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Young Persons' Strategy 2010-11
This page serves as a position statement for the current service
and defines developments that need to take place to take the
service forward.
Introduction
Medway Libraries provide a comprehensive range of services
for children and young people and for many years it has been at the
forefront of creative service thinking, leading the development of
now established aspects of service provision, such as Bookstart and early years
events and activities.
This plan presents a recent record of continuing to provide a
relevant, interesting and engaging range of services for as many
children and young people as possible and an ambitious agenda in
support of, and aligned with the council’s Children and
Young People’s Plan and the achievement of Every Child
Matters outcomes.
Every Child Matters outcomes:
- Be healthy
- Stay safe
- Enjoy and achieve
- Make a positive contribution
- Achieve economic well-being
Medway Council’s interpretation:
- Feeling well
- Feeling safe and secure
- Enjoying life and learning
- Helping ourselves and helping others
- Gaining the skills for learning and earning
Medway's Community Plan and the Medway Sustainable Community Strategy 2010-26
have been other key reference documents in the preparation of this
plan.
National strategies
Much of our work links in with national indicators as set out in
the outcomes framework for Museums, Libraries Archives (MLA), such
as Safer communities (NI 17), Children and young people – Be
healthy (NI 50, NI72 – 109), Children and young people – Make a
positive contribution (NI 110).
Library membership is already offered to infants in Medway
through the Bookstart bags distributed via the Register Office, but
we aspire to the aims of the modernisation review of public
libraries: a policy statement (March 2010) which includes
recommendations for several aspects of core and local work focused
on children and families, including library membership from birth,
opportunities and activities for young people, and family
activities.
Partnerships
Partnership working has long been a feature of the Children and
Young People’s team. Current partners include Sure Start, Early Years, Children’s
Centres, pre-schools, primary and secondary schools including
private schools, the Events team, the Youth Service, the Register
Office, the Arts Team, Greenspace Services, Urban Spaces, the Museum
Service, Medway Archives and Local Studies Centre
(MALSC). We work with all these organisations to extend our
service to children and young people across Medway to give every
child the best start in life, and to foster a love of reading. This
year we will be reinforcing these partnerships and investigating
new ones, including working with Adult Education to offer family
orientated events.
We will assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing and
potential new partnerships to be sure they tie in with the
objectives of our service
Generic social outcomes
Consultation with communities and partners will be a feature of
our future plans. Last year we held 2 Generic Social Outcomes (GSO)
surveys - with our Baby Bounce and Rhyme (BBR) parents/carers,
partners/stakeholders, and staff; also with schools visited by the
Children’s
Mobile library.
The BBR survey (conducted at Strood library) results showed that
participants viewed this activity in a positive light, with parents
enjoying the social side, and acknowledging the benefits to their
children - "We have been coming for over three years now and has
been invaluable to me and my children. Thank you."
Partners/stakeholders rated social development and language
development as being particularly important benefits of BBR.
Staff results reinforced the positive acknowledgement of the
sessions, with particular regard to "increasing social interaction
among the local community" and improving library services.
The second survey was of six schools visited by the Children’s
Mobile library. It showed satisfaction with the stock, the staff
and an acknowledgement of the contribution of the visits to
children’s literacy development and love of books; "The staff are
extremely helpful and this service is a most valuable resource in
our endeavour to install a love of reading into our pupils. The
boys particularly enjoy borrowing books, which is important, as we
have targeted them as our least interested readers."
There are plans to build on these pilot surveys and to extend
them this year to BBR sessions in other libraries also to survey
parents of children who participate in 2011's Summer Reading
Challenge (SRC). The SRC is now in its 12th year and Medway
Libraries will be encouraging children to take part in this year’s
Space Hop.
A report into last year’s SRC says that participation has been
shown to curb the decline in reading standards over the long summer
break, and all teachers surveyed commented on the value of the
Challenge in developing a wider reading repertoire and increasing
children’s confidence – giving them a more secure view of
themselves as readers as well as greater independence. These are
all crucial factors in developing children’s literacy.
We will be offering this year’s SRC with renewed enthusiasm,
with a target of increasing our finishers rate, and of using young
volunteers in town centre libraries and larger branches.
There is heartening news from the Chartered Institute of Public
Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) (May 2010) showing children’s book
issues nationally are up by 5.2 per cent (2008/09) on the previous
year, continuing a four-year trend of increased borrowing: "The
tanker is turning around" (Reading Agency).
Statistics
Medway:
- There are 66,300 children and young people in Medway, 27 per
cent of the population (2008 mid-year estimates).
- Medway Council has 109 state schools educating 44,100
children.
- 220 children are being educated at home.
- Approximately 11,900 children have special educational
needs.
- Approximately 350 children and young people are looked after by
the council.
- More than 30 languages are spoken in Medway.
- There are 650 young carers in Medway.
Library Service:
- There are 16,721 active young people borrowers (0-18
years).
- This accounts for 34.3 per cent of all borrowers (March
2010).
Staffing
A team of librarians headed by the Strategic Librarian,
Community hub partnerships, and the Senior Librarian, Children and
Young People, focus on implementing the strategy. Community
Librarians (three FTE) divide their work between:
- Early years (EY): They are responsible for working with all
sectors of the early years community (pre-schools and nurseries,
children’s centres, parent and toddler groups, childminders and the
PCT.) They aim to develop partnerships and services that make our
service relevant to and used by this sector.
- Schools and Education: They are responsible for working with
all schools (infant, junior, primary, secondary and special
schools). They also aim to work with the carers of these children
and people who impact on their educational life.
- Out of school activities: They are responsible for providing
events and activities for young people when not at school and
forging links with young people and their carers in non-school
groups (such as scouts, cubs, brownies, rainbows, beavers and
badgers). Their work with the Youth Service is integral to this
post.
Stock acquisition and management
A range of book stock is provided, including board books,
picture books, dual language books, beginner readers, older
fiction, teenage fiction, graphic novels as well as a range of
non-fiction (bought to support curriculum and leisure
subjects).
Books are purchased through the Central Buying Consortium
arrangement, a group of local authority library services that work
together to achieve maximum discounts from library stock suppliers.
Peters Booksellers won the CBC tender for young people’s stock and
are the preferred supplier. In 2010, 11, 50 per cent of our spend
will be through supplier selection, including an element for YP
non-fiction, which we will be implementing later in the year.
Graphic novels are supplied by a local specialist, the American
Comic Shop.
The range of AV purchased for young people includes DVDs, Wii,
DS, Xbox and PS3 games, and spoken word CDs.
We also have a subscription to Clearvision Braille books. We
shall also be applying Smartsm to the Children’s and Young People’s
stock in all our libraries in order to ensure that we have our
stock in the correct libraries to ensure customer satisfaction.
The library service will be offering books in e-format during
the next year and children’s and teen titles will be included in
this. We will also be re-subscribing to YP audio books and large
print titles.
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