PIA

PIA stands for Participation in Action and has been under development by Young Devon for 6 years in recognition of our belief that achieving meaningful participation requires investment in young people through their confidence, knowledge and skills.

It comprises 5 phases – flexibly allowing young people to either access each stage incrementally or to ‘hop on’ at the stage appropriate to them:

The Passport sets the scene for young people’s participation – creating awareness and desire in their right to participate, the benefits and implications of doing so, informal acquisition of the main skills required to participate successfully and an active module that results in young people planning and completing a voluntary project of their own choice that directly links to PIA objectives.

Second stage of development.
Accredited Award programme with 6 modules (being
added to as pilot evolves):

Young Assessor
Young Trainer
Young Interview Panellist
Young Trustee
Young Democracy Champion
Young Community Leader

Young people are able to choose one or modules to work on. Each module is accompanied by clear sample role descriptions and person specifications so that young people can begin to match their attainment and credibility against ‘adult’ vocational equivalents.
Programmes can be flexibly designed to help young people achieve the learning outcomes in a way that is relevant to them, their life experiences and the community they live in.
Full flexibility enables those who work with young people to retain the unique personality of their group and to use their own expertise and creativity so that the national pilot maintains a hugely diverse range of delivery.

Achievement of the PIA Award results in youngpeople receiving their PIA ‘credibility card’ and membership of the national network of PIA participants. They may also enter their details on the PIA database so that organisations can contact them to offer paid and voluntary opportunities to use their skills – e.g in Devon, the Exeter PCT and RD&E Hospital access the database to identify PIA qualified young volunteers to act as interview panellists for key children’s services personnel.

A supporting tool for those undertaking the Young Assessor module of PIA.
Whilst some services who want to engage their young service users may have an existing array of assessment and quality assurance tools – there will be many who have nothing in place or who are looking for an assessment tool that is clear and dedicated to improving services from young people’s perspective.