Interim Youth Work Board meeting: 2 September 2020

Minutes and actions from last meeting

• Minutes from the last meeting were agreed by all present.

Young people’s involvement in the Board

• Building on the conversations that took place with young people during lockdown, SL proposed a separate young people’s Board to run alongside the IYWB.
• . She mentioned that there were many good applications that came through to join when this was advertised before and that she would be happy to facilitate along with Welsh Government. It was suggested this group could engage in research and speak about the Board's report to Minister among other activities. The Board was in agreement to send out an initial letter.
• EGJ asked that this would be done bilingually and that was agreed.
• SS supported this advising it would an environment where young people could express themselves more easily and it doesn’t feel tokenistic.

Wavehill workshop

• The Board received a presentation from research contractors Wavehill showing how work is currently progressing with the mapping exercise.

WG update

• DL gave an update on recent Welsh Government activity including the publication of the youth work guidance relating to Covid-19.
• JH advised that this would be his last meeting as he leaves the Welsh Government soon. A new Fast Streamer joining the Youth Engagement Branch, James McCrae. Dareth Edwards from the Youth Engagement Branch will also become more involved in policy work.

Keith Towler update

• KT advised he is working on a date to meet with the Minister for Education.
• He mentioned that Youth Work Week took place recently and was very successful.
• KT introduced SS recent meeting with the NHS Cadets. SS explained that this meeting was set up to meet underrepresented groups in higher education and give them pathways into certain careers. He advised he is having a follow-up meeting soon with the Royal College of Nursing in which they will discuss a pilot initiative.

Board report discussions

• KT described his idea for the final Board report as being a slim and well-articulated document. He stressed the importance of making our recommendations clear and putting them up front in the document.
• This was agreed and it was noted that it must stress the preventative nature of youth work, be clear about who the audience of this report will be, and ensure there is a strong basis for any recommendations.

SPGs restart

• JH mentioned that SPGs will be starting up again soon and said that SPG leads sitting on the Board should arrange their first meetings now in advance of an SPG event that may take place digitally in mid-October.
• There is a vacancy as Accessible & Inclusive SPG lead and KT and DK are to have a discussion about this.

Future of youth work bulletin

• Board members thanked Welsh Government officials for the high quality of youth work bulletins that have been going out to the sector. Board members were shown statistics of how many people were viewing these.
• Some questions were raised over whether officials’ time was best spent on this but it was felt overall that these are worth continuing.