Supporting young people living in poverty using the Young Scot NEC
Young people living our most deprived communities often don’t fulfil their potential at school – this is known as the 'attainment gap'.
That’s why we launched the ‘Attainment Challenge: National Strategic Partnership’ #YSAttain in 2018, alongside several Local Authorities, Transport Scotland, the Improvement Service and the National Entitlement Card Programme Office. The partnership supports the Scottish Government’s Scottish Attainment Challenge.
“When we were ever short on food in the house it was comforting to know there was a place we could go to get food without having to worry about it. ”
Since then, we’ve been supporting partners to use the smart-enabled Young Scot National Entitlement Card (Young Scot NEC) in innovative ways to improve the health and wellbeing of young people facing barriers to their attainment.
In the latest phase of #YSAttain, we’ve been supporting Dundee, Falkirk and North Lanarkshire councils to support local young people. Over 850 young people have been taking part in the programme – all from a variety of backgrounds. The young people include those who receive free school meals and/or clothing grants, care experienced young people, young carers, young parents, and those living in poverty.
Young people in Dundee received free bus travel saving over £6,000.
Young people in Falkirk took over 2,600 free bus journeys saving £3,150.
In Dundee and North Lanarkshire, young people accessed nearly 300 meals for free in their community.
Young people in North Lanarkshire took part in 227 activities during the school holidays at local leisure centres.
During lockdown, many of the #YSAttain entitlements couldn’t be accessed. In response, our partners quickly began to offer digital entitlements to young people via ‘Closed Groups’ on our young.scot website. These entitlements included supermarket e-vouchers, entertainment subscriptions and sanitary products.
Join #YSAttain
We are now moving into the next phase to support Local Authorities and community organiastions to adapt and implement #YSAttain delivery models across Scotland. If you’re interested in getting involved, come along to our online information session on Thursday 29th October at 11:00 to find out more. Click here to register to attend.
Also, please get in touch by email for a chat about how we can work together.
“Every young person in Scotland deserves the equal opportunity to reach their full potential. It’s incredible to see this project change the lives of young people. The Young Scot NEC allows us to partner with Local Authorities and young people themselves to provide additional services to support their wellbeing and attainment. ”