Wirral’s Youth Collective Charts Path for Collaboration and Community Engagement
Professionals working with young people across Wirral gathered today for the first face to face Youth Collective meeting of 2025 to address barriers to youth support, explore cross sector collaboration, and propose co produced initiatives to enhance opportunities for young people and families.
The dynamic discussion underscored a shared commitment to overcoming challenges and building stronger community partnerships, culminating in a practical action plan to map local services and expand the collective’s network.
The meeting centred on three key questions:
What are the key barriers to supporting young people in Wirral?
Where can we collaborate across sectors to make an impact?
What specific projects and initiatives could be co produced with Youth Collective members, and how can we pool expertise, spaces, and resources?
Identifying Barriers to Youth Support
Participants highlighted a range of challenges hindering effective support for young people in Wirral. Key barriers include insufficient and unstable funding, shortages of staff and resources, and limited access to affordable transport, which restricts young people’s ability to engage with services. Other issues include gaps in service provision in certain areas, lack of support for parents on low incomes, and short term contracts that disrupt long term planning.
Additional concerns include young people’s lack of confidence in accessing services, outdated approaches to youth work, and misinformation due to poor communication channels. Ageing facilities, competition between services, and a lack of coordination between large and small organisations further complicate efforts. Accessibility challenges, such as those related to special educational needs, distance, and cost, along with schools’ focus on academic achievement over holistic development, were also noted as significant hurdles.
Opportunities for Cross Sector Collaboration
The Youth Collective emphasised the power of cross sector collaboration to address these barriers. Participants called for stronger integration with pastoral and strategic groups, the development of alliance models to promote shared practices, and the use of data to inform co produced projects. Building community partnerships, sharing best practices, and expanding membership to include voluntary, community, faith, and other youth focused groups were identified as priorities.
The group also advocated moving away from “one stop shop” models, encouraging services to focus on their strengths and partner with specialists to deliver comprehensive support. Engaging MPs, councillors, and decision makers to prioritise youth work, ensuring young people’s representation in decision making, and maintaining an inclusive approach to new members were seen as critical steps to amplify impact.
Co Produced Projects and Resource Sharing
A strong appetite for interagency collaboration emerged, particularly during high demand periods like summer holidays, when traditional evening focused youth services often fail to meet the daytime needs of young people and families. Proposed initiatives include interagency holiday programmes that combine expertise, staff, and facilities to deliver daytime activities like workshops, sports, and creative programmes. Other ideas include creating shared resource hubs, co producing youth led projects, and developing joint training programmes to upskill staff in areas like accessibility and trauma informed care.
Participants also suggested collaborative funding bids to secure sustainable resources and the creation of a shared digital platform to map services, promote events, and enable real time collaboration. These efforts aim to maximise resources, avoid duplication, and ensure young people and families can easily access opportunities.
Action Plan: Mapping and Engaging Local Communities
To build on these discussions, the Youth Collective outlined an action plan for members to deepen their understanding of local youth provision and expand the network. Members are encouraged to:
Assess Local Knowledge: Reflect on their immediate area and document all known services, groups, and activities supporting young people, including statutory services, voluntary, community, and faith (VCF) organisations, businesses, and informal groups.
Identify Unmapped Services: List services, VCF groups, businesses, or other organisations not currently connected to the Youth Collective or mapped in existing directories, noting their focus and contact details.
Engage New Partners: Reach out to unmapped organisations to introduce the Youth Collective, share its goals, and invite them to join or collaborate, using a standardised outreach template provided by the collective.
Map Services and Resources: Contribute to a shared directory by submitting details of identified services, groups, and resources via digital platforms such as, Wirral Sandbox, ZILLO, Family Tool box and SENDLO.
Collaborate During Key Periods: Propose collaborative activities, such as joint holiday programmes, detailing how members can contribute expertise, spaces, or resources.
Report Progress: Share findings and proposed collaborations at the next Youth Collective meeting to encourage collective learning and coordination.
A Call to Action
The Youth Collective’s meeting marks a significant step towards a more connected, collaborative approach to youth support in Wirral. By mapping local services and inviting new partners to join, members can address gaps in provision, enhance accessibility, and create meaningful opportunities for young people and families.
The Youth Collective invites all organisations, statutory, voluntary, community, faith based, or business, to join our movement. For more information or to get involved visit Wirral Youth Collective