previous years the Trust has provided grants of £500 – £20,000 (£10,000 in Wales) for projects that benefit communities through grass-roots sports, arts and recreation programmes and healthy living initiatives that improve a community’s physical and mental health.

See the rest of our funding pages HERE

 

6. JOBS

Recently added jobs include:

See the rest of our jobs pages HERE

 

 7. RESOURCES

The A-Z of Youth Work

Have you got your hands on the fantastic A-Z of Good Youth Work? Its been produced by our partners Space You can access a PDF copy from the weblink  

General Data Protection Regulation May 2018 for VOYC Members

The VOYC Members Guide to the GDPR