Personal Adviser Service Young People & Parent Carer Satisfaction Survey 2009

In October 2009 Y-gen carried out a survey of all the young people and parents / carers on its client database.  Y-gen provides a support service to young people in Barnet who have a statement of special educational needs.  The charity had just completed its first academic year of support and wanted to find out what young people and their parents / carers thought of the service.   Y-gen intends to use these findings to improve the service during the 2009-10 academic year.

Y-gen has a team of 5 Personal Advisers working in Barnet.  They support a client list of 876 young people.  Each PA has a caseload of about 175 young people.  Due to the high numbers involved it is very difficult to guarantee a named PA to each young person, so the PAs work as a team, sharing duties where necessary.

PAs are allocated by name to each maintained secondary school in Barnet including special schools plus Barnet College.  Each school or college has a named lead PA and a support PA who cover the facility together.  Where a young person has complex needs, a named PA will provide support. 

Not all young people will have a named PA but they should all be aware of the service.  The survey was sent out together with a newsletter to ensure that young people on the client list and their parents / carers know about the service Y-gen provides.

Highlights & Lowlights

For young people the strongest positive ratings were found under Personal Adviser Communication and Interview Skills.  82% of young people agreed that "my PA treats me with respect," 78% that "my PA listens to what I have to say" and 74% that "my PA is approachable."  Positive ratings were also received for being attentive, understanding support needs, trust and taking communication needs into account. 

For parents / carers the strongest positive ratings were also found under Personal Adviser Communication and Interview Skills.  79% of parents / carers agreed that "the PA listens to what I have to say," 75% that "the PA is approachable and I feel that I can talk to him/her" and 64% that "the PA made every effort to understand my son or daughter's support needs."

The issue of confidentiality evoked the lowest positive response in the young people's (46%) and parents / carers (29%) responses on Personal Adviser Communication and Interview Skills. 

On quality of service, the young people's highest ratings were 67% for "I can talk to my PA about the things that matter to me" and 58% for "my PA helps me to plan for the future" and "my PA answered all of my questions." 

On quality of service, the parents / carers highest ratings were 56% for "the PA was knowledgeable" and 52% for "I can contact the PA easily." 

On quality of service, the young people's lowest ratings were 29% for "if my PA could not answer my questions, they referred me to another agency that could," 36% for "I feel that I now know more about college courses and/or training" and 42% for "I can contact my PA easily." 

On quality of service, the parents / carers lowest ratings were 28% for "the PA encouraged my son/daughter to do things for themselves" and 36% for both "if the PA could not answer my question, they referred me to another agency that could" and "I feel that I now know more about college courses and/or training, careers and jobs, future choices for my son/daughter." 

In overall terms, 78% of young people rated the PA service as okay to very good whereas 22% rated it as poor to very poor.  Similarly, 75% of parents / carers rated the PA service as okay to very good whereas 25% rated it as poor to very poor.

Recommendations

1. Make it easier for clients to contact a PA by circulating more information with contact details, putting a Y-gen PA photo sheet on school / college notice boards and provide regular newsletters and other materials. 
2. Extend service coverage in 2009-10 to ensure that the PA team make contact with more young people in the client group, follow up on existing clients, meet all potential leavers in the autumn term and develop trusting relationships with more young people.
3. Establish regular drop-in sessions at community venues to enable more young people who are not at school to receive support.
4. Produce explanatory leaflets about confidentiality for young people and parents/carers, and ensure that PAs discuss confidentiality with every young person they work with. 
5. Ensure that PAs challenge and stimulate young people to do more things for themselves with appropriate support if necessary and clarify the young person's role in delivering their own action plan and moving forward. 
6. Provide more accessible information to young people on the range of services and opportunities that are available to them - develop a general annual review information pack and a tailor made information pack for individual young people.
7. Further develop information held and PA knowledge of the provision available to support young people in other agencies and how the different referral processes work. 
8. Develop new ways of informing parents/carers more directly of options and choices.

Download the full report here.