Is National Citizen Service a good idea?

The National Citizen Service (NCS) is expected to launch in 2011, and according to our latest poll, 56% of you think it’s a good idea.

Conceived of by David Cameron in 2005, the NCS is a summer programme for young people aged sixteen “to come together in common purpose”, participating in both residential outward bound projects and social action tackling problems in their local communities. Cameron originally wanted the programme to be compulsory, but was convinced by youth leaders that that would be “the kiss of death”. So it is to be a voluntary service for all sixteen-year-olds. Its three core aims are to achieve a more cohesive society, a more responsible society, and a more engaged society. It is hoped that these will be achieved by brining together young people from diverse backgrounds and involving in them in shared experiences of social action. Volunteers will work in teams, and will be supervised and supported by mentors. Some of the mentors will themselves be volunteers, and some will be paid. The NCS Alumni Programme will help graduates to find opportunities for further service, and the idea is that many of them will return to be mentors for new NCS volunteers, with the possibility of paid work on the scheme in the future.

The potential benefits of the NCS seem clear: increasing confidence, leadership skills and social participation of young people is one side of it; but wider society also stands to benefit from the work that the volunteers will do.

The scheme is not without its critics, though, who are keen to suggest that it is overly optimistic and perhaps naïve. The main criticism levelled at the NCS is that a “holiday camp” at the age of sixteen is hardly going to combat the effect of years of neglect, educational failure, and so on that some of the currently disengaged youth may have experienced. Another point that has been made is that the fact that the programme is national does not cohere with the government’s emphasis on localism, and that a nationally-run scheme assumes that what is best for one young person is best for all.

The Challenge

The Challenge is one of the pilot schemes on which the NCS is to be based. The programme pilot took place last summer with 158 16-year olds in Southwark and North Hammersmith. The programme involves a Personal Challenge (one week of outdoor activities to facilitate team-building, build self-awareness, personal responsibility and trust); a Team Challenge, in which teams of twelve will volunteer in their local communities, and the Real Challenge, in which the teams work alongside community representatives on a project that will bring the community together.

The Tories commissioned the University of Strathclyde to carry out an evaluation of the pilot scheme, and some of the results of the evaluation recently appeared in the publication Regeneration and Renewal. R&R quoted from the evaluation:

"The level to which participants were willing to take on responsibility within their group appears to have been dependent to some extent on their background, with more middle-class children likely to be proactive in this regard."

The evaluation also found that young people from “rougher areas” were less likely than others to feel, at the end of the programme, that they could make a positive difference in their community. It also found that though young people from different backgrounds did mix with each other during the programme, they may not have continued to do so once the programme had finished.

The director of the Community Sector Coalition, Matthew Scott, told R&R:

"The findings of this report are very worrying. It would appear that the NCS might actually create more barriers for these people and, in doing so, increase social exclusion."

If this is true, then the findings are indeed worrying. But, as Craig Morley, chief executive of the Challenge, pointed out, the evaluation involved only 160 participants over one summer, and to properly evaluate such schemes a three-year study is needed.

I got in touch with Craig Morley to find out more about the Challenge and how he saw the NCS developing. When I asked how easy it was to find young people from diverse backgrounds willing to sign up, he told me that one of the biggest challenges the scheme faced was marketing to young people – trying to appeal to a cross-representative mix required a lot of work, and much of it was done through face-to-face work in schools and youth clubs. 75% of young people approached had never had any experience in formal volunteering programmes, yet the face-to-face work done last year meant that pupils from every school in Southwark and North Hammersmith signed up. This year, the programme is running in areas in London and Birmingham, and so far every school (private and state) in the relevant areas has signed up. This is due in large part to graduates from last year’s programme going to the schools and encouraging other young people to join in.

He went on to say that the programme last year had a 95% retention rate, and that the 5% who did not stay included those who were dismissed from the programme because of unacceptable behaviour.

The young volunteers chose the projects themselves, and were given no restrictions. Typical projects were breaking down intergenerational barriers and improving perception of both young and old people; raising sexual health awareness, and raising environmental awareness. This year, though, although the volunteers can still choose the particular projects themselves, they will have to fall into one of three categories: campaigning, fundraising for charity, or connecting (spending time with local beneficiary groups).

One of my main concerns with regards to such schemes is whether or not the projects initiated by the volunteers continue once the programme is over. I asked Mr Morley if this was the case, and he said that during the third, non-residential, week of the programme, where the young people were working in their communities during the week, the volunteers did continue. During the autumn, however, there was a 10-20% drop out rate. This was usually because of clashes with other things going on in their lives. So the model has now been refined: instead of encouraging the volunteers to meet during the week and in the evenings over a few months, this year’s programme has set meetings for four weekends in September only. The more concentrated model is designed to make it less likely for young people to drop out of the projects they started.

He continued:

“The programme ran through the summer of last year, and there was not much monitoring after December, when the young people graduated. However, 1 in 2 of them have volunteered to come back and help out as volunteers – including getting involved in fundraising for the programme.

"People come back to be mentors of a ‘movement’, rather than just helping out with one-off opportunities. Some of the teams from last year have continued their projects into this year. This year we have twenty or so organisations looking for sixteen-year-olds to volunteer with them. We are expecting each young person to sign-up for a further fifty hours, and if they do they will be given the ‘Challenge with Distinction’ award. This allows them to come to volunteer with us, with the potential for paid work a couple of years down the line.”

When I asked Mr Morley his thoughts on why the young people volunteered, he said that the original attraction for most of them was not so much to help out their local community, but to gain experience for themselves and increase their own prospects. “But”, he added, “the motivation changes by the end of the summer. The programme acts as a catalyst for social action.”

Another concern is that the community really needs the projects being carried out, and that they are projects that make enough impact to give the young people true responsibility. Mr Morley explained that each team is assigned a neighbourhood in their borough, and that before embarking upon a project they must consult with the community about what is needed and wanted. The response from the communities has been very positive, with groups being delighted to take part and involve young volunteers.

The concerns raised by the University of Strathclyde’s evaluation are worrying, and perhaps one of the most difficult goals will be sustaining the cohesion achieved by mixing young people from diverse backgrounds for one summer. But the Challenge pilot does suggest that there is much scope within such programmes for encouraging further community participation.

You can read more about the Challenge here: http://www.the-challenge.org/

They still have a few places left for the scheme this summer, in London and Birmingham, and are inviting sixteen-year-olds to get in touch.