"An outstanding conference!"

"The best conference I've attended in a long while. Exciting, informative & most of all, thought provoking. - Delegate

The 'Plugged In' conference that was held today was a great success. On the Youth Federation’s 60^th Anniversary, over 100 delegates attended the Daresbury Park Hotel in Warrington and were engaged in real discussion about how we can further improve the delivery of youth services in the North West.

Charlotte Hill of UK Youth chaired the conference. She not only did an excellent job of keeping the speakers to time but also added realism by linking the speeches to work that is delivered to young people across the UK.

Chris Hindley, CEO The Youth Federation, followed by outlining the challenges that the third sector and youth support organisations are facing. Placing a clear emphasis on working together to improve delivery and services, his views had a warm welcome and delegates were able to relate to the challenges outlined in his speech.

Dr. David Moore (CBE) entertained the conference with a speech that added not only realism, but was very focused on the issues facing young people. Concentrating on 'the circles of intimacy' he showed how some young people are at a clear disadvantage within society. His analogies with real life situations had the conference laughing, but also thinking about how they could change the way they work with some young people. Many commented on the 'inspirational' way in which he delivered his points and also said how much they enjoyed listening to his own views and experiences. One delegate even ‘tweeted’ about how much she was enjoying his delivery.

Paul Oginsky followed with a speech that was entertaining and clearly showed how young people can be better supported. By outlining his Oginsky Model, the delegates could see just how they could develop support for young people by analysing the nature of the activities they are leading. Using the NCS project as an example of supported social development, Paul showed how we could make young people more confident and also develop their social interaction skills to make them better citizens.

The afternoon was used for developing a North West solution to improving delivery across the region in a number of key areas for youth support. Delegates worked hard and facilitators were able to produce discussion notes that will follow the conference theme of making the delegates think about how we can improve delivery services for young people.

All in all, the day was a true example of what can be achieved when service deliverers come together. With inspirational inputs from the morning, through to quality discussions in the afternoon, the conference outcomes were fully met. Using the outcomes, we can work together to make youth delivery services the very best they can be.

To view the main slides from the conference in powerpoint, click on the file link below.

Alternatively, if you do not have powerpoint installed, simply  click here