Facebook and Twitter used to help 16-18 year-olds - Cllr Kitcat interview

Hear from Cllr Jason Kitcat about how Facebook and Twitter have helped make Brighton & Hove one of the country’s most successful cities in keeping 16-18 year olds in employment, education or training. Innovative work to ‘track’ 16-18 year olds by Brighton & Hove City Council’s Youth Employability Service (YES) has been highlighted by national body the Local Government Association. This comes as councils face increasing pressure to use new technology to reduce costs and help young residents improve their life chances. Work by YES has seen the numbers of 16-18 year olds whose situation is not known fall from 12.8% in 2011/2012 to 4.8% in 2012/13. This has fallen further to 3.9% for the first quarter of 2013/2014.YES has helped 463 young people in the last year with the numbers of those not in education, employment or training falling from 7.8% in 2011 to 6.6% last year. The Local Government Association (LGA) has recognised these achievements and YES has been highlighted in a new national report. Crucial to achieving this has been a proactive approach to gathering information to help track young people whose situation is not known or could become not known. An important part of this approach is the use of social media. YES’ Facebook page has over 800 “likes”, while on Twitter the organisation has almost 700 followers. YES advisers also have their own individual Facebook page, which they use to keep in contact with their clients. These platforms are used not only to promote the service and to communicate with clients, but also to track young residents. #brighton #yes