YouthLink Scotland’s education lead Marielle Curran writes about the diverse mix of sectors and organisations work collaboratively to ensure people in Scotland have skills and experiences that allow them to grow and succeed in a rapidly changing world.
The Careers Review provided a framework to improve Scotland’s career services. As part of this, the Careers Services Collaborative has enabled the development of sector-based and collective implementation plans, focused on improvement. This helps the youth work sector contribute towards creating more connected services rooted in communities.
Our sector change plan (see p.43) outlines our commitment to collaboration and to further embedding skills development within youth work services – supporting young people to develop, recognise and articulate their achievements and understanding how they relate to their future. To support this, YouthLink Scotland, funded by the Robertson Trust, has embarked on an exciting project, working with the youth work sector to create a consistent and coherent digital tool to capture progress and understand impact.
Building on the National Youth Work Outcomes and Skills Framework, this work will help ensure that young people can recognise and articulate their achievements through youth work. We look forward to working alongside Skills Development Scotland to ensure youth work practitioners can support young people to include these achievements within the new My World of Work digital profiling tool.
Youth work provides person-centred learning opportunities and support for young people across the learner journey. This includes opportunities to develop skills, engage in experiential career learning, volunteering, and employability programmes and receive one-to-one support – as part of tailored pathways towards and into work.
Youth workers work in partnership to ensure that young people can access opportunities across community and formal settings. Many aspects of career services are embedded into everyday youth work practice, while others can be offered as targeted interventions – for example those that specifically target individuals with protected characteristics or specific circumstances/barriers.
As part of Careers Week, we will be highlighting some examples of youth work supporting young people’s careers journeys and why young people feel this approach works for them.
YouthLink Scotland, the national agency for youth work in Scotland, provides resources, professional learning and networking opportunities to support practitioners, including in strengthening collaboration across the system. It is responsible for coordinating the youth work sector change plan to embed recommendations from the Careers Review.