Having led a recent review into career services in Scotland, former Scottish TUC General Secretary Grahame Smith explains why youth work plays such an integral role in the career services ecosystem and the need for continued collaboration to achieve our collective vision for young people.
Over the course of the Career Review, I had the privilege of listening to hundreds of young people, adults, career influencers and practitioners, all with their own individual experiences of Scotland’s career services.
Looking back, there’s many stories that stand out. I’m immensely grateful to all the people who took the time to share with us, but Mark Keeley’s journey through the careers ecosystem was inspiring.
From his struggles at school with severe dyslexia, to leaving with few qualifications, finding his passion whilst training with the charity Street League, and eventually becoming a youth worker himself – Mark is a real example of the critical role the third sector, and specifically youth work, plays in supporting young people in their lives and career decision making.
Mark is just one of the young people we heard from that benefitted from youth work services. He’s now working with the same people who once supported him, at SL33 in Kilmarnock. This Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) partnership hub is led by the East Ayrshire council’s Education Service and supported by their employability team and partners including local youth work organisations, the Department for Work and Pensions and Skills Development Scotland.
It’s a fantastic example of how publicly funded services and the third sector can closely collaborate to help people at any stage in their career development to improve their essential work skills.
Scotland has first-rate career services that are the envy of many countries around the world.
But it’s important to acknowledge that fragmentation and regional variation mean that, beyond the national services provided by the national skills agency Skills Development Scotland, not everyone has equal access to career services across the country.
Through the Career Review, we learned that there needs to be change across the system to ensure that delivery is more consistent and joined up, so that no-one falls through the cracks.
Some of those most at risk of doing so are those communities and individuals with a complex range of support needs. They often don’t see themselves represented in formal career services and we learned that local youth work and community services play a key role in supporting them. They’re often trusted in a way that some other services aren’t, as they know their communities best and how to reach them.
As we continue in the years ahead to shape career services which respond to individual needs, youth work will be a key partner in reaching young people, especially those who are furthest from the labour market. These youth work and community services will continue to provide essential support and successful pathways into work through volunteering, employability and other services.
The youth work sector played a critical role throughout the career review process. It helped to define and test language used in the vision and values contained within the Career Services Operating Model developed during the review, and it informed the actions agreed by the principle providers of career services that deliver against the review’s recommendations.
As it was throughout the Career Review, the youth work sector is now an integral partner in the Career Services Collaborative. The Collaborative was created to support all of those with a stake in delivering career services to work together to implement the Career Review recommendations.
Without waiting to be asked the youth work sector stepped up and committed to further embedding the world of work in the critical services it delivers, including through:
The future focused career services envisaged by the Career Review will only be achieved if everyone plays their part in leading the change that users of services and practitioners told us were required. In committing to its action plan, the youth work sector has provided an example that I hope others will follow.
I look forward to continuing to collaborate with the sector through the Career Services Collaborative as we work together to achieve our collective vision for Scotland’s people, through the delivery of all age career services that support them and their communities to thrive in the future.