Month: March 2023

The Welsh Government are offering a secondment opportunity to work on the development of two workstreams – an information exchange for Wales as part of a digital youth work offer to young people, and a Young Person’s Entitlement Scheme.

Further details about this opportunity are provided here; Senior Youth Work Strategy Manager – Youth Information Service, YP Entitlement Scheme – Secondment – English

The closing date for expressions of interest is Wednesday 19 April.

 

Please see below a message from the Welsh Government about the second round of the SVYWO grant:

We are pleased to announce that a second round of funding will be made available via the Strategic Voluntary Youth Work Organisation grant (SVYWO). This round will run from May 2023 to March 2025.

Here you can find the guidance and application forms should you wish to apply;

Strategic Voluntary Youth Work Organisations Grant 2023-2025 (Round 2) – Information for grant applicants – English

Strategic Voluntary Youth Work Organisations Grant – Application form 2023-2025 (Round 2) – English

These documents will also be available on the Welsh Government’s website shortly. 

Please note that a Voluntary Youth Work Organisation Support Scheme (VYWOSS) will also open shortly. The VYWOSS will provide a lower level of funding for voluntary organisations during 2023-24.

The Scheme will be administered by CWVYS.

Further details will be made available shortly. Please note that organisations awarded funding via the SWYVO will not be eligible to also access funding via the VYWOSS and vice versa.

Any queries on the SVYWO should be sent to youthwork@gov.wales

 

This toolkit aims to turn the principles in the All Wales Protocol: reducing the criminalisation of care experienced children and young adults into practice.

They hope it will be used extensively as a resource to train and support multi agency colleagues working with care experienced children and young adults.

National Charity Missing People in partnership with Llamau and consultant Claire Sands were commissioned by the Children’s Commissioning Consortium Cymru (4Cs) to develop this toolkit, you can find all the information as well as details of free training events on the Missing People website here: https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/reducing-the-criminalisation-of-care-experienced-children-and-young-adults-in-wales-a-practical-toolkit-for-professionals#section-4

Would you like the children and young people you work with to be recognised for their contribution to peace, sustainability and equality at an international event in Wales? 

If so, encourage them to enter for this year’s Young Peacemakers Awards 2023!
On 6^th July 2023 the Welsh Centre for International Affairs (WCIA) and the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod will host a Young Peacemakers Awards Ceremony at the Eisteddfod where young people will receive a certificate and an award.

WCIA invite children and young people (between 5 and 25 yrs old) to get creative and express their thoughts, feelings and dreams about how the world can be a more peaceful, equitable and sustainable place – through words, art or digital media.
Individual young people or groups can enter under the following categories:

• Young Peacemaker of the year
• Young Peace Writer of the year (categories for Primary and Secondary-aged young people)
• Young Peace Artist of the year (categories for Primary and Secondary-aged young people)
• Young Global Citizen of the year
• Young Peace Organisation of the year (for larger youth organisations)

It is also acceptable to nominate someone, with their permission.
The closing date for applications is 12^th June, 2023. 

You can find a fuller description of the categories, and the terms and conditions for the Awards here, as well as an application form.

Please send your entries to centre@wcia.org.uk.

Please find below information from the Welsh Government Youth Engagement team about extra support available for the Youth Sector in Wales;

The Minister for Education and Welsh Language has recently agreed to offer further support to the youth work sector to address some of the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis and protect services as we continue to work with the Youth Work Strategy Implementation Board and other stakeholders on developing and progressing the recommendations of the Interim Youth Work Board. These actions will help respond to the changing needs of young people and organisations’ ability to continue to deliver services that best meet those needs, whilst further work is done to advance the Interim Board’s recommendations.

An overview of these changes is provided below. We will be in touch with current grant recipients and other relevant organisations shortly to provide more details on next steps.

 

Strategic Voluntary Youth Work Organisation (SVYWO) Grant

The SVYWO grants were originally awarded in early 2022, and currently run from April 2022-March 2024. We will be offering more support via this grant from April 2023 onwards, as follows:

• Current SVYWO grant recipients will be invited to review their plans for 2023-24 to take into account changing circumstances, demand for services, and address any shift in the needs of young people since bids were submitted in autumn 2021.
• Current SVYWO grant recipients will be invited to apply for continuation of funding for a further year (to March 2025).
• We will open a second round of funding via the SVYWO grant for voluntary youth work organisations who were not successful in their applications for the first round, who were not in a position to bid for the first round, or whose circumstances may have changed and would now wish to bid for funding. This new round is planned to run from April 2023-March 2025.

 

Youth Support Grant

We are planning to make further funding available to local authorities for a two-year period (April 2023-March 2025) via the Youth Support Grant. This additional support  will aim to protect and strengthen partnership working with voluntary organisations and address the challenges mentioned above. A maximum of an additional 5% over and above current allocations will be made available to local authorities for this purpose. Funding will be expected to be focused on delivery of services.

 

Voluntary Sector Support

We will be working with CWVYS to pilot a new sector support scheme for voluntary youth work organisations during 2023-24. This will be focused on providing  organisations with quick and easy access to funding to help alleviate some of the current challenges. Criteria and processes for this scheme will be developed over the next few weeks with the aim of opening the application process in April 2023. More information will be available on this scheme in due course.

 

Workforce development

In light of the Interim Youth Work Board’s recommendation on workforce development and the challenges relating to recruitment, retention and training, additional support is being made available to ETS during 2023-25 to help extend opportunities in this space across the sector. This expansion will help us better understand the key issues relating to workforce development as well as identifying ways to support practitioners in their youth work careers. This work will focus on supplementing and enriching current opportunities. Planning for this work is at an early stage and the sector will be engaged in its development. Further information will be made available in due course.

Here you can find a written statement from Julie Morgan MS, the Deputy Minister for Social Services, on the Publication of the Steering Group’s Report, as part of the Ministerial Review of Play: https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-ministerial-review-play-publication-steering-group-report

The Taith team have now rescheduled the postponed beneficiary sessions to next week.

Please find links to register below if you are able to attend.

Beneficiaries will be provided with information on reporting, making project changes, requesting additional funding and will be shown the members area of the Taith website.

 

Monday 06 March 12:30-1:30 pm (Welsh)

Monday 06 March 4-5 pm (English)

Thursday 09 March 12:30-1:30pm (English)