Mark's Blog

Sometimes, making the right decision is tough. It’s tough because you know that the impact of the decision will be felt in the lives of staff, their families and the people that you work alongside. This is very much the case for the decision to close UFA’s services from April this year.

An organisation’s history is paved with decisions, some good, some less so, and it’s all part of the journey. In the case of the University of the First Age (UFA) the journey began with a decision in 1996, to setup an educationally-focussed charity, with real aspirations to make a positive impact on as many young people as possible. UFA delivered a range of educational experiences across England and it’s clear those programmes were hugely beneficial. UFA staff were genuine educational innovators, particularly in those early days, and the reputation of the charity grew and grew.

National Citizen Service (NCS) was developed back in 2010, and UFA were involved from the early days, delivering early pilot programmes, and then upscaling to become one of the largest providers of the NCS programme in England. NCS is a programme based on the concept of ‘the hero’s journey’—think of classic stories following characters like Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins—in which a reluctant hero is taken from home, put together in a group with strangers, faces some challenges and returns having made a difference.

NCS aims to provide young people aged 16-17 with a journey fit for heroes, but the truth of it is it takes heroic efforts from staff to deliver the experience. It’s a programme that draws you in like a black hole(!) and the nature of working intensively on Spring, Autumn and particularly Summer programmes is you spend months preparing, engaging with young people, recruiting them, recruiting the staff that will support each team of young people, preparing programme content, risk assessing and more. It’s a little bit like building a huge boat; when you see the boat being launched at the docks, you want to be on it!

UFA’s journey through NCS has seen multiple regions of delivery, huge numbers of young people going through our programmes and I’m sure all staff who have worked on those programmes are proud of what we’ve achieved. 2020 was a challenging year for NCS and all the organisations involved in its delivery – we weren’t able to deliver NCS in the usual way, but we were, against considerable odds, able to deliver nearly 1,500 places, with a mixture of remote and face-to-face programmes.

However, the seasonal cycle of NCS leads to an intensity which isn’t always healthy or effective for staff involved, and it’s a problem which many providers have faced. The contractual landscape of NCS is a positive minefield which has led to greater risk for the providers like UFA who deliver the programme.

This became even more challenging over the last year, and it became clear that it was absolutely the right time for UFA to leave the NCS stage, with our heads held high for a job well done, and recognising the significant impact UFA has made in growing NCS.

Our 2020 programmes crystallised what UFA is all about – we believed in young people and their potential, we encouraged young people during a time when they needed it more than ever. UFA staff were united in pulling together to make a true national team delivering strong, distinctive and high-quality programmes. P3 inspired UFA to make our final year of NCS delivery a year of putting people first.

I am confident to say our staff team and the young people we have worked alongside have been enriched by the experience of being part of UFA; I know I have been personally so proud of what we have achieved during challenging times.