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Guest Blog - Improving our targeted youth service

Published Friday 24 July 2020

Services for Young People, our targeted youth service, conducted a survey at the end of 2019 with the hope of discovering whether or not the services on offer to young people in Hertfordshire matched the support they need.

Read more about the survey and discovery process in our 'Capturing the voices of young people with SEND' blog.

The results are in

At the end of 2019, we asked young people in Hertfordshire to tell us what was important to them. To make sure that we captured the views of everyone, we created two surveys, one being specifically for young people with special educational needs (SEN).

The survey results were really interesting! Young people with SEN told us that that:

Friendships and relationships are the most important things in their lives.

Fitness and health was the second most important.

We also discovered...

an illustration of an american football

An illustration of a headset used for gaming


an illustration of a hand shake

That most young people in Hertfordshire seem to like sports and both surveys asked for more (and of all different types).

That gaming was mentioned by many young people with SEN and some highlighted a need for help with what they perceived as gambling addiction.

That in both our surveys, bullying was seen as a major issue for all young people. This is obviously very concerning.

While 55% of young people stated that they had enough help with their issues, a significant proportion either did not know or felt that they did not have enough support. This echoes findings in both surveys. Youth Strategy Groups (YSGs) and Youth Councils are looking at how they can improve communication to make young people aware of the help available to them.

What's Changing?

  • YCH is now working with GamCare to provide important information and advice around gambling.
  • Through district youth strategy groups (YSG), our partner organisations (including many schools) are working towards understanding the types of bullying experienced and what support should be provided.
  • Using all of the survey results, we have been able to help YSGs develop action plans to ensure that specific local needs are addressed with relevant partners and young people.

 

The impact of Covid-19

Due to the Covid-19 lockdown, our services had to change very quickly. We are now providing more services online and using various technology. We recognise that young people’s needs and what they felt important last year may have changed somewhat. Please look out for our follow up survey (planned for July or August 2020) which will help us to develop services for this new era!

Photograph of Debbie Barker from Services for Young People

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Take a look at a list of cookies we use on our website:

NameTypeHow we use itHow long we use the information for

ASP.Net_Sessions

 

Required functionality

An automatic cookie set by our software. 

Just for the time you are on our website.

ServerID

 

Required functionality

An automatic cookie set by our software. 

Just for the time you are on our website.

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Required functionality

To track the effectiveness of our website using Google Analytics. 

2 years

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Performance and feature

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1 month

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Performance and feature

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Performance and feature

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Performance and feature

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Required functionality

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Service namePurposeMore information

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