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Summary for YIACS of Social Exclusion Unit report on young adults with complex needs

Youth Access, November 2005

Transitions: Young Adults with Complex Needs aims "to improve the delivery of public services to young people with complex needs by both introducing policy changes to existing services and raising the issue for other service providers to consider how best they are meeting the needs of this age range [16-25 year olds] at such a critical stage of their life." It has huge relevance, therefore, to the future delivery of advice and counselling services for young people.

The report contains a strong focus on the need for holistic multi-disciplinary services targeting this age group, identifying 'under one roof' provision as a key delivery model for disadvantaged young people. Youth Access is profiled along with seven youth information, advice and counselling services, five of which are Youth Access members. For example, Streetwise Community Law Centre is highlighted as a "particularly innovative" model and Mancroft Advice Project is picked out for its range of services and effective methods of engaging young people. The report concludes that policy makers should place greater importance on 'one-stop' services which can deal with a range of common problems on site and says that Local Area Agreements should make it easier for local authorities to pool budgets to support more joined-up services for young people.

Other key points that may be of interest to the advice sector:

Young adults suffer disproportionately from many types of disadvantage, including homelessness, worklessness, poor health (particularly mental and sexual health) and are at high risk of becoming involved in anti-social behaviour, drug use and crime.
Young adults report a range of barriers to seeking or getting help with their problems. Barriers exist in particular for young people with a range of problems that need a range of interventions from services that may not work well together.
There is evidence that disadvantages for young adults tend to cluster and that one disadvantage makes people more likely to suffer from others.
Housing and homelessness problems are identified as by far the most common reasons that the most disadvantaged young adults first get in touch with services. The ODPM will be issuing a revised 'Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities' to prevent homelessness amongst young people and to highlight the importance of collaborative working between housing and other services.
"If they are to continue to manage their way round a benefits system that is considerably more complex than the one that applies to older adults, young people need much better sources of benefits advice."
"Troubled young adults often lack the skills and resilience needed to make the transition to adulthood. Support, advice and guidance are crucial."
"Recent research in the field of cognitive behaviour and adolescent brain development reinforces the importance of considering young adults' thinking and behaviour as distinct…..At the very least, it is important that those who make policies and run services aimed at disadvantaged young adults are able to take their thinking and behaviour into account. This is not for 'soft' reasons of accommodation or political correctness – it is because policies that take the starting point of these young people into account are much more likely to be successful than those that do not."
There is a need for services to reconfigure to enable smoother transition from youth to adult services – youth and adult services rarely join-up well enough. Variations in current age boundaries of services (e.g. children's trusts end at 19, Youth Justice at 17, New Deal for Young People at 25) are unhelpful. The report raises the phenomenon of 'the invisible early twenties' who are assumed to be able to access mainstream adult services. "At a time when very few middle-class parents would dream of withdrawing help, advice and support from their son or daughter at the age of 18, or even 21 or 25, statutory systems of support assume independence and adulthood amongst the most disadvantaged at a young and unhelpfully uniform age."
The report explores the value of the role of a 'trusted adult' or 'lead professional' who can provide continuity of support for a young person and combine a supportive/brokering role with some element of challenge for the young person. Voluntary and community organisations are identified as being particularly effective in providing the environment and skills to engage young adults initially.
The report emphasises the importance of involving young people in the design and development of any services that hope to meet their needs.
Access to counselling services is identified as a specific gap that needs to be filled, potentially by including it in the offer to be made to young people through the targeted youth support teams proposed in Youth Matters.