Project summaries
This report examines the adequacy of access to services currently experienced by young adults aged between 16 and 25. It represents an initial piece of research, drawing on a series of interviews with providers of services to young adults and a review of the relevant literature. Its purpose is to highlight areas of concern and to raise awareness of the problems young adults face in accessing both general and specialist services. More specific objectives are:
The focus is on health and welfare services, including housing, counselling, health services, personal support services, advice and information services. These areas have been selected to complement some of the recently published government reports, guidelines and research, which have been largely focused on services related to the employment, training and education of young people. By taking a provider perspective, our report also complements other research focussed on the views of young people themselves and their needs.
The transition from childhood to adulthood is a critical stage in a person’s life. Until recently, however, this group has often been neglected, in terms of both policy and research, compared with either children or adults. The resulting lack of a "clear big picture" is a significant theme in the recent Social Exclusion Unit Report on Young People from Policy Action Team (PAT) 12 which notes that "young people get shunted from agency to agency because responsibilities are unclear…" and that they "can fall through the cracks in agency responsibilities, and services can appear contradictory, complex and inaccessible".
The PAT 12 report is generally focused on teenagers, although it notes the need for strong services to be available at either end of the age range, since some problems have their roots in earlier years and others may have a long lasting impact. This flexibility is in line with a key theme of our report, namely, the importance of truly encompassing the older end of the age spectrum of young people in any analysis – i.e., those in their early twenties as well. We have chosen to look at the age band 16-25 years because it spans the years when most young people leave home, perhaps one of the most significant transition events. At 18 years, around 90% are living with parents; by 25 years, only a quarter are still living with parents. Such independence leads to a greater need to access practical services personally, rather than via their parents, and is often accompanied by a greater need for services per se. The physical move is accompanied by a psychological transition that can also often require external support. This implies that practical and emotional support is very much needed after the teen years as well as during them, and also illustrates why the needs of young adults are much wider than simply employment, education and training.
The access problems derive in part from patterns of resource allocation within statutory service providers, where young adults have often been side-lined as a result of child protection and family support priorities. In addition to being sidelined in relation to other age groups, especially children, a DETR review of how public spending is allocated across geographic areas demonstrated that spending on 16-24 year olds in the most deprived areas is actually 14% less than in average areas. Our brief examination of the legal context surrounding service provision for young adults also reveals the lack of age-specific legislation, which has permitted this situation to develop. Other recent research has highlighted the contradictions that exist across different pieces of legislation and government departments.
A recurring finding of our study is how young adults lose out relative to other age groups, in particular, children. This is reflected, for example, in the general lack of age-specific legislation giving young adults clear entitlement to areas of statutory service provision. One way of beginning to redress this would be for local service providers in both the statutory and voluntary sectors to undertake a needs assessment for young adults up to at least 25 years of age in their area. This could build on the needs assessment for 13-19s which should be carried out under Connexions.
We suggest, however, that the sense amongst service commissioners and providers that young adults are somehow a less-deserving age group is likely to continue so long as legalised discrimination continues at the national level against young adults, in the shape of their lower minimum wage, lower benefit levels and much less favourable entitlement to housing benefit.
While it goes without saying that training and education are essential for young adults, there are needs for other kinds of services that are going unmet. What is also required, therefore, is a range of services offering practical and emotional support, possibly in combination. Whilst the new Connexions service should provide much of this for those aged 13-19, as noted above, leaving home drives demand for many forms of practical assistance, and for most young adults this does not happen until after 19. The need for a wider range of services was identified repeatedly in the interviews with service providers during this study, and is echoed in other recent research reports. These services need to be available to all young adults, not just a small group with extreme needs.
There are practical reasons for this approach. First, a service open to any young adult avoids the stigma that can be attached to very targeted services. There is a greater potential for early intervention, support and preventing an escalation of difficulties if services are seen by young people as something for them, without their feeling they have to fit into a narrowly defined category of need, which they may well not identify with. Finally, this approach helps to cope with the not uncommon situation in which an individual presents with one need but actually has deeper, underlying needs.
Many of the interviewees suggested that young adults’ characteristics can discourage them from accessing services which in principle are available to them. For example, many young people, particularly at the lower end of the age range under consideration, live unsettled and fast-changing lives: so, for example, keeping appointments is not always easy for them. The style of services is therefore critical to their accessibility to this age group and this tends to imply services which have been specifically designed for young adults.
Our research suggests that services which have an open access policy often work well; and that policy makers should place greater importance on ‘one-stop’ services for young people in their early twenties which can deal with a range of common problems on site, while referring young adults on to more specialist services when required.
Whilst some of the best practice found during our research was in the voluntary sector, a prominent theme throughout the interviews was the lack of stable, long-term funding for many of the voluntary sector projects and initiatives designed to help young people. The voluntary sector as it serves young adults up to 25 needs to be supported and nurtured by public policy, and in particular effort will need to be made to ensure that Connexions does not inadvertently undermine voluntary sector provision for 19-25s.
Excellence in some areas cannot make up for the overall patchiness of geographical coverage of voluntary services. Many areas of the country, particularly rural areas, have a very limited range of voluntary services for young adults.
If local level, multi-agency initiatives to provide services for young adults are to be effectively developed, a coherent, cross-departmental funding strategy for both service development and on-going service support, is essential. A first step towards that could be to place a duty on local authorities, health authorities and central government departments to develop a strategic view of the service needs amongst young adults, following the principles identified above.
Finally, we would urge real investment in data on service provision for young adults, including how much is spent on young adults by service providers working across all age ranges. Whilst the data on young adults’ various problems is much improved, detailed national data on the services provided remains scarce. In the absence of such data, it is extremely difficult to match it up against needs data to provide a comprehensive picture of how well or poorly young adults are served by services. This severely hampers the ability to co-ordinate planning.
The statistics presented in this report illustrate both the wide range and the seriousness of some of the problems facing this age group. These include extreme income poverty, mental health difficulties, risks of suicide and self-harm, adverse employment experiences, homelessness and the problems of being a victim of crime.
Many of these problems have been recognised in the SEU’s report on young people. However their policy proposals focus on 13-19 year olds. It is our view that the availability, quality and appropriateness of services for young adults in their early twenties also needs urgent attention.
Our research also adds to the analysis offered by PAT 12 by demonstrating that problems of access to services can exist for this age group as a whole, and are not limited to either areas of deprivation nor to young adults with multiple needs. Furthermore, individuals often have more complex needs than is immediately apparent and it is important that existing services can recognise this and take appropriate action, suggesting that solutions lie with improving existing services and their co-ordination, as well as introducing new services. It is important that future government policy addresses these wider issues, as well as developing new services targeted on the most vulnerable.
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