Introduction
A rapid transition from dependent child to independent adult is associated with physical and psychological changes. Many issues are facing the youth of today. Youth and the community should provide a safe and encouraging environment for young people to enhance their lives to attain their potential. Some centers have operated successfully to meet community needs while other failed mainly during financial predicament. Leixlip Youth and Community Centre (LYCC) in Ireland is one of the centers which facing financial straits along with lacking involvement of their community to utilize their facility. This proposal will discuss the aim and objectives that help to develop a strategic framework to strengthen the Leixlip community through their center by building a youth-adult relationship and community support. Also, a literature review will outline the theory that is relevant to these key factors which may be the remedy to achieve expected outcomes.
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: Key elements for successful youth community centre
Organizational Context
Leixlip Youth and Community Centre (LYCC) is a long-standing voluntary youth organization based in Leixlip. This center has provided community-based youth work for over ten years, a period in which the population has progressively changed. Leixlip has developed over the past years from a mere village of a population of 1,000 to become the largest town in County of Kildare with a populace of approximately 15,000. This is inclusive of 4,000 households. Also, the political context locally and nationally has been ever changing, and trends in supporting young people have changed over time. In LYCC, longer service relationship with young people and their families provide an environment where young people grow. A community-based approach in this center offers the most available opportunities and significant support for youth. The organization currently employs two full-time personnel in addition to 4 part-time staff. They are dynamic and committed to providing a high-quality service to their people. The Center offers a youth friendly room, kitchen facilities, community hall, as well as other rooms for rental to the youth and community at very competitive prices. This had proven to be sustainable over the past years and has also been cost friendly particularly in the last three years when the resources were limited.
Rationale for Reviewing and Developing Strategy
To begin with concerning the current situation in the center, young people in Leixlip are less enthusiastic to utilizing centers facilities. Also, they do not have a great sense of responsibility for the center, and their involvement is not physically appeared in the center. Furthermore, centers staff has realized there are a lot of barriers between adult and youth that had led lack of communication. Fundraising and establishing facilities are essential for sustainability and usually received considerable attention during the struggle. Along with most organizations in the sector, LYCC runs in a setting of reduced funding. The impact of this is that the Board has had to consider, and adopt, measures over the past few years to best manage the financial difficulty.
To overcome the obstacles that have been outlined, a successful community center should shift their focus to the people and youth-adult relationship, community support, and people resources, which make a community center successful particularly during financial difficulties. The period 2017-2020 will be a very crucial turning point for LYCC. Thus, to maintain and improve the quality of centers work and its core features, the Board realized that a strategic review and plan is necessary to help the center develop and succeed. Taking into consideration the internal and external factors that may affect the proposed strategy, this proposal will describe the aims and objectives, and the strategic plan of the organization through setting out different activities that will be required to achieve positive outcome for young people in Leixlip in order to optimise the use of the Centre and services provided to the community.
Aim and Objectives
Aims: To outline a sustainable strategy as a framework that helps LYCC to be successful by developing and adapting to new challenges and opportunities. Objectives: As this is a joint project with my colleague, the focus of the research will be on the following research objectives, as stated by LYCC:
To review the centers current management and organization methods
To improve awareness of the center within the community
To identify full communitys demographic needs and activities that are relevant and represent the communitys need and plan for the delivery of these in the center.
1st Objective: To Review the Centres Current Management and Organization Methods
Figure 1 demonstrates the proposed steps and tools that will be use to achieve the aim.
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2: Steps To Create Strategy
Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 1: SWOT Analysis
Factors People User Strategy Financial
Strengths Committed to the success of the project Usage of Building Increasing
Utilize available resources effectively and outsource for relevant ones to reinforce the projects capability. Current financial systems
All staff have child protection training
Varity of users of the building
Economical charges
Weaknesses Lack of new people coming onto board
Lack of young people using the youth room
No plan on how to run the centre in the future.
No guaranteed source of income
Lack of parental involvement/community ownership of the youth room Low community involvement
Opportunities Encourage involvement of parents
More young teenagers using the youth centre
Simplify the running of the building as much as possible.
Fund raising /sponsorship
Community involvement in the centre volunteers
Plan for the future
Weak employment market
Threats Unable to find new board members with the necessary skills to manage the building
Lack of community involvement in the management of building
Not everyone has the same vision for the centre
Leixlip Town Council leaving
Finding staff with the right skills
Lack of youth involvement in the youth room
No adult parent/community involvement
The cash surplus will be spent unwisely.
The centre could be left without a Board of Directors as there is no route for adults from the community to become involved at different levels Seasonality nature of community groups
Pobal/Fas will withdraw funding
2nd Objective: To Improve Awareness of the Centre Within the Community
Establishing an effective approach to youth participation calls for awareness campaign. The following figure illustrates the step that will be taken to identify the root cause of youth involvement lacking in LYCC.
3rd Objective: To Identify Full Communitys Demographic Needs and Activities That Are Relevant and Represent the Communitys Need and Plan for The Delivery of These in The Centre.
Vision Enhancing Young peoples lives in LYCC
Aims Confident Satisfied Achieving Successful Responsible
Objectives Empowering Try new things
Test out their idea Feel free to be themselves
Make friends Appreciate their prospects
Get ready for future opportunities Celebrate their success Safe environment
Mentorship Inspired by adults to believe on themselves Recognise early sign of dissatisfaction by adult Adults motivated young to appreciate their dreams All kind of achievement are valued by adult Adult help young to have control over their lives
Vision Strengthening the Leixlip community
Aim Assets Cohesion Collaboration Contribution Resources
Objectives Young people are assets need positive condition Respect diversity Support partnership Motivate young to contribute to Leixlip Work for sustainable future and to maximise the resources
The following table shows the aims, objectives, vision as well as the activities to fulfill the Leixlip communitys need.
Research Design, Methodology, Specific Methods
Philosophy underlying of research approach in this study is mixed methods research, qualitative and quantitative approach. It is a methodology for conducting research that involves collecting, analyzing, and mixing quantitative and qualitative research to analyze data. Firstly, the quantitative approach which use to quantify youth attitudes, behavior, opinions and other defined variables and generalize results from a larger sample of people for by online survey. Secondly, the qualitative approach is to be used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations behind certain actions or behavior. It focuses on the gathering of mainly verbal data rather than measurement. Gathered information then analyzed in an interpretative manner, subjective and even diagnostic. The information that is going to be gathered is outlined in the following figures.
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