The Integrated Youth Support Service (IYSS) is a new strategic approach to delivering youth services and is a way of working rather than a completely new service. It is Leeds response to the government’s strategy for integrating youth services and it represents a 3 year transformational programme.
The IYSS has been set up to improve partnership working and services delivered to young people aged 13-19 (and up to 25 for those with a learning difficulty and/or disability). It has been developed in response to the government’s requirement to deliver an integrated ‘youth offer’. In Leeds, following extensive consultation with young people, this has now been called the ‘Breeze Youth Promise’. The Breeze Promise will meet the needs identified by the Government policy document ‘Youth Matters Next Steps’ and the Education Inspections Act 2006 aiming to give all young people in Leeds somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to.
New governance arrangements for the IYSS have been put in place and the Local Authority Youth Service has become a ‘delivery arm’ of the IYSS. The Professional Development Unit that supported Leeds City Council Youth Service has been restructured with an extended remit to form a unit that will support the management of all IYSS services to young people.
The IYSS is being supported by a number of key strategic partners and will have responsibility for a range of services and strategies in support of young people including Connexions activity, out of school activity programmes, youth volunteering and supporting the delivery of Breeze.