Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services (SCVYS) was established in 1982 by the larger traditional voluntary youth services operating in the County, including Scouts, Girlguiding, Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, Boys and Girls Brigades. The network provided a useful way of sharing information and best practice, coming together for training or networking and to lobby local elected members over different issues of interest and concern.

In 2011 SCVYS was commissioned by Staffordshire County Council to deliver support to the youth sector. SCVYS, now a charitable company, steadily matured whilst more than meeting the initial contractual requirements.

SCVYS was a major partner in mitigating the potential negative implications of the closure of the local authority youth service in 2014. This was achieved by increasing the capacity of the voluntary youth sector enabling it to be strong, safe and sustainable.

SCVYS, now commissioned as a Strategic Partner of the County Council, supports with intelligence and data to help evidence statutory duties around sufficient availability of local positive activities and listening to the voice of children, young people and families to improve service provision.

SCVYS is a representative voice for the voluntary sector on a number of strategic boards and provides leadership on partnership priorities such as Early Help and Children, Young People and Families Voice.

Membership of SCVYS has steadily risen from around 15 groups at our inception to our current membership of more than 200 organisations.

More recently, SCVYS has risen to the challenge of being the go-to local organisation in relation to children and young people’s support in new and innovative ways.

• Hosting the Pan-Staffordshire Personal, Health, Social and Economic (PSHE) Education Service funded by Staffordshire’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner. This service aims to support and enhance the quality and consistency of PSHE Education delivery across settings, and has additional outcomes including strengthening connections between formal education settings such as schools and informal settings such as local youth organisations.
• SCVYS facilitated the creation of Staffordshire’s Co-production Promise, and continues to champion and support its use across the wider workforce. The Promise has the potential, when fully embedded, to change the culture of service provision and ultimately aims to make life better for people and families who access support of any kind.
• SCVYS has also led by example in terms of co-production, through a number of youth voice programmes led by young people. One example is securing £1m over 5 years to create and support a youth-led community research network in partnership with the University of Staffordshire and Staffordshire County Council called Know Your Place.