national

2017–2025framework

youth engagement

This framework aims to encourage the increasing involvement of young

people from every community in their local canals and river navigations;

participating in a variety of activities, supporting the Trust’s long-term

stewardship of the waterways and enriching their own lives and the

general wellbeing of society as a whole.

BackgroundYoung people represent a new and previously under engaged audience for the waterways yet they are the visitors, volunteers, supporters and work-force of the future. It is essential that we recognise both the value they can bring to the Trust and waterways, and the numerous opportunities the waterways can offer them. Youth engagement has presented the organisation with a wealth of new, innovative and beneficial opportunities which has enabled us to reach new audiences and offer a wide range of activities to a diverse range of young people.

Strategic ContextStrategically Trustees have placed engaging young people high up on their agenda and the following long term strategic objectives have been established;

• Half a million children and young people reflective of the range of communities we serve will each year broaden their learning and improve their skills through our waterways, museums and attractions. (By 2025)

• One million children and young people from a range of communities each year will engage with our waterways through volunteering, arts, education and learning, sport participation, heritage and cultural activities and social action (By 2025)

• 150,000 hours of youth social action related volunteering (By 2025)

Research / Consultation In order to understand why and how the Trust should engage young people, a three-fold approach to research and consultation was undertaken.

Internal viewpoint Through interactive workshops Trust staff and volunteers felt that as an organisation, we should engage young people, to ensure:

• Sustainability / longevity for the Trust and waterways

• A more diverse demographic of employees, visitors, volunteers and users

• More secure future in terms of support and funding

• Improved waterway environment that is valued, protected and used by local people

External viewpoint Within a wider external context, as a charity with an extensive physical asset and a wealth of different skills and specialisms amongst staff and volunteers, the Trust is in a strong position to respond to several of the government’s highest priorities around young people, including;

• Youth social action

• Health and wellbeing

• Employability

• Social resilience

Young People’s viewpointWe have worked with a number of specialist youth partners to survey young people about their awareness of the Trust, attitudes towards the waterways and the types of engagement activities that may appeal to them.

• 45% of respondents had never heard of the Canal & River Trust before taking the survey.*

• 50% had used the canal in the past but not regularly, and 23% had never used the canal before for any activity. Only 8% use the canal regularly (once a week)*

• The young people surveyed were largely positive about the opportunities at the Canal & River Trust. 67% felt that learning new skills and having fun would appeal to them followed by 63% who said meeting new people, 63% helping the community, 60% spending time with friends, 60% having recognition of their work and 58% helping the environment.*1

• 63% of young people surveyed would like to see more environment / wildlife opportunities available near the canal, 57% said water-sports, 48% said more for children and young people specifically, 44% wanted more community / social events and 31% wanted more work-skills / training opportunities.**

• When asked whether they agreed the canal is an important part of their local community, only 12% strongly agreed.**2

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By engaging young people early in their lives, we can help them to build meaningful connections to the waterways and in many cases, form a long term, sustainable relationship with the Trust.

Our framework will aim to reach the widest number of young people possible, enabling them to understand the relevance of the network in the past as well as the opportunities in the present and for the future. We will do this through social action involving volunteering, influencing and campaigning using the unique environment we offer. We will recognise the contribution young people can make in supporting us to achieve this aim, ensuring we respond to the changing needs, aspirations and challenges that they express. To be effective, we need to continue to work closely with young people and specialist organisations to ensure that we create opportunities to listen to young people about their experiences, their aspirations and their challenges to ensure the Trust is accessible, relevant and reflective of their needs for future generations

Approach OverviewIn order to engage young people effectively and achieve the aspirations outlined above, the Trust needs to offer a diverse programme of activities with varying levels of engagement from ‘light-touch’ to ‘life-changing’. It is important to recognise that there is a value in simply increasing a young person’s awareness of the Trust and encouraging more young people to visit and use the waterways as well as offering longer term, targeted projects and opportunities.

A ‘one size fits all’ approach is not appropriate and the Trust should provide, through a range of partners offers and options to young people that vary in terms of; frequency and duration of engagement, type of activity, desired outcomes, reward / recognition and support / supervision provided. All options should provide opportunities for young people to have fun, develop skills for life and work and / or personal qualities and characteristics as well as offering benefits to the Trust.

The preference to deliver this approach will be:

• To encourage and facilitate activities and programmes delivered by specialist partner youth agencies across England and Wales

• Encourage increased participation of young people in social action across the ten waterways

• To ensure inclusion and development of young people’s views and youth participation opportunities in the development of future projects/initiatives

• Seek out opportunities to partner and lead on specialist funded, resourced projects

• Create innovative and new opportunities for engagement and involvement through events such as ‘Let’s Fish’ and ‘Go Canoeing’ weeks

To be effective, we need to continue to work closely with young people and specialist organisations to ensure that we create opportunities to listen to young people about their experiences, their aspirations and their challenges to ensure the Trust is accessible, relevant and reflective of their needs for future generations.

1 BYC survey of 579 young people 2014/152 NUS survey of 1023 young people, 2015

Themes & Key Actions 2017–2025 The Trust will focus its youth engagement offer around three following priority areas:

1. Social Action (volunteering, campaigning and influencing: supporting our Step Up To Serve #iwill pledge, health & wellbeing offers)

2. Active Participation (including sports and arts participation / health & wellbeing offers)

3. Employability / Skills development (including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) projects, apprenticeships, traineeships, work experience and volunteer placements)

In order to do this, we must ensure that:

• There is an organisational wide understanding of and support for this trifold approach and clearly demonstrate how each area contributes to the Trust’s wider aims and strategic aspirations

• All social action is effectively and consistently recorded• All youth projects developed at a national and local level

should seek to meet clear outcomes, outputs and KPIs related to at least one of the areas listed above.

The Trust must continue to raise its profile and reputation as a credible, reliable partner, able to deliver high quality youth projects and activities. In order to do this, we must:

• Raise awareness of Canal & River Trust and its mission amongst the younger population across England and Wales

• Align ourselves strategically with high profile partners within the youth sector by further developing existing relationships and networks, and proactively pursuing new ones across England and Wales, utilising the Youth Engagement Advisory Group (YEAG) members to champion this area of work

• Demonstrate impact and disseminate learning and best practice across the sector whilst effectively marketing our youth offer

• Ensure funded youth projects are delivered to a consistently high standard and celebrate this within the youth sector

The Trust should seek to deliver the majority of its youth engagement activity through partners. This will be achieved by:

• Further developing relationships with existing partners and proactively pursuing new local and national partnerships across England and Wales

• The creation of national frameworks, resources and toolkits to engage and support youth groups

The Trust will improve its data collection and impact measurement of youth engagement projects and activities. This will be achieved by:

• Assessing our current approach to recording youth activity and externally funded projects and improve metrics and measurement frameworks.

• Establishing clear national outputs and KPIs for each of the three priority areas identified for youth engagement that all waterways can work towards.

• Regular reporting against agreed outputs and KPIs to provide robust and accurate information to inform annual impact reports.

The Trust should continue its journey of cultural change to build internal capacity and ensure the organisation is fully ‘youth fit’ by 2025. This will be achieved by:

• The continued roll out of the mandatory ‘Introduction to Safeguarding’ e-learning programme to all staff and volunteers, development of the Trust’s Safeguarding Steering Group and systems and review of the Trust’s ‘Safeguarding Children, Young People and Adults at Risk’ mandatory standard

• Clear communication of the National Youth Engagement Framework

• Explore opportunities for young people to participate and ‘have a voice’ to ensure the organisation is responsive and relevant to young people by 2025

In order to recruit, retain and recognise the importance of engaging young people, the Trust will strive to develop a suite of opportunities. This will be achieved through:

• Developing national relationships with accreditation providers and award bodies including; John Muir Trust, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, ASDAN and vInspired and aligning our offers to the award criteria

• The creation of an awards / accreditation working group to share best practice, pilot awards, champion awards internally and evaluate efficacy.

• Exploration of expanding young person representation on YEAG

• Wherever possible, teams will work together to access specific and relevant funding to expand and enhance youth engagement throughout the Trust.

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