Children and Young People's Workforce Development

The YorOK workforce strategy has three key aims:

• Promoting the children’s workforce in York as a positive and valued career option
• Enhancing the confidence and competence of the local children’s workforce
• Promoting innovative ways of working to support improved outcomes for children and young people.

There are two sub-groups to the YorOK board looking at Children's Workforce Development in York. These are:

• The Workforce Strategy Group
• The Training Strategy Group

The Vision: An integrated workforce model for York

YorOK Workforce Strategy: A public Commitment

We plan to produce a brief written strategy, outlining York’s vision, objectives and ‘core offer’ to the children and young people’s workforce. This development will be explored further during Autumn 2007 and Spring 2008.

Workforce element reflected in CYYP & other strategic plans

All strategic plans should contain a workforce element that will strengthen links with the workforce element of the Children and Young People's Plan. Our workforce strategy document will provide core text to be included in strategic documents and a menu of practical tools and resources will be developed for use in a range of strategic planning contexts.

YorOK element in job plans

Linked to the Common Core of skills and competencies, trust partners have agreed to ‘sign up’ to adding a common element to job plans. This will supplement existing job plans across the children and young people’s workforce. The aim is to ‘add value’ and meaning to being a member of York’s children and young people’s workforce and would be a visible and unifying feature in the context of the developing workforce.

YorOK Common Induction Standards

The YorOK Training and Development Sub group plan to develop a suite of Common Induction Standards for all those joining the YorOK workforce. Work in progress, an example of the standards has been produced.

YorOK workforce data

Work is underway to describe the range of roles within the YorOK workforce and the numbers of staff, carers and volunteers. This work is being coordinated by a network of HR representatives across partner agencies.

Active workforce promotion / publicity

Significant thought has been given to how best to publicise the value of and opportunities within the children and young people’s workforce. The Workforce Strategy Sub Group supports the development of city wide publicity containing information about jobs and roles and publicising services more generally. The sub group also plans to develop a menu of tools that can be used to promote the workforce dimension within events or strategic planning, for example workshops and presentations.

Core multi agency / partnership training

Work has begun to develop a city wide multi agency training plan. The plan will draw together a wide range of training opportunities and will build on and lead from the work of the common induction standards.

Accessible ‘specialist’ training

As weel as core multi agency training more 'specialist' training will be available from both Local Authority and external providers. The LCCS Training and Development Unit will coordinate this aspect of training.

YorOK Website: Providing accessible information

The YorOK Website will be used to publicise training and other workforce development opportunities. The Training and Development Unit are piloting a online source of information about training opportunities that will also have an electronic booking system. This facility will widen training opportunities for some groups within the workforce, for example foster carers. In addition to providing training information, the YorOK website will be used to publicise aspects of York’s workforce strategy, for example job vacancies, how to access funding for qualifications, information about roles etc.

Coordinated commissioning of training

The LCCS Training and Development Unit will play a key role in coordinating and commissioning training.

Partnership pool of trained trainers

A significant number of staff carry out a major role in providing training opportunities for the children’s workforce. Some have training as a specific aspect of their job description, many carry out this role on a more ad-hoc basis. All share a range of expertise with the children’s workforce and carry out a vital role in ensuring the workforce is fully informed and skilled to a high level. We are looking to form a pool of trainers sourced from both internal providers and a range of partnership organisations. This ‘pool’ will have the opportunity to access support and training for their demanding role and this could provide access to accreditation.

Involvement of children and Young people

The YorOK Workforce and Involvement Sub Groups are looking at how best to involve children and young people in local workforce development. Plans to date include:

• Creating and offering more opportunities for children / young to become involved in delivering training and
• Extending the practice of involving young people in selection panels for staff recruitment.

Children’s Workforce Development Council funded initiatives

York has attracted funding for two Children's Workforce Development Council projects;

• £4k to research children and young people’s perspectives of the role of the Corporate Parent.
• Capacity Building within the voluntary and community sector. This support is for £20k per year until March 2010. The aim of the funding will be to support the implementation of the Integrated Working Practices (Contact Point, CAF, Lead Practitioner) in the voluntary sector. Initially this funding is being used to support the voluntary workforce to get better access and use from local / national quality assurance and improvement models.

Bookmark with:

Rate this page: