Peterborough merger creates integrated team

This from Young People Now

Peterborough City Council has merged its youth and Connexions service to create an integrated young people's service.

The council hopes to call the new organisation Connexions Peterborough Young People's Service, but Rachel Rouncefield, head of integrated young people's service, said it has to get permission from the Department for Education and Skills.

The new service, which came into effect last week, will comprise three locality teams, made up of community-based youth workers, universal personal advisers, intensive personal advisers and positive activities key workers. Some of the teams will also include teenage pregnancy workers, specialist youth workers and minority ethnic new arrival link workers.

There will also be a onestop-shop in the city's central library, which will include information, advice and guidance and access to other services such as youth participation and the youth council.

Each of the three localities will now have its own youth forum, which will feed into the city's youth council.

"Young people used the city centre Connexions access point so much that when we consulted them they said they wanted somewhere to access information, advice and guidance in the city centre as well as in their localities, so we are retaining a more specialist team that has the whole city centre access point to run," said Rouncefield.

One of the benefits of the revamp is that it brings together different targets, she added. "At a strategic level it enables us to bring targets together, such as targets for young people not in education, employment or training, recorded and accredited outcomes and teenage pregnancy targets," she said.

"It gives youth workers, for example, the chance to do teenage pregnancy work, which they may have done before, but it wouldn't have counted towards any of their targets."