£25 million pledged to workforce development programme

“

Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) has given its backing to the Government’s commitment of £25 million towards supporting the skills needs of the youth workforce. As part of the Ten Year Youth Strategy revealed last week, a workforce development programme was announced, with plans to recruit more graduates to work in the youth sector.

LLUK will work with youth work employers, the Children’s Workforce Network and other Sector Skills Councils on a range of new workforce development initiatives, including those to support management and leadership in the youth workforce in England.

The leadership and management programme is just one of the commitments from the government’s newly announced youth workforce strategy. Other initiatives focus on increasing diversity in the youth workforce and reviewing and championing the youth work apprenticeship. There are also plans for a common platform of skills and training for the youth workforce and support for the third sector’s role in engaging with young people.

The leadership and management initiative is designed to satisfy the specific requirements for youth support services, drawing on the best examples of existing leadership and management of integrated youth services. It aims to support the development of a shared set of skills, knowledge and behaviour across all sectors who work with young people, particularly those leading the integration of youth support services. Partners will ensure that the scheme is properly embedded and maintained within existing local government activity.

On LLUK’s role in the initiative, Leah Swain, LLUK’s Executive Director of Operations, said: “We welcome the inclusion of specific support for the workforce within the Youth Strategy and look forward to working with employers and partners in our sector to develop the initiatives for the youth workforce over the coming year”.

The 2003 green paper Every Child Matters states a commitment to the strong leadership and management of a workforce that is able to work across institutional boundaries to address the whole needs of children and young people.