Kingston youth services equality impact assessment

Service area: Early Help – Youth Service
Name of service/policy/project being assessed: Kingston Youth Service – AfC and YMCA
Officer leading on assessment: Roberta Evans, Associate Director of Early Help
Other officers involved: Sarah Reid, Head of Service Children, Youth and Partnerships

1. Briefly describe the service/policy/project:

This Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) is focused on the Kingston Youth Service Provision. The Kingston Youth Service Provision is currently discharged as a mixed model of delivery delivered in house by AfC and commissioned partners (YMCA and sub contracted provider, Oxygen). The current arrangement ensures provision remains balanced between AfC and the voluntary sector, maximising the skills and expertise of both sectors. The current arrangement remains in place until the end of March 2022 to ensure children receive continuity in service delivery. However, the current proposal is to cease the current contract with YMCA and focus delivery on a model to reflect what is being delivered in Richmond by AfC. The model will also engage local voluntary sector providers such as Oxygen and focus on increasing targeted youth work interventions.

The Kingston youth provision currently serves over 3000 children and young people per year and is provided across two main youth clubs, Dickerage and Kingsnympton, currently run by YMCA and sub contracted provider Oxygen (at Kingsnympton) and via detached youth work, the youth bus, Albany Outdoor and Sailing Club and partnership arrangements with Chessington school in the case of AfC.

We are making these proposed changes because we consider that the current youth service provision provided by the current commissioned arrangements is:

not aligned to statutory services and therefore does not explicitly target the children who most need interventions and support

is delivered through mixed model and separated management oversight, which reduces joined up working

has a number of identified gaps from the Youth Survey completed in 2020, which was shared with the Children and Adults Care and Education Committee on 10 November 2020.

This EIA focuses on Borough wide Youth Services for children and young people in the Royal Borough of Kingston.

2. What sources of information have been used in the preparation of this equality assessment? (e.g. national research, JSNA, user feedback)

Analysis and audit of need

Thematic audits of knife crime, contextual safeguarding, youth justice cohorts, information from AfC intelligence teams regarding need analysis and quantitative data.

Youth consultation on Kingston youth services

668 children consulted on their views about the current Kingston youth service and what they felt were the key issues to be addressed.

Project X-outcomes

Learning from current best practice in targeted youth work and outcomes presented to HMIP.

Multi-agency exclusions audit

KRSCP exclusions audit and recommendations.

Early Help Strategy and Youth Safety Strategy

Learning from the evidence base underpinning both strategies and ensuring the youth service aligns to the strategic position for AfC and the partnership.

3. Analysis of impact

Age

Impact: positive

Data and analysis:

The Youth Service has a target population of 10 – 17 and up to 25 years for children with SEND.

In 2020/21 Achieving for Children’s Kingston Youth Service had 3,255 attend services. Of which 77% engaged in 3 or more sessions.

• Dickerage – 834
• Kingsnympton – 480

The intention is to increase the number of children engaging with a more coordinated offer by increasing the range and number of sessions.

Disability

Impact: positive

Data and analysis:

The main impact in relation to disability relates to the FAB Target Group-run by YMCA which is part of the decommissioning proposed. The service is for children and young people 5-25 years old with a variety of learning disabilities including Autism, severe learning difficulties, social emotional and mental health issues

The service runs on a weekly basis every Saturday during term time. The maximum capacity for the service is 15 children and young people per session, with an average attendance of 14 per week.

AfC will ensure there is service continuity and will ensure an offer for children with disability is included within the new model of youth services in Kingston to meet the 14 children who attend each week. As part of the proposal, the FAB-Coordinator will be TUPE’d into AfC and will continue to deliver the provision.

There is a plan to ensure developments for all young people will include FAB needs.

Gender (sex)

Impact: none

Data and analysis:

We do not have a comprehensive data set on gender because the services are universal and voluntary and not all young people feel comfortable to provide this information. All services are delivered for all young people and no-one is excluded due to sex unless young people request a specific ‘girls group’ or ‘boys group’ from the service.

Gender reassignment

Impact: none

Data and analysis:

Data relating to gender reassignment is not collected.

AfC’s Youth Service provides two LGBTQ+ groups and this will be developed in Kingston should the proposal be agreed.

Marriage and civil partnership

Impact: none

Data and analysis:

Data relating to marriage and civil partnership is not routinely collected. It is considered of low relevance to this assessment.

Pregnancy and maternity

Impact: none

Data and analysis:

Data relating to pregnancy and maternity is not routinely collected. It is considered of low relevance to this assessment.

Race/ethnicity

Impact: positive

Data and analysis:

In relation to race and ethnicity, disproportionality is identified as a key theme in exclusion data, youth justice data and within the MARVE cohort (children at risk of CSE and or CCE). Disproportionality is a strategic priority for the youth justice service in Kingston and greater control upon youth service provision will allow us to increase the focus on proactively targeting disproportionality and ensure youth services provide a welcoming and non-discriminatory service. We will seek to work with our partners in regard to the wider community offer and pathways for support.

Youth Justice Service

Young people from mixed/multiple ethnic backgrounds account for approximately 7.1% of the 10-17 year olds across AfC, but in 2019/20 accounted for 21.3% of new substantive outcomes, 17% of first time entrants, 60% of custodial sentences and 42.9% of remands, while accounting for 20.4% of the total YJS cohort for that year.

MARVE

Of the 104 children referred to and discussed at MARVE since its inception in November 2018, 46% (48/104) were from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, with 25% from Mixed ethnic backgrounds.

Increasing the joint work with statutory services, such as youth justice and adolescent safeguarding, will help to break down some of the barriers that young people can experience. In Richmond, the summer program was fully supported by the Schools Police, providing a positive relationship building opportunity and represents young people in a more favourable light to Police. This will be an aim for the Kingston summer program.

Religion and belief including non-belief

Impact: none

Data and analysis:

Services are available to all, regardless of religious or faith backgrounds.

While Oxygen identifies as a faith based youth work provider, their services are also available to all and there is planned continued joint working with this provider at Kingsnympton.

Sexual orientation

Impact: none

Data and analysis:

Data relating to sexual orientation is not collected.

AfC’s Youth Service provides two LGBTQ+ groups and this can be developed in Kingston.

Other i.e. carer, or those on a low income

Impact: positive

Data and analysis:

The proposal seeks to proactively increase the numbers of children from vulnerable and targeted groups accessing youth services. There will be an increase focus on those accessing targeted children services, those from low socio-economic backgrounds-including free school meals as an indicator and an increased focus on collaboration with services such as our commissioned young carer providers

The Project Spotlight analysis carried out by Heatham House, RIchmond, has informed us that one in four (25%) of the cohort attending youth services at Heatham House are children who have accessed higher tier interventions-children’s social care and/or Youth Justice services. This analysis is currently being completed across the Richmond youth service. No such information is available in Kingston but can be developed with the proposal of in-house provision.

4. What consultation have you undertaken in the development of this policy/project or with stakeholders or critical friends? Outline the consultation method and what feedback has been received:

Consultation

AfC has undertaken a range of consultation events including face to face on site and virtual as well as utilising an online survey.

Consultation events held were:

Stakeholder event at Kingsnympton 22 June

Stakeholder event at Dickerage 29 June

Staff consultation events were held on 21 June and 15 July

Young people focus groups during July and August

As part of the consultation process AFC trained up a number of young people to become Youth Ambassadors, once trained they hosted focus group sessions with young people whilst being supported by the Youth Service.

Summary of Consultation Responses

Total number consulted with: 35 + individuals attended the focus group sessions
Online survey completion total: 11
Face to Face Stakeholder Events – Dickerage number of attendees: 18
Face to Face Stakeholder Events – Kingsnympton number of attendees: 8
Young People Focus Groups: 80 young people

Summary of themes arising from the consultation are:

There was 100% agreement with the proposed model.

Requests and recommendations for expanding the offer will inform the Youth Service Strategy alongside the Youth Offer Consultation 2020 responses.

5. Summary of findings

The analysis set out above has demonstrated that the proposals will have an overall positive impact across the protected characteristic groups, while the consultation has demonstrated the support of those children and young people who provided feedback.

In particular, the proposals would provide AfC with the opportunity to oversee the Youth Service provision directly which would enable the coordination of the youth offer and more robust data monitoring. The stronger focus on data will ensure that the offer can be targeted at those most in need, many of whom may be from specific protected characteristic groups. Data analysis will also enable trends to be identified and provide the opportunity for service delivery to be amended to best meet the needs of children and young people on an ongoing basis. Sessions delivered as part of the existing offer that relate to specific protected characteristic groups, such as the FAB Disability Group, would continue as part of the proposals and there would be scope to develop new sessions as required.

In addition, Richmond has a Spotlight project to map the percentage of young people accessing services who are known to higher tier / statutory provision. Richmond also delivered their summer program jointly with Police, Schools, and AfC Officers and has established two LGBTQ+ youth groups. The Kingston Youth Strategy will set out how these initiatives will be replicated in Kingston as part of the proposals, which should have a further positive impact for children and young people across the borough.

6. Action planning

What consultation have you undertaken with stakeholders or critical friends about the key findings? Include any identified data gaps:

Issue identified: Expand Kingston offer
Planned action: Develop and finalise the Youth Service Strategy with staff, stakeholders and partners to ensure the best offer for Kingston residents.
Lead officer: Sarah Reid
Completion date March 2022

7. Publishing the completed Equality Impact Assessment

Completed date: 19 August 2021
Lead officer: Roberta Evans
Signed off by (Director level) Ian Dodds, Director of Children’s Services – Kingston and Richmond