PURPOSE 

YES Outdoors has a fair access policy to support working in partnership with referral organisations.  By sharing responsibly for referrals of young people on to our programmes, it ensures that young people, especially the most vulnerable, are offered the support and help they need.

We need to ensure we do not take a disproportionate number of young people who cannot function on our ratios as set out within the selection criteria for each programme.  The young people who have been excluded from school or have challenging behaviour should be viewed in terms of the likelihood their negative behaviour may pose to the other young people on the programme.  This balanced approach will work towards ensuring as many young people as possible can benefit from the programmes.

The policy places a requirement on all project leads to be familiar with opportunities and youth provision in the area the programme is taking place.  In the event of oversubscription or drop off, then the referrer should be made aware of the reasons why and the information should be provided to allow the young person to be signposted elsewhere.

The fair access policy places a responsibility on the project coordinator the need to work closely with the referral partners to ensure that they are aware of the number of vacancies on a programme to prevent or minimise oversubscription.

PRINCIPLES 

Preparation and planning are key to ensuring that referral partners have a clear understanding of the type of young person who we wish to work with.  This is achieved by the sharing of up-to-date information including number of vacancies on the programme.

All referring partners must be confident that there is a rational and consistent structure for decision making which is seen as fair and transparent. 

All programmes should include a trauma-informed care approach which includes the realisation of how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) affects health and wellbeing.  This should form part of the consideration about how each programme manages recruitment and oversubscription.  Accordingly, it is assumed that young people have experienced trauma and may consequently find it difficult to develop trusting relationships with providers and feel safe within services. Therefore, our programmes are required to be structured, organised and delivered in ways that engender safety and trust and do not re-traumatise.