The Youth, Community and Playworkers

Education & Welfare Trust

Charity Number 1095005

> About the Trust

The Youth, Community and Play Workers Education & Welfare Trust, established at the end of the year 2000, is a registered Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee.

The purpose of the Trust is to offer high quality training, educational opportunities and support for those working with children, young people and communities.

It has a Board of Trustees, which meets 3 or 4 times each year.

The needs the Trust seeks to address are ably illustrated by research, showing the Employment Tribunals involving Charity employers were almost double that reported in private and public organisations. It is estimated that tribunal cases cost voluntary organisations some £13 million pounds a year. This does not include hidden costs, such as delays to projects and increased sickness and absence caused through staff stress and deterioration in workforce relationships.

To address this, the Trust was set up in December 2000, recognising the need to work with the Voluntary and Community Sector to encourage good employment practice. As a registered charitable trust, it successfully obtained funding, £270,000, from the National Lottery for 3 years in 2002, to set up and manage its Partnership At Work Project (PAW). It was the first project of its kind and was the only independent project exclusively devoted to developing good employment practice through workplace partnerships.

This pioneering project researched and found that the workforce in the voluntary sector was over half a million paid workers, most groups employing less than 10 persons. Small organisations struggled to keep abreast of changes in employment law. 3 million people worked as volunteers. It could cost approximately £4,000 to replace a specialist worker. It cost at least £3,500 to defend an organisation in an employment tribunal.

Five people were employed by the Paw Project, which came to an end in May 2005, when an application for continued funding was unsuccessful. Managing this had been the Trust's main activity, along with the Trevor Hadrell Memorial Fund. The Fund had been set up in memory of Trevor, a rock climber and member of CYWU's National Executive, who tragically died in a climbing accident. The Fund supports students, particularly to attend national conference, with ring-fenced funds from donations.

The major project we are currently working on, in association with specialist consultants, is a 'feasibility study', leading to a 'business plan', to secure major funding from a range of sources for a national training centre, focussing on the development of skills and good employment practice. It could also provide a permanent headquarters for CYWU, probably somewhere in the Midlands.

We are seeking to develop a 'partnership approach', involving the voluntary, public and private sectors, such as Birmingham City Council. Academic institutions, charitable organisations, and donors etc. We are hoping to launch our 'business plan' in the autumn and then seek to secure grants to employ a 'Chief Executive' and later premises. Colleagues will no doubt realise the awesome potential here, but we are taking a step-by-step approach, only too well aware of the scale of the task. Cracking the funding problem won't be easy!

Our current plan of work also includes the 'Community Worker Work Force Survey Project, which arose as a spin-off from the Youth Work JNC Panel, around responsibilities, accountability and pay negotiations. Community Workers, not surprisingly, have asked 'what about us'? Using the outcomes from the Youth Workers negotiations as a yardstick and acknowledging that the community work profession is very diverse ( play workers, personal advisers in Connexions, classroom mentors, community police, community nurses and so on) and the profession de-based by non-professionals undertaking community work professional roles. Furthermore, such an 'employees survey', would be a very important corollary to the existing 'employers survey'.

The Trust seeks to mount this new survey for research purposes among community workers, to produce a similar responsibilities and accountabilities framework for appropriate use by the field to ensure that community workers receive fair treatment and proper remuneration for the important work they undertake. Thus any interested colleagues are invited to sign up for this confidential survey. If further information is required please contact John Mayhew by e-mail:: m4yh3w@hotmail.com

Please distribute to your colleagues and persuade them to complete the Survey and return to John Mayhew: 6 Kelston Gardens, Kelston Road, WORLE, North Somerset, BS22 7FP. It would be helpful if completed Surveys are forwarded as soon as possible..