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Hello
Welcome to the winter edition of our jam-packed newsletter, the final of the year! And, as usual, we've got lots to share!
The big news at Young Scot over the recent months has been the switch-on of our brand new Young Scot Rewards platform - the latest addition to our award-winning Young Scot National Entitlement Card, which is a partnership between Scottish Government, COSLA, the Improvement Service, Young Scot and all 32 local authorities in Scotland. This online platform allows young people to accumulate points on their NEC card as they participate in positive activities which are to the benefit of themselves, their communities and the environment.
Our Scotland's Youth Smartcard Celebration event on 9th November at Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket brought together over 250 young people and stakeholders to witness the Rewards initiative in action first-hand. Our young attendees demonstrated the potential of Young Scot Rewards to our invited guests, which included the Minister for Children and Young People Angela Constance MSP, by accruing points on their card after taking part in any of the activities available at the event.
We would like to thank the hundreds of young people who helped to shape and co-create the Rewards platform; this was the culmination of a significant amount of work undertaken throughout 2011 by all of those involved.
Since the event, we're happy to report that there has been significant interest from a wide range of partners in getting involved with Rewards and we look forward to seeing the platform grow and evolve in 2012, as well as learning of its impact through the NESTA funded formative evaluation.
Check out our animation for more information on Rewards by clicking on this link: http://tiny.cc/rewardsvid
As Scotland's Youth Smartcard, the Young Scot NEC already enables access to cashless catering services, leisure facilities, libraries, cheaper transport, e-voting registration and can even be used when opening a bank account. The inclusion of the Proof of Age Standards Scheme hologram logo also enhances the card as a voluntary proof-of-age, but it has the potential for more elements to be added; helping to improve a young person's life. We're keen to speak to any organisation in any sector that would like to discuss the possibility of including new opportunities to the card.
As ever, we'd love to hear your thoughts on all things Young Scot, so please tweet us @YoungScot or feel free to email me directly at louisem@youngscot.org
Warmest wishes,
Louise Macdonald
Chief Executive of Young Scot
"SWITCHING ON" YOUNG SCOT REWARDS
On Wednesday 9th November, Young Scot held an event to celebrate Scotland's Youth Smartcard by announcing the latest addition to the award-winning Young Scot National Entitlement Card - Young Scot Rewards, a brand new, innovative online platform which encourages young people to participate in positive activities to the benefit of themselves, their communities and the environment.
Over 250 young people and stakeholders joined the Minister for Children and Young People, Angela Constance MSP, at an interactive event at Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket as the Young Scot Rewards platform went live.
The European award-winning Young Scot National Entitlement Card (NEC) is Scotland's Youth Smartcard and is a partnership between the Scottish Government, COSLA, the Improvement Service, Young Scot and all 32 local authorities in Scotland. The voluntary proof-of-age card is free to young people aged 11 to 26 years and it is currently held by over 400,000 young people in Scotland.
Through Young Scot Rewards, young people are able to earn points for taking part in a variety of positive activities offered by a range of cross-sector partners. These activities include volunteering, contributing to online consultations, and participating in opportunities around sport, health, arts and the environment. As their points accumulate, they are then able to unlock achievements and access exclusive offers and special deals, which currently include the chance to shadow Michelin starred Chef Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles Hotel, free driving lessons with BSM, or the daring opportunity to swim with sharks at Deep Sea World.
Young Scot Rewards has been co-designed by young people, with hundreds more helping to shape the platform through involvement with in-depth consultations. It also follows successful pilots in Glasgow where, since 2006, 24,000 young people have been collecting points on their card each month for using leisure facilities, responding to consultations and surveys and for choosing healthy school meals.
Young Scot Rewards is also supported by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), and they are working with us to support evaluation of the platform as it is developed and implemented.
Young people interested in signing-up to Young Scot Rewards should visit www.youngscot.org/rewards where they will get their first 100 points for free.
YOUNG SCOT AND CREATIVE SCOTLAND LAUNCH CREATIVE ENTERPRISE FUND
On Monday 24th October, we launched our new fund for young people, the Creative Enterprise Fund, in partnership with Creative Scotland. The new Fund aims to support young people aged 15-22 years to develop their artistic talents and fulfil their ambitions within the creative industries.
The Creative Enterprise Fund is a way for Scotland's young people to develop their artistic talent and unlock opportunities within the creative industries. The new Fund promotes the values of creative enterprise and leadership, creating positive pathways to employment and providing wider benefits to local communities.
The Creative Enterprise Fund can award young people up to £200 on an individual basis and £750 for groups of three or more. Playing at the launch were Stirling's young, pop-rock bandMiniature Dinosaurs,who had received funding through our previous grant initiative, the Arts Action Fund.
Applications are now open and young people can download an application form from the Young Scot Extra website at www.youngscotextra.org/cef. The Grants Committee meet every two months, and the next deadline for applications is Monday 16th January 2012.
To find out more about the Fund and for guidance on how to apply, young people should visit the Young Scot Extra website at www.youngscotextra.org/cef or contact the free Young Scot InfoLine on 0808 801 0338 between Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm.
TRUTH ABOUT YOUTH
The project which challenges the negative perceptions of young people in Glasgow has interacted with approximately 8,000 young people and adults to date. Through our engagement work and our partnership with the Sunday Mail, we estimate the project has reached an audience in excess of 450,000 people.
The Truth About Youth project is continuing with its workshop sessions across Glasgow and we have seen a dramatic increase in activity on The Patter website - www.thepatter.org. The blogging site has recently attracted blogs from a number of individuals, including one from a young person with M.E. who has outlined her struggle with the illness and her battle to raise awareness and bring people together to discuss the issues they face. Cardonald College media students have also flocked to the site and shared their thoughts on the role the media plays in shaping people's perception of young people.
We are currently producing our fifth Truth About Youth Sunday Mail supplement which is due out on 18th December. This supplement includes a special feature focusing on the work of the Dumbarton Road Corridor Addiction Forum Peer Group, who work with young people to spread information on the dangers of alcohol and substance misuse.
Over the recent months, we have been running the Truth About Youth Grants Fund to provide young people and youth groups in Glasgow with financial backing to help them make a positive difference in their communities. The Grants Fund was available for applications from the end of September to the end of November and the applications received are due to be reviewed by the Truth About Youth Grants Committee - comprised of young people - in the coming weeks.
And finally, on Wednesday 7th December we were delighted to hear that the Truth About Youth project had been the focus of a debate within the Scottish Parliament. MSPs including Michael Russell, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin voiced their support for the project and commended the young volunteers, Young Scot and The Co-operative Foundation for their work on empowering young people in Glasgow. Michael Russell MSP also added that the new Minister for Children and Young People, Aileen Campbell, will meet with us to take the issues raised forward.
For more information on the Truth About Youth project, visit www.thepatter.org, email us on truthaboutyouth@youngscot.org or call the Young Scot InfoLine on 0808 801 0338 between Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm.
SKILLS SCOTLAND
In November, Young Scot attended all three national Skills Scotland events which were held across the country, including Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow.
The hand-on interactive event was a free careers and skills event for young people aged 14 to 19 years which aimed to inspire and engage young people in a range of life-after-school options.
Young Scot was involved in all three events to further promote Young Scot Extra, our service for young people who are soon to be leaving or have left school. Young Scot Extra is designed to support young people to make positive lifestyle choices at the point of transition to ensure they reach a positive destination.
We had a range of interactive consultation tools at our exhibition stand which included a Facebook photography competition o financial capability; encouraging young people to find out more about the value of money and how best to look after it.
The events were a great success and we managed to engage with over 1,000 young people. You can check out a slideshow of our event competition photographs on our Flickr page at http://tiny.cc/o4tts.
For more information on Skills Scotland, visit www.skillsscotland.co.uk
CG2014 YOUTH LEGACY AMBASSADORS
Youth Legacy Ambassadors have been involved in the 1,000 Days To Go campaign and the launch of the new Games Legacy website.
Youth Legacy Ambassadors were involved in the 1,000 Days To Go campaign by taking part in a live Tweet Q&A with the Commonwealth and Sports Minister, Shona Robison MSP. Four Youth Legacy Ambassadors took part and asked the Minister questions including:
- What new employment opportunities will there be once the Games are over?
- How will the Commonwealth Games benefit young people?
- What opportunities will the Games bring to Scotland?
- I'm a Youth Legacy Ambassador from Dundee, how can you make sure the legacy extends outside Glasgow?
- What do you see being the lasting legacy for Scotland after Glasgow 2014?
To mark the 1,000 Days To Go campaign, the Scottish Government also launched a new Games Legacy website, urging all Scots to get online and get involved with the 2014 legacy.
The new site, www.gameslegacyscotland.org, aims to ensure communities are kept up-to-date on the Games activity within their local area - from fun sporting groups to the progress of home-grown 2014 hopefuls and business opportunities.
Scotland-wide progress towards developing a lasting legacy from the Games will also be detailed on the site. Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport, Shona Robison MSP, said: "Already across Scotland people are getting involved and feeling the excitement that the Games will bring but we have launched our Games Legacy website as a one-stop shop for the public to access information on the range of legacy activity happening nationally and within local communities."
We are currently waiting to hear if any of the Youth Legacy Ambassadors have been selected to be torch bearers for London 2012. Ten Ambassadors have been nominated - fingers crossed!
And lastly, we're currently looking to update our Youth Legacy Ambassador representation in the following areas: Scottish Borders, Shetland, West Lothian, Aberdeen, East Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Orkney and the Western Isles.
To find out more about our Youth Legacy Ambassadors or if you know of a young person who would like to be involved in the project, please contact our Participation and Engagement Officer Jamie Dunlop on jamied@youngscot.org
FINANCIAL CAPABILITY - SEMINARS
As a part of our financial capability work, Young Scot is delivering four seminars in the third week of January, due to take place in Glasgow, Dundee, Dumfries & Galloway and Edinburgh.
The main focus of these seminars is to demonstrate how Young Scot Extra can support the senior phase for the Curriculum for Excellence, and show how it can assist those working with young people post-school and involved in 16+ Activity Agreements in delivering financial capability when working with a group of young people. The seminar aims to provide an opportunity for practitioners to get involved in the discussions around young people and financial capability.
What are the main finance-related problems that young people face? How do they want to receive information on managing their finances? What has proved successful? What needs to be happening more?
Scheduled for the morning of 18th January in The Mitchell Library in Glasgow, 19th January in Discovery at Dundee, 20th January in the Oasis Youth Centre in Dumfries & Galloway and 23rd January in the 6VT Youth Cafe in Edinburgh, these seminars are free to attend and should you be interested in booking a place for any of the above dates please email Rachel@youngscot.org.
To register your interest in Young Scot's financial capability work, including booking your attendance at one of our seminar mornings, please email Rachel@youngscot.org
POLISH STUDY VISTS
Young Scot is involved in a partnership project - funded through the European Social Fund - with the EYCA member Polish Youth Projects Association and the Eurodesk provider Morena.
Euro<26 Poland currently have a youth card but wish to develop wider services for young people similar to those provided by Young Scot.
Young Scot attended the launch of the project in Gdansk at the beginning of the summer and has since hosted a study visit and a workshop to assist Polish Youth Projects Association (PYPA). The study visit aimed to help PYPA establish a network of youth organisations across Poland and develop a practical toolkit to build the capacity of this network in delivering information, training and funding. The toolkit will stand alone, to be used by NGOs working with young people at a local level, and will set the foundations for future projects to build upon.
Action plans and tools for each strand of the project have now been developed and work will continue to create a comprehensive toolkit.
To find out more about Young Scot's partnership project with PYPA and Morena, contact our Transitions Development Officer Danielle Logan on daniellel@youngscot.org
O2 THINK BIG
The O2 Think Big project not only creates a positive impact on local communities across the UK, but in the case of unemployed Reuben Chesters it helped him secure a job.
When Reuben became unemployed last year he wanted to start a new project that related to his passion of local food-growing and would improve his local community area in South of Glasgow.
After successfully securing £300 of funding and receiving in-depth training from Think Big, Reuben set up a community food-growing project aimed to increase the quantity of fruit and vegetables that are grown organically in the Govanhill area.
The project involved securing a number of local sites to transform into community gardens where volunteers could help maintain the site. For example, Reuben received permission from First Scotrail to transform a railway station into an edible platform where fruit, herbs and vegetables could be harvested by commuters on their way home from work.
Due to the success of the project, South Seeds has been granted charitable status as the first ever Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO).
The project has grown in success with Reuben now becoming Chairman of a staffed project, and he now runs an environmental workshop as a freelancer. It has also developed a new social enterprise project with the support of Think Big called Locavore, which will initially include creating an urban market garden and running a food share delivery scheme of local sustainable food by bicycle in Glasgow.
O2 Think Big provides training and grants to young people aged between 13-25 years old for projects that have a positive benefit to their local community. For more information, visit www.youngscotextra.org/articles/o2-think-big
YOUNG SCOT OUTREACH - HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE!
Young Scot have engaged with over 6,000 young people face-to-face in the past few months, find out what we've been up to.
Young Scot was a part of Youth Beatz in Dumfries - a free, community music event for young people. We took the Young Scot InfoMobile and engaged with over 400 young people using the Climate Change consultations. Similarly, Renfrewshire Integrated Children's Services held a youth event allowing young people to find out about the local youth opportunities and services available. We helped with the event's evaluation by hosting a Big Brother-style "Diary Room" feedback area.
We got involved in the Scottish Youth Parliament's Sitting in Irvine, giving young people an opportunity to apply for the Young Scot National Entitlement Card and advising members on how the new Young Scot Rewards initiative could benefit them.
We were a part of the National Youth Work Week celebrations in Kilmarnock, Fife and Glasgow. Young Scot took the InfoMobile to Kilmarnock's town centre to promote the local activities and services to young people across East Ayrshire. During the Youth Work Week in Fife, Fife Council signed a three-year partnership agreement with Young Scot to promote Young Scot's services to young people throughout Fife.
We were also invited to the launch of the Voluntary Youth Network (VYN) in Fife - a partnership that brings voluntary organisations working with young people across Fife together. Tricia Marwick MSP for Central Fife and 4th Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, was present to officially launch the VYN.
To organise a Young Scot presence at your event, please email Field Services Director June Osborne on juneo@youngscot.org. Be kept up-to-date with our event antics by following us on Twitter by searching for @YoungScot.
GET THE LOWDOWN
The Lowdown is a partnership between Young Scot and the Scottish Government Health Improvement Team and NHS Health Scotland. The service has been developed from extensive consultation and research from those working in the youth health field to help young people who are at risk of poorer health outcomes have improved life chances.
The website, www.getthelowdown.co.uk, aims to support vulnerable young people with messages on issues that matter to them, including relationships, sexual health and well-being. It also looks to address fundamental health inequalities and develop resilience among young people by offering reliable and relevant information delivered in a straightforward language, using cutting-edge interactive digital technology.
The site recently received the following feedback from an S3 teacher who had been using The Lowdown in her health sessions with pupils:
"Personally, this is my 38th year doing this and I was stunned by the unflinching clarity with which such topics aswhat's a normal shape of a penis andwhat to do if you fancy your best friend are dealt with.
"I am an English teacher and used the website with my S3 General section to tie in with an essay they were doing about good parenting. Again, the very "realness" of the material and relevance to their lives was evident in their rapt attention. Well done to you and your group. Now that's what I call aneducation!"
The site features a comprehensive Contacts Directory, listing over 500 local health services from across Scotland and is backed up by a free confidential phone line (0808 802 4444) that young people can access and get further information personalised to their needs.
To find out more about The Lowdown, visit the website at www.getthelowdown.co.uk
FEEDBACK AND COMMENTS
Recent Twitter Comments...
@TheBuddster: "Would be great to start using gaming mechanics like @YoungScot are." 11.11.11
@TheCameronMunro: "Bet nobody else has @YoungScot following them? I feel very special right now!" 22.11.11
@Mikeleighcooper: "Great to meet Bob from www.eyca.org who introduced me to @YoungScot at @EU_eyv2011 conference. Follow if in Scotland and work w/ 11-26 yr olds." 06.12.11
Recent Facebook Comments...
MakethisRelate: "We are featured in the Young Scot magazine which comes free today with the Sunday Mail! Go check it out!" 18.09.11
Shetland Youth Services: "The Young Scot tour has started in Shetland, brilliant morning at Brae High School. Thanks to all those students that made the team feel so welcome." 05.12.11
Working With Us
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