Darlington Council’s Youth Service has won an award for its work to train young people and staff to the highest standards.
The Youth Service was awarded the HR Best Practice Award by the Tees Valley Branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), beating competition from More Than and Cleveland Fire Brigade.
The award was presented for the Youth Service’s training and accreditation programme which was drawn up following an Ofsted report in 2005 which highlighted some issues within the Service.
The ultimate aim of the training and accreditation programme is to get young people to undertake a wide range of training courses and possibly become members of the Youth Service staff so they could pass on their expertise.
The programme was aimed to develop more opportunities for young people to become involved in a wide range of accredited courses which they would help design.
Work was also undertaken to ensure staff were qualified, not only to carry out youth work, but to deliver accredited courses.
Since the programme was implemented, the Youth Service has met national targets for accreditation for young people and all staff are now qualified or working towards NVQ Level 3 or above.
Chris McEwan, Darlington Council’s Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, said: “I am delighted the Youth Service has won this recognition for its work in training.
“This programme has helped improve the skills of all those involved in the Youth Service.
“Young people who gain accreditation from a course can have a really positive impact on their local community and so this work by the Youth Service is making a difference to a lot of people.”
The Youth Service was nominated for the award by Lyndsay Radford, Chief Executive of CATC, a training organisation that has been working with the Council for 18 months.