Youth Access

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Also of interest

User Involvement

This section includes good practice resources for YIACS on integrating meaningful user involvement and participation within your organisation, conducting needs assessments, gathering feedback and developing complaints procedures.

Practice Documents and Briefings

Youth Access resources

Building User Involvement (2001, by Carolyn Mumby)

A guide to help YIACS develop user involvement. It draws on young people's and practitioners experience to set out potential benefits and pitfalls of various type of involvement and sets out an action plan to make it sustainable.

Key Practice Briefing on User involvement and participation (2006,Catherine Wilson)

A briefing guide for YIACS on developing an user involvement and participation policy.

Needs Assessment & Questionnaires (2007)

A short briefing explaining the elements of a needs assessment, how to gather evidence of needs and planning for surveys and questionnaires.

External resources:

Client Feedback (Advice Services Alliance, 2001)

A CLS Support briefing on the CLS Quality Mark requirements regarding user feedback.

Practical Tools

Youth Access resources:

Social Welfare Questionnaire (2007)

A sample questionnaire for use with young people to aid in the development of a rights based advice service.

Complaints Leaflet (2003, with IQP)

A sample complaints leaflet explaining to clients how they can make a complaint using the organisations complaints procedure.

External resources:

Focus Group Questions (SDAIS 2006/07)

A sample of questions used by Stockton District Advice and Information Service with a focus group of young people, exploring what they would potentially want from a youth advice service.

Youth Rights Consultation (SDAIS, 2007)

A sample questionnaire used by Stockton District Advice and Information Service with young people, exploring what they would potentially want from a youth advice service.

NYA: Hear By Right

Hear by Right is a tried and tested standards framework for organisations across the statutory and voluntary sectors to assess and improve practice and policy on the active involvement of children and young people. Hear by Right helps to map current participation of children and young people and to develop a strategic plan for improvement. Practical resources, information and tools can be downloaded.