Supporting young people living in poverty using the Young Scot National Entitlement Card
Young people living in poverty often don't fulfil their potential at school – this is known as the 'attainment gap'.
The 'Attainment Challenge: National Strategic Partnership #YSAttain' is a partnership between Young Scot, the Scottish Government, several local authorities, Transport Scotland, the Improvement Service and the National Entitlement Card Programme Office.
Together, we are supporting the Scottish Government's Scottish Attainment Challenge and working to raise the attainment of young people living in poverty. We're doing this by helping our partners use the smart-enabled Young Scot National Entitlement Card (Young Scot NEC) in innovative ways to improve young people's health and wellbeing.
Over the past few years, we've supported many different local authorities and community groups. Recently, we've been helping Orkney Islands Council host a Closed Group to deliver Young Scot Rewards to local care experienced young people. At Dumfries & Galloway College, we've been helping them support their care experienced students – providing them with vouchers for online shopping, local cafes, and supermarkets. At the Banff and Buchan Poverty Hub in Aberdeenshire, we've been helping to increase Free School Meal uptake. We've also been developing more local discounts in Fraserburgh that were co-designed with local young people, helping to increase the awareness of the Young Scot NEC. It's also helping to reduce stigma when young people access extra entitlements – as they are accessing them using their Young Scot NECs.
A young person who took part in the programme recently, said: "This programme has helped my self-confidence and I have no idea where I would be without it right now. I have since been able to go back to the activities that I enjoy… I cannot express in words how much this has helped me!"
Find out more
There are many innovative ways that local authorities and community organisations can use the Young Scot NEC to support young people living in poverty. Please look at our website for information and case studies from projects we've supported over the past few years.
Also, please join our #YSAttain Learning Community on KHub. Here you'll connect with both existing and potential partners and can find out more about the learnings and experiences of implementing entitlements for young people, new resources and join networking events.
You can also sign up to join our #YSAttain Online Event on Wednesday 27th October at 10:30am where you'll hear about the next phase of #YSAttain and work to adapt and implement #YSAttain delivery models across Scotland. Click here to register to attend.
You're also welcome to get in touch by email to chat about how we can work together.