Minutes of MCMC Partnership Meeting
9.30 am – 11.30 am Tuesday 14th June 2011
Room 4, Mayfield Centre, Stirling
Present:Marie McGrath, Youth Services; Liz McCafferty, Job Centre Plus: Grace Christie, NHS: Alison Adam, SDS: Linda Craw, FV College; Alison Sommerville, Impact Arts; Chris Martin, CYP: Kirsty Turner, Youth Services; Fiona Hutchison, Stirlingshire Voluntary Enterprise; Lesley Young, Learning Centre Falkirk FC; Nicky Reid, Learning Centre Falkirk FC; Tracy McCluskey, Apex Scotland; Cynthia Holden, Developing Nation Ltd; David Murray, Educational Psychologist; Des Friel, Economy, Employment and Youth
Minuted By:Lorraine Love (Youth Services)
Apologies:Jacqui Gibson, Stirling CAB; Eleanor McGuire, Education; Nicole DeBrincat, Raploch URC; Anne Lee, Stirling Council; Fiona McLean, Stirling Council; Antonia Kelly, SDS; Val Ormiston, SDS; Yvonne Brown, Scottish Gov; Jill Stephen, Barnardos; Anne Currie, NHS; Rosa Oswald, Stirling Council; Clare Fisher, Youth Services
1.Welcome and introductions
Marie welcomed everyone to the meeting and acted as Chair since Des would be arriving later.
- Minutes of previous meeting
Previous minutes were accepted as a true and accurate record.
3.Voluntary Sector Update
Fiona gave an update stating that she had been given money to build capacity and to raise awareness amongst young people of the benefits of volunteering. Marie and Fiona will coordinate this work; the focus will be on where the voluntary sector can work with partners to close gaps in voluntary sector provision for 16 – 19 years in central and rural Stirling areas.
Marie reiterated the need to engage young people within the volunteer sector as part of 16+ Learning Choices.
The proposal that Fiona has prepared will be posted on the Communities of Practice site for comments or offers of additional support.
Linda advised that Forth Valley College are looking at delivering the National Awards at levels 4/5/ & 6 for volunteering and this may support some of the work we are hoping to do.
Alison suggested that expenses may be a barrier for volunteers eg travel, disclosure checks etc and that the partnership needs to be aware of this in terms of engaging young people from the rural areas.
4.16+ LC/Activity Agreements Update
Marie suggested the Agenda be tightened-up to ensure focussed and comprehensive partnership discussions and welcomed suggestions for static agenda items or suggestions to improve the current agenda.
a)MCMC Review – Graham Hollowell from the Scottish Government is not yet in a position to give his findings but these should hopefully be available to be reported at the next meeting in July.
b)Information Station – Kirsty reported that the Information Station would be moving to the Library Basement as from Autumn 2011. A consultation with young people about what they want from the facility was carried out as part of the Stirling Youth Parliament sitting on Saturday. The consultation was carried out in the Town Centre and Susan Smith will take this forward with Peer Assisted Learners (PALs) and volunteers.
Peer Assisted Learners (PAL) composed a questionnaire in order to gain the views of local young people. Susan Smith will be replacing Kirsty in her role as 16+ Information Co-ordinator when she returns from annual leave as Kirsty has been successful in securing the post of Youth Services Worker for Cowie and Plean.
Kirsty supplied a draft Information Station Report to the partners and informed them it will also available on the Community of Practice Website once approved by YS Operational Leaders.
Marie reminded partners that as well as being an excellent resource for young people the primary role of the the Information Station is to provide information, advice and guidance to them and inform them of the choices available to them once they reach 16 years of age. Kirsty advised that an intended piece of work for the Information Station PALs would be to go into schools and engage with young people who were about to become Christmas school leavers. They would be able to give peer support to young people facing difficult decisions in the current economic climate about post school options.
c)Action Plan Update
Marie stated that there had now been 3 meetings of the sub group. Lesley is preparing the Terms of Reference for the Action Plan. The draft plan will be presented at the meeting in July where we will be able to look at specific actions to support the outcomes.
d)Service Mapping Update
Marie supplied a hand out and advised this will also be posted on the Communities of Practice site. The handout would help improve understanding for all partners of where they fit and where the work they do fits within the partnership and help to clarify roles and responsibilities.
This work would also support the service mapping exercise. Marie advised that the mapping would reflect work across all sectors and services and would be mapped in line with the GIRFECy triangle of intense, enhanced and universal support, as discussed by Jenni at the last meeting. This would then ensure a clear ‘flow’ of information for pre and post school support services.
There is a lot of work to be done and Susan as the new 16+ Information Coordinator will be key in coordinating it however Marie welcomed any offers of help or suggestions from partners.
5.Partnership Update
Impact Arts – Alison gave a quick overview of Fabpad. They work with young people age 16 - 25 years and that have been homeless or are at risk of being made homeless. They work with the young people for up to 1 year. Currently 90% of young people working with Fab Pad keep their tenancy. At present the project works with The Bridge and Youth Services, the work being done for the new Information Station has presented an opportune time to revitalise and refine the service, in line with this, a new working partnership has been formed with the Salvation Army.
Forth Valley College – Linda Craw reported that the new Stirling College Campus is on track to be completed by April 2012. She summarised outcome successes for 2010/11 as follows;
ACE is a school link provision – 24 young people successfully going forward into positive destinations.
Post school – 90% of young people progressing into further courses.
The new Curriculum Quality Leader is Linda McPherson, who previously shared a role with Alan Ritchie.
Linda advised that Rosa is working with David Allison on a local exchange of information to confirm details of young peoples destinations on leaving schools. The information will be fed back to SDS.
Linda also advised that MCMC funding had been made available to the college to support provision for young people in need of more choices and more chances, the approximate split for each Forth Valley local authority is: Stirling £40,200; Falkirk £67,000 and Clackmannanshire £26,800
SDS – Alison advised that the SLDR currently indicates the number of summer leavers is just under 1,000 (same as last year) split as follows;
HE – 519
FE – 230
Nat Traning Programme – 55
GRFW – 35
Employed – 38
PSD - 7
There are some unknowns at this time and SDS will continue to try and engage with them.
Action Plan for the MCMC Sub Group – Rosa and Toni are working on leaflets for parents. In service training is being planned that will support informing teachers on what options and opportunities are available to young people on leaving school and also to bring them up to date on what happens to young people on leaving school.
Employability staff – employer visits being worked on and short programme being planned for November.
There is a need to re-engage young people who are “unknowns”. Marie advised that consideration could be given to whether or not last years successful outreach programme that made contact with ‘unknowns’ could be resourced during 2011/12. Marie will keep SDS advised.
NHS – Grace informed the meeting that she was attending for Anne Currie, who due to illness, was unlikely to return in the near future. Grace confirmed that there is a new Learning Disability Post. This will support the production of literature, etc for those with learning difficulties. This information may be useful for the Information Station. Marie and Grace will meet to look at where the NHS can provide further support to the Partnerships work with young people in need of more choices and more chances.
Job Centre Plus - Liz reported that there are major changes to the structure and delivery of her service. The Work programme started on 1st June and is for people aged 18 and 24 years who have been on the register for 9 months and over 25s that have been on the unemployment register for a year. She outlined some of the changes for front line advisers and customers alike.
Developing Nation Ltd – Cynthia advised she is working with Councils in the Forth Valley area re coaching and training. Working with young people who are disillusioned and feel there is no support available to them.
Apex – Tracey is currently working with 4 young people on the AYE programme (Apex Youth Elite) who are not engaging in mainstream provision the programme ends on 29th June. All young people involved are graduating and moving onto positive destinations.
From other programmes, the 3 Local Authorities have a total of 127 active clients working with APEX, 49 in Stirling. The worry is that when young people are referred back to Job Centre Plus they are not eligible for Work Programme for 3 months, what happens to them? Tracy will work with relevant partners at the time.
Learning Centre and Falkirk Football Club – Nicki currently working with Falkirk Council and MCMC. Nicki updated the partnership on changes that have taking place within the learning centre she also invited partners to make contact if they had any questions or were interested in working with Falkirk FC. .
6.AOCB
(i)Liz stated they are looking for placements for 6 weeks for work experience targeting 18-24 year olds.
Des said that Council services were very willing to take placements but added that it was frustration the placement duration have been reduced to 6 weeks, he added that this was not long enough for individuals to learn and develop new skills within the placement. Liz agreed that JCP staff felt the same frustration.
(ii)Marie stated that the Information Station has applied to deliver a Work Club for 16 – 24 year olds. More discussion will take place when JCP confirm the application has been successful. Nicki added that the Learning Centre also deliver a local work club and suggested that a sub group meet to discuss how to provide appropriate support to users and what makes a work club successful.
(iii)Chris asked for an update on Stirling Council’s ESF application. Marie advised that Lesley would provide an update at the next meeting.
- Date of Next Meeting
Tuesday 26th July 2011 at 9.30 a.m. in the Wallace Room, Old Viewforth.
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