By Jo Birch-Phaure | Senior Communications & New Business Officer
The Youth Achievement Awards (YAA) encourage young people to take responsibility in selecting, planning and leading group activities.
They were established in 1997 and are an activity based approach to peer education. They support the development of a wide range of life skills by enabling young people to take a progressive level of responsibility in order to move up the awards scales.
The YAA has become established in a range of youth organisations, schools and educational projects and we have now introduced Youth Challenges and Junior Achievement Awards for different age groups. All of these awards are accredited by ASDAN.
UK Youth's Youth Achievement Award Bursary last year supported nearly 20 young people to obtain a Youth Achievement Award ranging from the Bronze right up to the Platinum levels.
The Youth Challenges are internally certificated and are aimed at young people aged 11 to 14, although they may be appropriate for people older, or even slightly younger. The Bronze to Gold Youth Achievement Awards are aimed at young people who are 14 plus, with the Platinum young leaders award being appropriate for young people of 16 plus.
By empowering young people to choose the activities that they will complete in order to achieve their Awards they develop a sense of ownership of their activities and the learning involved. This in itself is highly motivating, but is further enhanced by the sense of achievement gained when young people are able to receive an accredited certificate that recognises their individual contribution to the activities in which they are involved. The Youth Challenge and Youth Achievement Awards can help youth services achieve their ‘Resourcing Excellent Youth Services’ (REYS) accreditation targets in relation to recorded and accredited outcomes for young people.
In using the peer group to assess and support the young people through the Awards, young people develop a range of social skills that includes negotiation, problem solving, communication, working with others etc. Some of these skills can be also accredited through Wider Key Skills programmes (known as the Core Skills in Scotland). In addition, the reviewing and recording procedures have been designed to promote the development of study skills through planning, reviewing, recording and creating a personal portfolio. In addition to the Award booklets, each young person must submit a portfolio of evidence.
Young people are already benefitting from this year' bursary.
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