Agenda item

• Youth Outreach
• Earmarked 2020/21 funds

Youth Outreach

The Rural Youth Outreach project was an initiative funded by 5 Area Boards in the South, which provided funded youth support and activities. The report in the agenda pack included a list of the local offer for Southern Area. Trained skilled and youth workers were needed.

Historically the Youth club in Winterslow was struggling before covid to secure volunteers to keep it going. The proposal set out the plan for a Youth night at the Barry’s Field centre in Winterslow, this was aimed at holding a discussion with families how the Youth club might get back up and running.

Cllr Rogers, added that the project would need the local community to get behind it, as a key component of success were the adult volunteers. Need to make sure we are talking to potential volunteers and that they have a good support network.

Karen explained why the selected villages were chosen, the reasons given were due to antisocial behaviour and there being little current youth provision.

Cllr McLennan, Lead Member for youth, supported the decision to focus on the three villages.

Cllr R Clewer noted that the initiative looked interesting, and he supported the approach which had been set out, adding that the idea of a youth charity may be a good idea, if marketed correctly.

Karen confirmed that if 4a in the recommendations was researched, it could lead to achieving 4b.

The Board voted on the motion to approve recommendations 1 to 4a.

Recommendations:

1. To agree the top three areas to prioritise in phase 2 : (1) Winterslow, (2) Alderbury and (3) Allington, Idmiston, Newton Toney
2. To earmark the 2021/22 youth budget underspend for phase 2 work and potential year 2 RYOP 
3. To earmark any remaining capital funds from the 2021/22 community area grants budget to fund new equipment needed for youth activities/clubs resulting from the RYOP.
4. To ask the Community Engagement Manager to research the following for future investment:

a)    The beginning of a new youth charity in Southern Wiltshire, or collaboration with nearby youth agencies that might be able to offer outreach youth worker resources to our villages

Earmarked 2020/21 funds

Karen set out the budget underspend from the Health & Wellbeing (H&W) budgets, along with the recommendations for investment proposals as detailed in the agenda pack.

Cllr R Clewer noted that the work appeared to be focusing on dementia, and that to fully understand the scope of what was required in terms of support, the Board would benefit from working out what the direction of travel really should be. He suggested that the Southern Area had few areas of deprivation, and proposed looking at the concept of rural isolation of elderly people particularly with dementia and those other people with other vulnerabilities which put them in a similar position.

Karen noted that other Area Boards had established Health & Wellbeing Groups, which helped with the understanding as there was a sharing and a regular coming together.

Cllr McLennan supported there being more opportunity to learn more on the subject to best establish how best to move the work of the Area Board on.

The Chairman supported the workstream proposals which had been set out by Karen, adding that if they carried out conceptual thinking, they would probably end up with a workstream similar to what had been produced.

Cllr Z Clewer added that the work programme focused on the young who were fairly mobile and the elderly or the dementia group, but did not touch on the  middle section of the population as they could generally help themselves.

Cllr Rogers felt that there was some value in working through the exercise to make sure the Board started with a clear focus.

Decision

The Southern Wiltshire Area Board agreed to allocate the funds as set out in the published model, with the addition of an extra £1,000 towards Older People’s Isolation, with the view to develop it further in a separate meeting.