Somerset Rural Youth Project - Essay Example

SOMERSET RURAL YOUTH PROJECT By 18th, November, Somerset Rural Youth Project; Case analysis The modern society has presented mankind with ever increasing challenges in finding opportunities. The challenge is even more predominant in rural areas where job opportunities are even more scarce. Somerset Rural Youth Project (SRYP), a registered charity, managed by a board of trustees endeavors to find ways and means of facing the challenges of rural life by focusing on matters of rural exclusion, isolation and challenges affecting young people in rural areas. SRYP particularly seeks to establish a twofold approach to the rural life problems by creating job opportunities for the youth in rural areas and secondly, by creating services that can be sold to the population in rural areas (“Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Education Committee” 2011). The project identifies, develops, and maintains services that are of importance to the community. It then organizes the youth and puts them in a position to offer these services, a service often referred to as generic youth work. Such services include teem workshops, sports, peer education, volunteer services, environmental protection drug abuse advise among others. Characteristically, SRYP packages these services in a way that best suits the community. Rural youth work on the other hand entails offering services in areas of specific challenge for rural dwellers. Such services include offering transport Notably, SRYP recognizes the need for maintaining quality and standards in its business strategy and activities. This has arguably been necessitated by the need to provide high quality services in order to beat the odds of overwhelming competition. SRYP sought for funding that went a long way in making an effective business plan, which is a prerequisite for high quality standards. Perhaps the most important step that the program took is to seek validation from external stakeholders and BQF came in handy (“BQF” 2012). Continuous assessment by BQF is arguably the most important step towards quality and standards in the services that SRYP will provide (“BQF” 2012). Equally important is the usefulness of BQF in providing other similar programs for comparison and benchmarking. This is even more important considering the diverse membership of the BQF. BQF presents opportunities for challenges, experiences, and different working environment for SRYP, all which go towards improving the quality standards for the services offered by the program. Secondly, the move to gain C2E accreditation is a notable commitment to quality. As SRYP seeks to achieve high quality standards as required by C2E accreditation, their competitive edge improves correspondingly. Additionally, C2E accreditation will raise the program reputation considerably making it possible for the program to get even more funding from other stakeholders. The community will also develop and solidify confidence in their activities hence propelling the program towards achieving set business objectives (“C2E” 2012). Perhaps one of the best approaches taken is hiring of a business development manager, who will be entitled with the responsibilities of marketing and selling of services. Coupled with hiring business development manager is rolling out of training drive that encourages the youth towards an approach that is more strategic in their endeavors. Considering that SRYP has 30 highly-trained staff support, the quality of support to the youth can only be as good. More importantly, the highly trained staff becomes an important tool of imparting values and organizational culture to all the members (“C4EO” 2010), which goes a long way in solidifying quality standards. Additionally the 60 youth clubs across the county comes in handy in ensuring that the program remains diversified and hence flexible in case of any in eventualities The National Citizen Service and other similar initiatives are an important factor to consider when discussing quality standards. This is primarily because SRYP activities must always remain in alignment with mainstream government activities and community initiatives. However, many challenges seem to lie ahead of SRYP. The most notable challenge is in funds management. Whereas it is evident that sources of funding are promising. The need to provide high-end service makes poses a serious challenge in fund management. This is because quality services cannot possibly come by without employment of funds for instance in trainings and hiring (“C4EO” 2010). Additionally, diversification means use of more funds especially in establishing of new branches. With more competitive programs and initiatives coming into play, meeting the challenges of the modern society amidst the increasing competition is a painstakingly high challenge. Considering that more youths get in to the society from schools, finding more opportunities for them in the future will be a challenge (McNeil, Reeder & Rich 2012). Last but not the least, organizations and stakeholders providing the funding are limited whilst the number of emerging similar organizations is increasing steadily. This only means that in future, competition for funding will be an uphill task and only the best among the players will be getting the funds. The journey towards the journey of excellence is challenging but worthwhile. Whereas the program has taken the initiative of integrating its business strategies and objectives with government’s mainstream community initiatives, it should also zero in on aligning the objectives with the global community. For instance, SRYP is yet to synchronize its business strategies with global community. For instance, they may need to consider looking into ways in which global resources, both material and human resource, can be integrated into the community service. In future, quality standards will be measured in global standards as opposed to the national standards provided by C2E accreditation and BQF (“C2E” 2012). It is the high time that SRYP opened eyes widely into the global standards. At present stakeholders such as BQF can only provide benchmarking partners within its reach. However, a wider approach to benchmarking encompassing global community needs to be considered. Innovativeness remains the single most important approach towards sustainability of SRYP. Perhaps, more resources need to be employed towards innovation and more importantly, zero in on innovations that will bring meaningful returns to the program especially in regard to quality. Whereas the primary source of funds remains to be donors, it is the high time that SRYP thought of establishing self-sustaining source of funds. Working closely with learning institutions will make it possible for SRYP to meet its future business objectives considering that the main stakeholders, the youth are learning institution’s products. A smooth transition from learning institutions into the program may go a long way in maintaining the standards of services provided (McNeil, Reeder & Rich 2012; “C4EO” 2010). Works Cited “BQF” 2012 British Quality Foundation, Retrieved 18 November 2012, “C2E” 2012, C2E Equality Standard, Retrieved 18 November 2012, “C4EO” 2010, Improving outcomes for young people by spreading and deepening the impact of targeted youth support and development Retrieved18 November 2012, “Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Education Committee” 2011, Services for young people: third report of session 2010-12, Vol. 2: Oral and written evidence, The Stationery Office, London. McNeil, B Reeder, N & Rich, J 2012, A framework of outcomes for young people, The Young Foundation, Retrieved 18 November 2012, Read More