Haringey Connexions Drop In Service wins a Youth Mark award for high quality services for local young people

Haringey Connexions Drop In Service has achieved a Silver Youth Mark award for its work with local young people.

Haringey Connexions Drop In Service provides information, advice and guidance for 13 - 19 year olds and up to 25 with learning difficulties and disabilities living in Haringey. 

The young assessors were impressed by the high quality service provided to young people. They interviewed 25 young people and found that they always had extremely positive comments to make about the staff, in particular their Personal Adviser (PA). Young people interviewed said that they had received a lot of useful help from their PA showing that the staff go that extra mile to make the lives of the young people they work with more pleasant. 

The service was faultless in terms of diversity and representation. Connexions staff are from a wide range of backgrounds and are representative of the different cultures in the area.  Many of the Connexions staff were bilingual which Assessors thought was an excellent benefit as young people with language barriers would have someone they could confide in and relate to with ease.

Young people who use Haringey Connexions Drop In Service said that they were impressed with the many different organisations and services they had links with and that their PA's were able to refer them to specialist agencies for expert advice including pregnancy advice centres and housing associations.  The excellent thing the Assessors found was how Connexions follow up referrals to other services to make sure that everything was going ok and the young person is happy with the help they are receiving.

It was clear that Haringey Connexions Drop In Service is planned around the needs of young people.  Assessors were amazed at the efforts made to ensure that young people's needs were met around service planning by considering the academic year and through evaluation forms and youth forums.  

The Assessors recommended that Connexions could promote its excellent work more widely through annual celebrations for both staff and young people.

Hilda Djaba, Operations Manager, Targeted Service was delighted to have achieved a Silver award and thanked all the Assessors, young people and staff who worked very well together throughout the assessment process.

Louise Jones, Head of IYSS said of the assessment process:

"I am amazed at the thoroughness and detail contained in the report. Our thanks go to the four assessors for their work.  It will prove very useful in helping us to develop further our drop-in centre service for young people in Haringey.  The Youth Mark award has particular meaning to Connexions as the whole assessment process is undertaken by young people."

Any organisation working with young people can participate in a Youth Mark assessment.  For further details of how your organisation could benefit from Youth Mark contact Jenny Walton on jenny.walton@y-gen.co.uk  or 0208 347 2380.