A second chance! – Voluntary navigator centres for young people

Evaluations by the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs show that up to 71 per cent of young people who were previously inactive have found a job, work experience or a place in further education via so-called navigator centres.

The navigator centres facilitate cooperation between municipal authorities, the public employment service, voluntary organisations and industry with a view to reaching non-traditional solutions. The centres are aimed at young unemployed people aged between 16 and 25 years. Many are on social assistance benefits and have never been integrated into the labour market.

'It's not unusual for young people without a job to be sent round between the employment service, social services and the local education committee. Navigator centres have given the young unemployed a single point of access to all actors, with several possible exits. This is one reason why the centres have succeeded as a method of getting young people into work,' says Per Nilsson, Director-General of the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs.

The Board has been tasked with supporting the work of the navigator centres in a pilot phase. This work is now complete and we outline here the most important lessons and conclusions to be drawn from the three-year venture.
New methods and new forms of cooperation
Navigator centres have developed new methods and forms of cooperation aimed at getting young people into work. They focus on the young person's needs and seek not only to find employment but also to resolve housing problems and language difficulties. The centres also work to improve young people's self-confidence.

The service is often accessible outside of office hours, and centre staff also engage in outreach activities. The Board's report shows that a particularly successful aspect of the strategy has been that each participant is allocated a personal coach.

The target group for navigator centres consists of individuals who are harder to motivate than those usually encountered by the employment service. They include young people who suffer or have suffered from social phobias, depression or the effects of drug abuse. Their work experience will have been mainly in the retail trade or hotel and restaurant branches.

The scheme has involved around 2,000 young people, and between 45 and 71 per cent of these have, after a period in a navigator centre, gone on to education, employment or work experience. This matches and indeed exceeds the results reported for ordinary labour market measures during the same period.

Even participants who have not found a job, work experience or a place in education report that their time in navigator centres has led to improved knowledge about how to apply for work and how authorities function, as well as giving them increased self-confidence.

Consequently, navigator centres have, as a complement to the ordinary activities of existing organisations, the employment service, upper-secondary schools and social services, contributed among other things to:

• effectively ending young people's exclusion from the labour market
  
• increasing young people's access to relevant authorities and services


• advancing cooperation between relevant actors (including public actors such as the employment service, social services and upper-secondary schools but also private industry and community organisations) by overcoming structural obstacles


• better matching between the labour force and the demand for labour


• better methods for coaching and guidance of young people outside the labour market


• the creation of a single point of entry where young people can be offered coordinated assistance in the form of coaching, guidance, tailored individual support, and help in understanding their rights and obligations on the labour market


• connecting with new groups of young people through outreach activities that do not fall within the municipality's regular services.