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Consultation on draft Guidance: A safer life online for women and girls – Ofcom

Ofcom are consulting on draft guidance, which sets out nine areas where technology firms should do more to improve women and girls’ online safety by taking responsibility, designing their services to prevent harm and supporting their users.

The Online Safety Act 2023 makes platforms – including social media, gaming services, dating apps, discussion forums and search services – legally responsible for protecting people in the UK from illegal content and content harmful to children, including harms that disproportionately affect women and girls.

Ofcom has already published final Codes and risk assessment guidance on how we expect platforms to tackle illegal content, and they’ll shortly publish the final Codes and guidance on the protection of children. Once these duties come into force, Ofcom’s role will be to hold tech companies to account, using the full force of their enforcement powers where necessary.

But Ofcom is also required to produce guidance setting out how providers can take action against harmful content and activity that disproportionately affects women and girls, in recognition of the unique risks they face.

The draft Guidance identifies a total of nine areas where technology firms should do more to improve women and girls’ online safety by taking responsibility, designing their services to prevent harm and supporting their users.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/a-safer-life-online-for-women-and-girls/

The Rt Hon Alun Michael OBE JP OStJ PC FRSA has agreed to take on the role of CWVYS President with immediate effect.

Alun has a long career of public service, he served as Deputy Home Secretary and in 1997 he introduced Community Safety Partnerships, Youth Offending Teams and the Youth Justice Board.
He was Secretary of State for Wales from 1998 to 1999 and then as the first First Secretary of Wales (later known as First Minister) and Leader of Welsh Labour from 1999 to 2000.
Most recently he served as South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner from 2012 to 2024.

Throughout his career he has been an advocate for children and young people, and is on record as a longtime supporter of votes for 16 year-olds, and even at one time suggesting that 14 year-olds should vote and be introduced to the democratic system while still supported in education to do so.

Since retiring from public office Alun has become an Ambassador for Action for Children and is a passionate supporter of their work to tackle child criminal exploitation.

We welcome the knowledge and dedication that Alun will bring to his role as our new President, croeso cynnes i ti Alun!

A week on from the Youth Work Conference and we’d like your feedback!

Those of you who were able to attend last Thurasday’s National Youth Work Conference in Cardiff, while it’s still fresh-ish in your minds, would you mind taking a few minutes to share your thoughts and impressions?

Please follow this link tinyurl.com/adbrth to a short survey to tell the team what worked, what didn’t so much, and everything in between!

Thank you to everyone who came!

Taith is an international learning exchange programme established to create life-changing opportunities for people in Wales to learn, study and volunteer all over the world.

They embed an international approach into every level of our education system. Taith is for people in every part of Wales, and in every type of education setting. The sectors eligible for funding are:

• Schools
• Youth
• Adult Education
• Further Education and Vocational Education and Training
• Higher Education (covering Education and Research)

CWVYS members WCIA have been given funding from the Taith programme to support new applicants, and those who have previously been unsuccessful, to apply for Taith Pathway 1 funding for an international project.

If you would like to know more, please contact Michi via michaelarohmann@wcia.org.uk

You can find out more about Pathway 1 here; https://www.taith.wales/funding-page/pathway-1/support/

Pathway 1 is open for applications until the 27th of March 2025. 

Q&A support session for Pathway 1 2025
On the 5 March at 12.00 – 13.00 Taith will be hosting a webinar which will be a great opportunity for you to bring forward any questions you have to the Taith team about Pathway 1 projects Register to attend *HERE*

 

This year Taith are launching a small grants scheme that promises a simpler process and is aimed at those who have not applied before;
https://www.taith.wales/news/taith-is-launching-a-small-grants-scheme/

Organisations can apply for up to £60,000 within this new scheme. For those wishing to apply for more than £60,000 (up to the maximum available per sector) they can do so via the Large Grant scheme.

 Organisations can apply for only one option in each funding call.  

The Small Grants scheme has a shorter and simpler application form.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact enquiries@taith.wales or michaelarohmann@wcia.org.uk

EYST is recruiting a BME CYP Sessional Youth Support Worker (Cardiff) Male*

https://eystwales.bamboohr.com/careers/71?source=aWQ9MTU=

For an informal chat about this role please contact Fateha@eyst.org.uk
Deadline for applications is Thursday 27th Feb at 23.59 2025

EYST is looking to appoint a Youth and Family Support Worker (Swansea)

https://eystwales.bamboohr.com/careers/73?source=aWQ9MTU=

For an informal chat about this role please contact Helal@eyst.org.uk
Deadline for Applications is Thursday 6th March at 23.59

To apply for any of these roles please complete the relevant online application form.
If you are having any issues with the online application please contact recruitment@eyst.org.uk

Scouts Cymru have two vacancies at the moment, one for a Marketing and Communications Manager and one for a Policy and Engagement Officer, you can find the details here;

https://scoutscymru.org.uk/job-vacancies/
Please submit your CV and a covering letter to admin@scoutscymru.org.uk
The deadline for submission of applications will is Midday on the 12^th of March 2025

 

Stephens and George Centenary Charitable trust are looking to recruit a Community Fundraiser.

The closing date to apply is the 12^th of March.

 

 

Mae’r Urdd am penodi Staff Haf / Tymhorol (35 awr yr wythnos)

https://www.urdd.cymru/cy/swyddi/staff-haf-tymhorol/

Staff Haf:  Ebrill 14eg hyd at Awst 31ain 2025 / Tymhorol:  Ebrill 18fed hyd at Tachwedd 30ain 2025
Lleoliad:  Gwersyll yr Urdd, Llangrannog Dyddiad Cau: 10fed o Fawrth

Mae’r Urdd yn edrych am 4 Swyddog Gweithgareddau;

https://www.urdd.cymru/cy/swyddi/swyddog-gweithgareddau-x4/
Lleoliad:  Gwersyll yr Urdd, Llangrannog Dyddiad Cau: 10fed o Fawrth

I weld holl Swyddi arall gyda’r Urdd sydd yn agor i ceisiadau ar hyn o fryd, ewch i https://www.urdd.cymru/cy/swyddi/

 

 

WCIA are looking to hire a senior fundraising manager;

Vacancies – Welsh Centre for International Affairs
The deadline to apply is the 9th of March.

CWVYS members ASH Wales have created a number of engaging resources to help you promote this year’s No Smoking Day, which takes place on the 12^th of March.

The theme is Every Minute Counts, which links to research suggesting smoking just one cigarette can take 20 minutes off a life. With this in mind they are hoping to encourage as many groups as possible to run 20 minute sessions with young people around the risks of smoking.

Here is a direct link to the toolkit they have created for Youth Groups; Youth Club Toolkit No Smoking Day 2025

If any of our members run a session, ASH Wales would love to see photos and hear how it goes! You can let them know at communications@ashwales.org.uk

They are also happy to help highlight your activities through their media channels and explore opportunities for local press coverage.

You can find more information on their website here; No Smoking Day Resources – Action on Smoking and Health

Here is another peek at some of the social media graphics they’ve made, which are available to download from the ASH Website;

We would like to share some news from our members Valleys Kids;

Yes, it’s true. This time Margaret and Richard really have retired.

It’s a significant moment for Valleys Kids: Margaret and Richard have decided it’s time for them to retire. On January 14^th, Margaret has been working for exactly seventy years; she feels that this is a good milestone to mark the end of her remarkable career. By contrast, Richard appears to have made up his mind during a recent event when people came together to share memories of their time in Valleys Kids as beneficiaries and volunteers. He saw that those he best remembered as children and young people were now pensioners and grandparents! And so, both are now stepping away from the final roles they performed for us, as Ambassadors for Valleys Kids and as Co-ordinators within our Valleys Voices Programme.

Their journey here began with a shared vision for the role that can be played in society by grass roots community development. Starting with the Penygraig Basement Project in 1977, aimed at helping young people at risk of getting into serious trouble, they have built our charity from the ground up.  Forever pioneers, they steered us into the provision of excellent services in areas such as play, youth work, the arts, community well-being, and therapeutic approaches – touching thousands of lives.

Margaret and Richard were instrumental in the development and expansion of Valleys Kids, helping to shape the values and programmes that would make it relevant across a range of localities. They dedicated their careers and their lives to fostering a unique approach to supporting and empowering individuals, families, and communities through understanding and responding to local needs. It involved providing “professional friendship” for all and giving a central role to volunteers.  Working in partnership locally and nationally to deliver opportunities of many kinds, they helped to create strong and abiding links with other organisations such as the local council, the Welsh Government, the Millennium Centre, the Tate, and the Royal Academy. Individuals ranging from Lord Hunt to Archbishop Desmond Tutu bought into this vision and supported Valleys Kids.

We are incredibly grateful to Margaret and Richard for their leadership, wisdom, and the countless hours they have devoted to making Valleys Kids what it is today. With gratitude and respect, we all acknowledge the unique contribution they have made over nearly five decades – a period characterised by dedicated service and unwavering commitment to our mission. Their legacy is one of compassion, resilience, and profound impact in fostering well-being, generating opportunities and bringing new life to some of the Rhondda’s most iconic buildings.

Phil Evans, the Chair of Valleys Kids Board of Trustees said: “Please join me in expressing our heartfelt thanks to Richard and Margaret. We wish them fulfilment and happiness in a most well-deserved retirement. For us, they represent all that is exceptional about the third sector, especially its resilience in the face of funding challenges and the way in which it unites people of all backgrounds behind great causes which benefit those who face trials and adversity. As our organisation continues to adapt to a changing world, one where the need for engagement with communities is as acute as ever, we will strive to ensure that their legacy and example will remain at the heart of Valleys Kids and its work.”

We at CWVYS wish them both well in this next chapter, and say a huge thank you for all they have given to youth work in Wales over their many dedicated years in the sector.

Here is a list of successful applicants to the SVYWO grant scheme;

National organisations:

Boys and Girls Clubs of Wales
DofE
NYAS Cymru
ProMo Cymru
ScoutsCymru
St John Ambulance Cymru
Urdd Gobaith Cymru
WCIA (Welsh Centre for International Affairs)
Youth Cymru

Specialist organisations:

Canolfan Maerdy
YMCA Cardiff
Dr M’z
EYST Wales
STAND North Wales CIC
Swansea MAD
YMCA Swansea
West Rhyl Young People’s Project (previously Rhyl Youth)

Make sure you have subscribed to the youth work newsletter to receive details of any similar funding opportunities in the future.

 

A review of funding for youth work in Wales – Lynne Neagle, Cabinet Secretary for Education

Youth work is a vital part of the education family in Wales. Youth work can help young people to build relationships with peers and trusted adults, to gain confidence, participate in social activities and provide the support they need to develop their voice, influence and place in society. Youth work is delivered by both local authorities and a wide range of voluntary organisations, and provision is extremely varied depending on the needs of young people from all backgrounds.

Of course, these services need resources to be able to deliver for young people, both in terms of staffing and funding. One of the recommendations of the Interim Youth Work Board was to carry out a review of the funding available to the youth work sector. This work was undertaken in collaboration with three higher education institutions across Wales – Wrexham University, University of Wales Trinity St David and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

The work has been conducted in three phases. Phases one and two sought to establish what funding was available to the sector, how that funding is spent and how decisions about funding are made. The report from phase 2 provides us with rich information and evidence of the complex nature of funding for youth work across Wales.

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to engage with this work, including the Youth Work Funding Review Steering Group, stakeholders from a wide variety of organisations as well as young people.

Phase 3 of this review had intended to undertake a cost benefit analysis to help demonstrate the impact of youth work. Unfortunately, due to lack of up-to-date and robust evidence from a Wales-specific perspective, it has not been possible to deliver this phase of the review in the form originally envisaged. Instead, an update on the work, providing details of the challenges faced, areas where further research could help to address some of those evidence gaps, and highlighting some of the valuable qualitative information we received from the sector and young people in particular, is planned for publication in the weeks ahead.

It remains the case that phases one and two of the review provide useful and far-reaching recommendations which I am eager to explore and support.

I have set out my response to these recommendations on the Welsh Governemt website here; https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-review-funding-youth-work-wales

CWVYS is very sorry to learn of the sad news concerning the passing of Alan Higgins OBE OStJ in November 2024.

Alan was, among many other things, a CWVYS Vice-President for several years and spoke passionately at CWVYS’s 70th anniversary celebrations at the Senedd in 2017. We will cherish our working with him over the years, his commitment to improving the lives of young people in our communities was admirable.

We would like to share the words of our Vice President Prof Howard Williamson CVO CBE FRSA FHEA as he remembers Alan;

Alan Higgins Remembered                                                                                              

For many who knew him, they will remember a middle-aged man in a grey suit, with a tight mop of grey hair. A man who was always both affable and slightly aloof, driving a posh car and occasionally wielding his red pen in his left hand with the authority of a traditional school teacher.

I knew him in that way, too, but much more besides. Alan Higgins OBE (Other Buggers’ Efforts, he used to quip), OSt.J (which often required explanation – Order of St. John – though he didn’t use it much), had a dry sense of humour, a genuine interest in the views, work and contribution of others, and an absolute commitment to the recognition and quality development of youth work, long before that became almost a broken record mantra throughout Europe.

I first met Alan in the late 1970s. Not long afterwards he was crafting and drafting the Welsh equivalent of the Thompson Report (Experience and Participation), which he discussed at length with me. Alan, the HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate, later Estyn) for the youth service in Wales, wrote HMI Education Survey 13, published in 1984. By that time, he had also supported my appointment, through something called the DES Experimental Project Scheme, to evaluate the Ely Youth and Community Project. I had lived in Ely during the 1970s and returned there for that job. The publication from that project, Strategies for Intervention, is sometimes considered to be the precursor to the landmark Welsh Government youth policy Extending Entitlement. Alan’s hand (or red pen) was evidently behind the latter.

Years later, when I myself had acquired some level of recognition through youth work, the annual Christmas card from Alan always had a lengthy handwritten note singing my praises. I think he saw me as something of his protégé. He had tested me, perhaps been checking me out, when he was preparing Survey 13 and, by 1985 (International Youth Year) was recommending me to chair a new HIV/substance prevention youth participation project, Youthlink Wales. A teenage Sharon Lovell was, alongside Alan, one of the people on the management committee!

I suspect – I don’t know for sure – that Alan also recommended me to chair the Wales Youth Work Partnership later in the 1980s and then to become the Vice-Chair of the Wales Youth Agency in 1992, which I served throughout its existence. And Alan was always there, either independently or in his HMI role. Indeed, regardless of his formal position in any group or event, he was always seen to be the HMI, producing though not demanding deference and distance, one remove from the cut and thrust of youth work policy and practice in Wales, but always both overseeing and watching over what was going on. He was involved in so many ways. CWVYS will remember him as a long-standing Vice-President.

Alan was quite worried about retirement. I told him that, yes, he would lose his status but not the respect with which he was held in the field. He continued to turn up to events – in an elder statesman role. I would go to see him and chew the cud, having lunch at The Captain’s Wife in Sully, when he was always keen to catch up with youth work developments in Wales. He moved proudly into his 80s, still involved in community events in Penarth. Then he lost his beloved wife Margaret and he had a stroke. My last attempt at a conversation with him was when he himself could hardly speak. But he tried all the same and his courtesy and curiosity still shone through. He passed away on November 14^th last year. That is also my son’s birthday and, for that reason, I will certainly remember Alan forever. I am deeply indebted to him for the support and motivation he gave to me and such a tribute no doubt resonates with many others who knew him, too.

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a weekly grant of £40, designed to support 16 to 18-year-olds from eligible households with further education costs, such as transport or meals. EMA was ended in England in 2011, and is retained at a lower rate of £30 in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Currently over 16,000 students receive EMA but starting from the new academic year in September an estimated 3,500 more learners will benefit from the uplift.

The threshold for households with one dependent child is currently £20,817 and this will increase to £23,400, meaning families with a household income of £23,400 or less will be eligible to receive EMA.

The threshold for households with two or more dependents is currently £23,077 and this will increase to £25,974, meaning families with a household income of £25,974 or less will be eligible to receive EMA.

Minister Further and Higher Education, Vikki Howells, said:

 “Wales already delivers the most generous Education Maintenance Allowance in the UK, helping post-16 learners to continue studying academic or vocational courses, and this change means we will now be supporting thousands more learners.

We are very proud of our record in maintaining and increasing the Education Maintenance Allowance. We are clear that our Draft Budget is a budget for a brighter future and the uplift to EMA eligibility is one of the ways we are delivering this. The announcement means thousands more learners will now benefit from further financial support to continue or start their further education journey.