This paper, produced by the Wales Principal Youth Officers' Group (PYOG), is an aide memoir for new and established local authority youth service leads and is intended to inform, support and guide. This paper may also provide a catalyst for discussions around the future role of the Youth Service in assisting local authorities to discharge their statutory function in relation to Youth Support Services.

This paper is developed in conjunction with the PYOG Estyn Comments paper, which includes comments specific to the Youth Service extracted from Estyn inspections of local authority education provision between 2004-2012. This includes themes of good practice observed in the sector during this period.

This paper has been compiled by the Wales Principal Youth Officers’ Group (PYOG) primarily as a tool for observing themes of good practice as part of a process of improving quality and providing evidence that youth work delivery on the whole has remained at a consistently high standard across this 8 year period.

In the last decade, Estyn’s inspection role with the Youth Service in Wales has evolved from a full and specific inspection of the service to specific feedback as part of a broader inspection of Youth Support Services, to no specific feedback under current arrangements for inspection of local authority education services for children and young people (LAESCYP).

Summary and full report.

This report is the first piece of work conducted under the auspices (and direction) of a research partnership between the University of Wales (Cardiff) School of Social and Administrative Studies and the Wales Youth Agency.  Financial support for the project was provided by the Wales Youth Agency and Health Promotion Wales.  At a time of local government reorganisation in Wales, the research group which oversees the work of the partnership felt that a research priority was to examine the extent to which contemporary youth work practice met the 'needs' of young people within the 15-19 age range.

Short paper which attempts to identify some of the structural changes that have taken place around the Youth Service and make some assessment of what options it has for the future and if it can survive and prosper in a changing society.

Student assignment which seeks to critically analyse how effectively youth and community work is able to maintain its discrete way of working within a policy framework driven by a partnership approach.

Summary of findings from 10 local authority Youth Services for 2000-2001, covering:

1. Details of Youth Service – location within LA / basic details
2. Youth population / spending per head / expenditure
3. Type of youth provision
4. Funding sources
5. Staffing levels
6. Staff development and training

Post-graduate strategic research project which examines, though both literature and analysis of existing partnership systems and practice, how collaborative working, leadership, shared governance and innovation at a local level can reduce the numbers of young people who become NEET. Recommendations are also made as to how local authorities and related partnerships can work together to lower the number of NEET young people in their area.

Howard Williamson, Wales Youth Agency 2004

This booklet is written for people in communities who are interested in setting up a local youth group. It assumes that they will normally be volunteers, that is, people who are not paid for their time. This booklet is not designed to be a comprehensive document, but rather a framework outlining how to get something off the ground.