Frequently Asked Questions – youth work
Estyn has the statutory duty to inspect youth work in Wales under the Learning and Skills Act 2000. This covers activities for young people between the ages of 11 and 25. Estyn has inspected youth work in different ways over the years including by looking at the work of Young People’s Partnerships and more recently as part of our inspections of Local Government Education Services. Our job is to make sure that the public funding which supports youth work is used well to ensure the best possible experiences and outcomes for young people. We are excited about the opportunity to visit providers so that we can reflect and highlight the important contribution youth work is making to the lives of young people in all corners of Wales.
We recognise that youth work is delivered in a wide range of organisations across Wales. Until now, our inspection work has focused on a local authority and its partners, which would include voluntary sector organisations.
Recently, the Welsh Government has asked Estyn to also inspect voluntary sector organisations. These will include organisations in receipt of the Strategic Voluntary Youth Work Organisation Grant in Wales as well as other sources of public funding, for example from local authorities. We are currently carrying out a scoping exercise to understand better the various funding arrangements in the voluntary sector and to plan our inspection schedule for the current cycle.
The voluntary organisations to receive a full standalone inspection from Estyn are likely to be those who for example, receive the Welsh Government’s Strategic Voluntary Youth Work Organisation Grant and /or receive funding from other public sources for example local authorities.
If you receive money or support from, or work in partnership with, a local authority in Wales, elements of your provision may be inspected as part of the inspection of an individual local authority youth service. This will be agreed with the local authority before the inspection.
No, unless your group receives funding from the Welsh Government or from your local authority or other public sources, you will not be inspected. If the local authority youth service supports you with advice or training opportunities, we may invite you to attend a meeting to tell us about that support.
You will not be inspected as an individual body. If you work in partnership with a local authority, you may wish to showcase your work during the inspection of the local authority youth work inspection. This will be discussed prior to the inspection, but Estyn will not approach you unless you or the local authority wish to highlight your work.
Generally, no, but if there is a youth worker from the local authority youth service working in the provision, we may visit you or ask you to share how you are contributing to the overall picture of the provision in your area for example where youth workers promote transition links between the primary and secondary schools, or help to engage with community groups to strengthen the connections between the school and its neighbourhood. Estyn will only focus inspections on the 11 – 25 age group.
Yes. Estyn will speak to the voluntary sector organisation or local authority before an inspection to determine the scope of the work.
The voluntary youth work sector is diverse in nature, from large national organisations to smaller organisations located across one or two local authority areas. Therefore, the arrangements for inspecting the range of provision will need to be bespoke, proportionate and reasonable. Local authorities also vary in terms of the scale of their youth work provision.
Our inspection work will consider the different context of each organisation and reflect this in how we plan and resource our inspection work. Examples of this will be the number of days on site and the number of inspectors on the team. Also, our arrangements in terms of the number of youth clubs and other youth work settings we visit on any one inspection will be proportionate and reflect the context of the individual youth work organisation.
Estyn inspections are not a ‘checklist’ but are based on direct observation of youth work activities. Inspectors visit provision and talk to young people, staff including youth workers, volunteers and leaders. They also hold meetings with stakeholders, partners and managers to find out how the organisation is run. Inspectors will consider elements such as the organisation’s safeguarding procedures. Inspectors are friendly and informal during visits and young people and staff are usually very keen to showcase what they are doing or projects that they have recently taken part in. Inspectors visit youth centres, schools, arts projects and outside activities where relevant. They will accompany youth workers for detached or outreach sessions.
What inspectors visit depends entirely on what provision is offered by the organisation. We try to visit a sample of activities that represents the range of work in an organisation.
Following an inspection, a report will be published on the Estyn website, outlining the quality of the provision and where relevant, giving examples of good practice. You can find examples of recent reports here and our guidance for inspectors on our website at www.estyn.gov.wales
Voluntary youth work providers may experience inspection in the following ways:
If you receive funding from the Welsh Government or from the local authority or other public sources, you may receive a stand- alone inspection where a team will look at your provision and provide a report for your organisation.
If you receive funding or other support from a local authority or other public funding to provide a service, we may visit your youth work setting to observe a youth work session as part of the overall local authority youth work inspection. Your work might be mentioned in the report.
Sometimes the Welsh Government asks us to carry out a thematic review looking at a particular aspect of youth work across Wales which will result in us publishing a national report. We may invite other youth work providers who don’t currently receive funding from the Welsh Government or a local authority or other sources of public funding to be part of this work so we can reflect the full range of youth work which is happening in Wales.
The voluntary sector often plays a key role in contributing to the broad and sometimes bespoke youth work offer for young people. On our inspections of the local authority’s statutory youth service, we will consider the contribution of partner organisations as part of the overall youth work provision in an area. Over time, we will build up an evidence base of the range and quality of the voluntary youth work provision across local authorities. Where appropriate and relevant, this evidence will help to inform the stand-alone inspection of a national voluntary youth work provider. We would work with the national voluntary organisation to design a bespoke inspection model for that organisation which could build on any evidence already collected as part of other inspection work.
When inspectors visit a youth work provider, they will always engage in a professional dialogue with the youth work leaders. This reflective discussion aims to tease out the strengths and the areas for development as well as considering the challenges and opportunities for improvement. Although this isn’t a formal feedback session, providers across the sectors we inspect find that the conversations are insightful and add value. Estyn takes this approach in all the sectors it inspects.
The main provider’s youth work inspection report will also reference the contribution of any partner youth work providers to the overall scope of provision. Where the practice in a partner organisation is strong, their work may be included as a spotlight cameo in the report.
We may consider inspecting aspects of youth work provision (in both voluntary and local authority settings) which are of specific interest to the sector and/or to national policies. In this way, we will be able to add value to our collective understanding of what is working well and what needs to improve at a national level, whilst also providing individual assurances on aspects of the individual providers’ work.
A themed inspection or thematic review would focus on a specific aspect of youth work provision. For example, we might visit a range of youth work providers to consider how a particular group of young people benefit from youth work – for example, those with disabilities. Or we might consider a particular pillar from the Principles and Purposes of Youth Work such as how youth work is enabling young people to develop knowledge, understanding and positive attitudes and behaviour to be inclusive. We will agree a theme based on the evidence needs at a national level identified by Welsh Government and the Youth Work Strategy Implementation Board.
A peer inspector is a current practitioner in the service being inspected. In the case of the voluntary sector this may include experienced volunteers. Peer inspectors are trained by Estyn and serve as full members of the inspection team.
We will include peer inspectors on all our inspections. We will usually have two peers, but for large organisations, we may deploy three. This will help us to observe a reasonable and representative sample of the youth work provision. We will aim to deploy a reasonable balance of local authority and voluntary sector peer inspectors across our inspection activity with the aim of using the expertise of individual inspectors appropriately.
Peer inspectors say that the training and their experience on inspection is a really valuable professional development opportunity. Many of our peer inspectors report that they use their learning to help improve their own youth work provision.
Although we don’t pay peer inspectors,
We regularly train new peer inspectors, and you will be able to find any information about upcoming courses on our website.
The provider is notified of its inspection by an initial phone call from the inspection coordinator (IC). The IC is the Estyn contact for the whole inspection process, and they will work with you on all the practical arrangements.
At the start of the process, a youth work provider will need to identify the best person to carry out the role of a nominee. The nominee is a member of the inspection team and will attend all team meetings and be the conduit between the provider and the inspection team.
The IC will arrange for the Reporting Inspector (RI) to contact the nominee (be that the director, chief executive etc) as soon as practically possible after notification to talk through the inspection process. Every youth work provider is different and the conversation between the Reporting Inspector and the nominee is important to help us understand your provision and plan a range of visits which reflects your work.
More information about the inspection process will can be found in
our ‘How we inspect – youth work’ and the ‘What we inspect – youth work’ guidance on our website.
The number of inspections we will carry out each year will vary. We try to visit all eligible providers in a sector over a six-year period. It is likely we will carry out 4-6 inspections of youth work providers each year and this will include inspections of both voluntary sector and local authority youth work providers.
We will notify a youth work provider 3 weeks before their inspection. This allows us enough time to work with the provider to plan what visits and meetings we will have during the inspection week.
Our guidance is aimed mainly at our inspectors which is why there isn’t a glossary routinely. We have developed a glossary of helpful terms for youth work inspections that you can find here. Please let us know if there are any other terms you think we need to include.
You don’t need to prepare for inspection. We have had a campaign across other sectors we inspect called ‘Ready Already’ to help reassure providers that they don’t need to do anything differently for inspection. We will ask for a small number of documents before an inspection but recognise that all youth work providers are different and that they may have different approaches and different key plans to support their work. The initial conversation between the Reporting Inspector and the nominee will help us to understand how your organisation works and what helps you plan and evaluate your provision. The list of documents required will be in the virtual inspection room (VIR) but we would typically ask for:
- the provider’s most recent quality development plans and self-assessment reports.
- the numbers of young people involved in provision
details of provision timetables, locations and contact details for the period of the inspection.