CSV's `Citizens' Service'
In the field of National Youth Service in the UK, CSV (Community Service Volunteers) has been at the forefront of developments, piloting a Citizens' Service for young people in England and Wales (young people volunteering for a sustained period of time in their local community), and, through the experience of this initiative and consultation with young people, helping to create a blueprint for the British Government's Millennium Volunteers scheme (launched in summer 1998).
The maintenance of interest in developing a citizens' service in the UK was largely due to Alec Dickson, a visionary and innovator in the field of national service, who founded the UK's Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) programme, helped set up the Peace Corps in the USA, and, in 1962, founded CSV in the UK - enabling young people to volunteer in their own country.
Alec Dickson's next major idea, `Citizens' Service', needed the political will and the right infrastructure, but the 1960s proved to be an impasse era, with low unemployment and no perceived demand by young people for an alternative service opportunity. CSV kept the idea of citizens' service alive during the intervening years. Then in the early part of the current decade the economic and social climate provided an opportunity for a renewed attempt to launch citizens' service - youth unemployment had risen to unacceptable levels, youth crime was on the increase, and economic policies were impacting on young people, by for example, allowing less opportunities for first/entry-level jobs.
From 1993, CSV took its citizens' service campaign forward in a number of ways: parliamentary hearings involving all political parties; independent research into the design and cost of a citizens' service; an opinion poll (64% of Britain's 16-24 year olds thought that the Government should introduce a voluntary citizens' service scheme); seminars, conferences and discussions with employers, youth workers, trade unions, police, social services and educational authorities around the UK; an advisory group to examine principles and establish best practice in setting up a citizens' service scheme; and work with political parties to get them to see the value of citizens' service (the election manifestos of the Labour Party and Liberal Democrat Party subsequently included a commitment to establish citizens' service).
David Blunkett MP, a CSV trustee and now Secretary of State for Education & Employment, launched three Citizens' Service pilot projects in January 1996: Action Southwark, Action Sunderland, and Action Cardiff, and in September 1997, Action Cyfle. Many delegates to this Conference paid a three-day visit to these projects immediately prior to the Conference and witnessed how they cover a wide variety of communities and work to meet their diverse needs:
- Southwark: a typical inner city London Borough with a diverse population; affluent areas alongside some of the poorest accommodation in London; and high unemployment. Action Southwark has developed a specialism in placing volunteers in education, with one-third of volunteers in schools in the Borough.
- Sunderland: a city in the north east of England; suffers from high youth unemployment; car industry did not replace all of the jobs lost in the decline of shipbuilding and mining. Action Sunderland has a strong environmental team.
- Cardiff: the capital city of Wales; service industry provides most employment. Action Cardiff volunteers work on a range of educational and environmental projects; many volunteering services are also provided in a bilingual context.
- Cyfle: the first project in a rural area: spans three local authorities in south-east Wales; the area is dependent on inward investment and EU funding following the collapse of its coal-mining and steel industries. Action Cyfle volunteers do a range of work, including a community arts project (in a deprived and run down area with high levels of welfare dependency), an environmental project in a national park, and support for local community projects.
During 1997 CSV was particularly active in the field of promoting citizens' service: producing a paper `Developing a blue-print for Citizens' Service - a nation-wide volunteering scheme for young people in the UK' (outlining key lessons from the pilot projects, and general management principles and recommendations for the organisation of a national Citizens' Service scheme); publishing the report of an independent evaluation by Price Waterhouse of its first three pilot projects (details of this evaluation are included on pages 31 to 33 here); convening and reporting on focus groups of young people on citizens' service; and holding a consultation day for policy-makers/managers in local authorities, business, and voluntary organisations to share ideas and discuss options which would be available through the Government's new Millennium Volunteers programme.
In early 1998, CSV responded to the Government's consultation on Millennium Volunteers, welcoming its plans and lending advice based on our detailed consultations and reports, and our experience of the Citizens' Service pilot projects.
Our Citizens' Service pilot projects continue to clearly demonstrate that a nation-wide volunteering programme open to all young people has enormous benefits in building citizenship values and helping people in need. Channelling the energy of young people to effect real change is an exciting challenge to governments world-wide. `Millennium Volunteers' is the first step in the British Government's endeavour to meet the challenge of citizens' service. We now have 12 projects in the Millennium Volunteers scheme, including one in partnership with a hospital and another with a police force. We will also continue to monitor the progress of this new scheme and will feed back to Government - on both the successes and the improvement opportunities.
Millennium Volunteers
The convergence of a new Government committed to citizens' service, the availability of £15million from the tax levied on the excess profits of privatised industries, and the vision of the Secretary of State, David Blunkett, at this time offers us the chance to re-shape the role of young people and their communities. For too long our greatest resource has been regarded as a national problem: - uninvolved, unproductive, and sometimes a positive nuisance. All this at a time when reading levels in our schools are falling, crime is rising, frail elderly are neglected under a cloak of "community care", and large numbers of 12 year olds care single handed for a disabled parent.
The Government commitment to Millennium Volunteers offers the chance to transform the future of British young people for generations - generating their chance to change the world by raising reading levels, organising after school clubs, diverting younger people from crime and protecting their environments. Research shows that one volunteer hour per week can raise reading levels a year in a term, 3 years in 3 terms. So we have within our grasp the prospect of each Millennium Volunteer enabling 600 pupils to progress three years, in 12 months. And involving students in schools attracts many to teaching who would never otherwise have thought of it - a double benefit.
Moreover, consultation with potential involvers - social service departments, schools, hospitals and general practitioners - indicates a much greater demand for volunteers able to give serious commitments of time then those offering shorter periods. The main reason is that induction, orientation and matching demand the same amount of precious staff time whether long or short. The development of catalyst volunteers would tackle the problem by shifting much of the responsibility to "animateurs". It must also be recognised that it costs almost as much to recruit, interview, match and support a volunteer who gives 3 hours a week as someone who will serve full time for up to a year. This does not mean, however, that those who are only able to offer half a day would be excluded - they can contribute as part of teams based in schools, hospitals, national parks or community projects.
What is needed is visionary leadership and clear identity to ensure young people will want to take part (being in the fray, not on the fringe), because the tasks are so clearly important: in classrooms, preventing crime through after-school clubs and holiday ventures, caring for housebound and homeless people, tackling dereliction and planting trees. It needs to be a consistent, coherent, professionally run two-year campaign.
The impact needs to be measured and communicated, for example: how far has reading improved?, how far has crime fallen? The young people need to be featured and celebrated - with awards, certificates and if necessary, advertising.
All the research and focus groups show that young people want to be part of a national initiative. Of course, it must be locally organised, but within a national framework tackling national priorities. A splatter gun approach with disparate unconnected initiatives will neither engage the young nor survive the century. As one volunteer said recently, "When it's important it will be on TV".
The £15million secured so far should be invested to ensure maximum impact and value for money - no grand offices or huge organisational reserves.
Never before has there been the vision and the funds to make such a quantum leap. History will not forgive us if we squander the chance. Nor will the opportunity come again in our lifetime. We need to convince the general public and those who represent them that the investment was wise and produced a good return. Without their support the programme will join so many other government schemes that have come and gone.
Millennium Volunteers - Setting the Framework
The Framework for the new Millennium Volunteers programme was launched by the Government at a national conference in June 1998, shortly after the 4th Global Conference. The Framework is a statement of the Government's policy and sets out the overall vision and the guiding principles. A summary is provided here:
Vision
The Millennium Volunteers programme aims to promote and recognise a sustained commitment by young people aged between 16 and 25 to voluntary activity which makes a clear impact in the community. It is intended that this should be a permanent programme. Its hallmark will be:
- committed and responsible young people contributing to their community through active citizenship;
- high quality of voluntary opportunities in host organisations; and
- an expectation of quality in the services provided to local communities by young volunteers.
The programme must benefit young people, the organisations with which they volunteer, and the wider community.
The Distinctive Principles of Millennium Volunteers
Millennium Volunteers must be distinctive. The Government does not in any way intend that Millennium Volunteers should devalue existing activity. It will build on existing experience and expertise and set a standard for high quality opportunities.
The features which together make Millennium Volunteers distinctive are:
- sustained personal commitment through a Volunteer Plan (minimum commitment of 200 hours will be essential);
- community benefit (benefit to the young people, local communities, and individuals within those communities);
- voluntary participation (participants will not gain or lose financially from volunteering);
- inclusiveness (the programme must engage a broad variety of young people - employed, unemployed, students, disaffected, and high achievers - from a variety of backgrounds, attainments, cultures and religious beliefs);
- ownership by young people (young people identifying and meeting local needs by developing their own projects);
- variety (a variety of opportunities will enable young people to find activities attractive and suitable to them);
- partnership (working with existing organisations to facilitate the development of innovative and flexible activity);
- quality (planning, implementation and review by the young people and organisations against quality standards);
- recognition (Volunteer Plan will also serve as a record of achievement; there will be a national certificate of recognition and opportunities for celebration of achievement on completion of the Plan).
It is this combination of features which makes a Millennium Volunteer opportunity distinctive from the many high quality voluntary opportunities which already deliver just some of the above features. There must be clear added value in voluntary opportunities funded by Millennium Volunteers and demonstrable community benefit. This may mean an increase in the scale of activity, a broadening of the range of organisations contributing to the development of youth volunteering, or an added dimension to some existing voluntary activity to bring it up to the standard required for Millennium Volunteers.
Measuring Success
The success of the programme will be judged by the:
- volume of new and additional volunteering opportunities which meet the Millennium Volunteers criteria;
- number of organisations offering Millennium Volunteer opportunities;
- numbers of young people taking up Millennium Volunteer opportunities, and the extent to which they reflect the make-up of their community;
- number of young people completing the programme;
- impact of young people-led projects;
- impact of volunteering on employability and employers; and
- impact of volunteering activities on local communities.
Millennium Volunteers will be a dynamic and developing programme. During its implementation it will be kept under review. The Government will be responsive to feedback, monitoring and evaluation in taking forward the longer term operation of Millennium Volunteers.
4th
Global conference on national youth service (1998) 
