About us
The North West Regional Youth Work Unit is a registered charity and Company limited by guarantee. The Charity’s objects (the Objects) are the advancement of education through the development of informal social education and the promoting of youth work for the young people of the North West of England.
Background:
The Regional Unit has existed in its current form since 1992. The North West Region consists of the two Shire Counties of Cumbria, Lancashire, the fifteen Metropolitan boroughs making up Greater Manchester and Merseyside, and the six Unitary authorities of Blackpool, Blackburn (formerly in Lancashire), Warrington, Halton (formerly in Cheshire), Cheshire East and Cheshire West & Chester. The Unit acts as an advocate for youth work and provides a focal point for communication and the dissemination of information throughout the region and beyond.
At the beginning of 2008 the Unit became a company limited by guarantee and in August a registered charity..
Our Mission:
To help young people realise their potential and become active citizens.
Our Aims:
To support the effectiveness, efficiency, quality and relevance of youth work across the region.
To support services working with young people to maximise young peoples’ opportunities for personal and social development and help them make a successful transition to adult life and citizenship.
Our Objectives:
- To provide expertise, intelligence, information, leadership and support so Local Authorities (LAs) and partners are effectively informed to determine future direction of youth work (informal education) and employ best practice in delivery. (Intelligence)
- To provide professional support, training and workforce development guidance for professionals working with young people to support the effective management and efficient delivery of services. (Professional Support)
- To facilitate and support empowerment activities for young people across the region, enabling them to have a say in local and national policy and service delivery. (Participation)
- To use our strong relationships with the sector to champion and lead North West Youth Work, conduct research and identify best practice that contributes to development of policy and delivery at local and national levels. (Relationships)
- To encourage and facilitate networking between LAs and private, voluntary and maintained sectors. To enable the optimum strategic understanding of youth work developments, share best practice and promote effective and efficient joint working across sectors. (Networking)
- To increase the opportunities for young people, securing additional resources and activities by actively seeking support and funding from a range of partners to enable and support innovative and collaborative working. (Brokering opportunities)
These objectives are underpinned by agreed values and principles:
• A voluntary relationship between young people and youth workers based on trust and mutual respect.
• A well resourced youth work provision ensuring young people have choice and are involved in the design, delivery, evaluation and continuous improvement of services
• Services that are planned and delivered at a regional, sub regional and local level.
• Sharing good practice to improve the quality of work with young people and to maximise the resources available for the benefit of young people in the region
• Promoting Community Cohesion and celebrating diversity;
• Actively promote equality and diversity
• Acting with integrity and working in an honest, open and transparent way.
‘Our work involved contact with many partners doing fantastic work across the region. The RYWU stands out as one of the most able, collaborating successfully, and in particular enabling organisations like ours relate to and understand our key customers, in this case young people, the key to the future of North West’
(Dominic Brankin, Deputy Regional Director, GONW)