How to Do The Youth Achievement Awards Online

If you're aged 14-25 and you want to do a Youth Achievement Award then this post shows you how you can do it online at www.myukyouth.org. If you are a youth club, youth group or project participating in the Award and you want to learn how you can run the Youth Achievement Awards online then see How To Run The Youth Achievement Awards Online.

You can do your Award online at www.myukyouth.org where you can work with your Award Group, record your achievements, build your portfolio and show others what you have done.

To do an Award online you’ll need to create a personal account on ‘My UK Youth’, you can do this by heading over to the sign-up page and filling in a few details and once you have responded to the confirmation email you will be transported to your 'My Site' section where you can monitor your tasks and view your challenges.

You can also click on the 'My Profile' link to add a picture and some information about yourself, the 'My Settings' link to change your password or to return to your personal site at any time just click on the 'My Site' link.

Request a Portfolio and Start a Challenge

To start a Challenge you will need to work with one of the youth clubs, youth groups or projects participating in the Award, there are over 1,000 different groups to choose from and these can be found by searching for them on the My UK Youth website.

Click on the 'Find a Youth Group and Start a Challenge' option from your 'My Site' to go to the search page and then type in the name of your town or youth group; after that, click on the 'Start a New Portfolio' option next to your chosen youth group to request a portfolio.

You will then transported to your 'My Site' where you will see a copy of your request for an Award Portfolio posted at the top of your tasks list, your youth group will respond to your request (usually within 2 or 3 days) and you don't need to do anything else for now.

Once your youth group has approved your request you will receive an email to your inbox to tell you that you have a new message awaiting you on ‘My UK Youth’ and when you log in to view the message you will see the response along with a link to your new portfolio added to your 'My Challenges' list and you can now start contributing to your online portfolio.

Start Your Award

The first thing that you need to do on your Portfolio is to start an Award. You can do this by following the link on your 'My Challenges' list to your Award Portfolio and then clicking on the 'Start New Award' button, upon which you should review the description of each Award and (along with your Award Group worker) choose to start one of either the Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum Awards.

When you have started your Award, the next thing you should do is to add people to your Award group, these should be 2 or 3 friends with whom to decide what you want to do and after the activity, review what you have done. Anyone that you want to add to your Award group must be able to log in with their own ‘My UK Youth’ account which they can create by going to the sign-up page and entering a few details.

Once your friends are on ‘My UK Youth’ you can find them by clicking on the 'Add' button under the 'My Award Group' heading. Type the name of the person into the box, press the enter key and 'select' the person from the options displayed, finally click the 'OK' button to add them to your Award Group.

The people that you have selected for your Award Group will automatically receive an email to their inbox informing them that they have a message from you on ‘My UK Youth’ and when they log-in they can follow the link to your Portfolio to see your work. You can also remove someone from your Award Group and deny them access to your work by clicking on them and choosing 'remove'.

Start Your Challenge

Working with your Award Group you will need to determine and then complete a number of Challenges for your Award. To start a new Challenge, open your Award site by clicking on the Award that you created earlier.

Then click on the 'Add' button below the 'My Challenges' heading and when prompted, fill in the details about your Challenge. Your new Challenge will now appear below the 'My Challenges' heading on this Award page. Open your Challenge by clicking on it.

Your Challenge page is where you'll record everything about your Challenge, it shows the details of your Challenge and the targets that you have set and has places for you to attach your Challenge evidence, log your activities, post messages to your Award Group and add your Challenge review.

After completing each Challenge you'll receive a Challenge Certificate issued by an accreditation worker and once you have completed all of your Challenges you can submit your portfolio for accreditation and get a nationally recognised Youth Achievement Award Certificate.

How To Run The Youth Achievement Awards Online

If you are a youth club, youth group or project you can run the Youth Achievement Awards by registering your organisation with UK Youth. Membership enables you to run both the Youth Challenges and the Youth Achievement Awards either online or offline and also entitles you to access ASDAN’s Wider Key Skill qualifications. If your organisation is in England then you can register it online at www.youthachievementawards.org; for organisations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland you will need to contact the relevant country office.

If you're aged 14-25 and you want to do a Youth Achievement Award see How to Do The Youth Achievement Awards Online.

Getting Started

‘My UK Youth’ allows young people and youth workers to develop a site for your youth project to help you promote and share the great work you are supporting. Once you are registered with UK Youth you can create a group site on ‘My UK Youth’ where young people can find you and start an online portfolio.

To run a group on ‘My UK Youth’ you will need to be registered with UK Youth as a bona fide youth group, youth club or project. Your application will be processed by the UK Youth team (usually within 2 or 3 working days) and upon acceptance you will receive an email with your membership number and a site confirmation code that you can use to activate your group's site on ‘My UK Youth’.

To activate your group's site on ‘My UK Youth’:

1. Create a Personal Account on ‘My UK Youth’
   Before you can activate your group’s site you’ll need to create a personal account on ‘My UK Youth’, you can do this by heading over to the sign-up page and filling in a few details and once you have responded to the confirmation email you will be transported to your 'My Site' section where you can monitor your tasks and view your links.
2. Activate your Group's Site
   To activate your group's site, go to www.myukyouth.org/membership.aspx and enter your site activation key along with your UK Youth membership number. This information can be found on the registration email sent to your group's main contact or can be obtained by going to www.myukyouth.org/pages/sitekey.aspx.

Once you have activated your group's site you will see it listed under the 'My Links' heading of your 'My Site'. Open your group's site by clicking on the link.

From your group's site you can approve portfolio requests and moderate challenges as well as create a profile for your group, put in news or events, add users (such as workers or moderators) and view reports.

Begin by adding some information about your group; you can do this by following the 'Edit your Group Profile' link on your site's main page. Include as much information as you like but keep it relevant so that young people can find your group easily.

Add Your Members

To run the Awards online you'll continue to conduct each Award within the familiar framework of the Youth Achievement Awards; that is, an Award Group Worker will run the Award with each young person and the completed Award portfolios will go through a stage of internal quality assurance (internal moderation) and then external quality assurance (external moderation).

The next thing that you should do is add colleagues to your site; these should be people who can carry out the Awards at Award Group Worker, Internal Moderator or Agency Moderator levels. Anyone that you want to add to your site must be able to log in with their own My UK Youth account which they can create by going to the sign-up page and entering a few details.

Click on the 'Manage Your Site's Membership' link under the 'Site Management' heading to add your members.

Once your colleagues are on ‘My UK Youth’ you can find them by clicking on the 'Add' button under the 'Members' heading. Type the name of the person into the box, press the enter key and 'select' the person from the options displayed, finally click the 'OK' button to add them to your members.

Your colleagues will automatically receive an email to their inbox informing them that they have a message from you on ‘My UK Youth’ and when they log-in they can follow the link to your site. You can also remove a member and deny them access to your site by clicking on them and choosing 'remove'.

Assign each of your colleagues a role on your site as an Award Group Worker, Internal Moderator or Agency Moderator by clicking on the 'settings' link below each of your members (the Award Group Worker and Internal Moderator should not be the same person).

• Award Group Worker
  An Award Group Worker runs the Award. This member should be someone who has been trained to run the Youth Challenge and Youth Achievement Awards
• Internal Moderator
  An Internal Moderator will verify that all the targets have been met and that Challenges have been achieved at the appropriate level
• Agency Moderator
  An Agency Moderator is the lead person responsible for quality assuring Awards throughout the Operating Agency

Get Your Young People Started On Their Award

When you have added your colleagues, you are now ready to begin working with your young people on their Awards. To do an Award online your young people will need to create a personal account on ‘My UK Youth’ by heading over to the sign-up page and filling in a few details, once they have confirmed their registration they can find your group and start a new Award portfolio with you.

You can find and approve new portfolio requests by following the 'Manage new Portfolio requests' link on your site's main page and clicking on the 'settings' link below each of these. To approve a young person's portfolio request, choose their Award Group Worker, Internal Moderator and Agency Moderator, and assign them a booklet for one of the Awards – for an Award to reach moderation you will need to obtain the required booklets from UK Youth.

Once you have approved a portfolio request, the young person will receive an email to their inbox to tell them that a new message is waiting for them on ‘My UK Youth’ and when they log in they'll see a link to their new portfolio on their 'My Challenges' list and can start an Award (see How to Do The Youth Achievement Awards Online).

Moderate Challenges

Each Challenge must go through a stage of internal quality assurance – called internal moderation. On ‘My UK Youth’ this begins with the Award Group Worker approving each Challenge for internal moderation by going to the young person's Challenge page and selecting 'Approve Challenge'. The nominated Internal Moderator will then be notified that this Challenge is ready for internal moderation and can log in to complete this process by selecting the 'Moderate Challenge' option on the young person's Challenge page.

Once the Internal Moderator has approved the Challenge, the young person's Challenge certificate is made available for download via the 'Print Certificate' option at the top of the Challenge page.

Moderate Awards

The Youth Achievement Awards are subject to a robust external quality assurance system – called external moderation – which is set in motion once the young person has successfully completed all of their Challenges. On ‘My UK Youth’ this begins with the nominated Internal Moderator approving the Award for external moderation by going to the young person's Award site and selecting 'Approve Award'. The nominated Agency Moderator will then be notified that this Award is ready for external moderation and can sign-in to put the Award forward by selecting the 'Moderate Award' option on the young person's Award site.

Once there are several Awards ready for external moderation, the Agency Moderator can send them all at once to UK Youth by going to your group's main page and selecting the 'Moderate Portfolios' option.

How to Do the Youth Achievement Awards

If you're aged 14-25 the Youth Achievement Awards offer you the chance to gain a nationally recognised Award for progressively taking part, planning and leading activities based on your interests.

You can choose from over 1,000 different youth clubs, youth groups and projects participating in the Award and can do the Award at four levels:

• Bronze – where you take part in activities
• Silver – where you help to organise activities
• Gold – for this Award you plan, organise and lead your own activity
• Platinum – is the highest level of the Awards, you take on a leadership and peer education role at Platinum

To achieve an Award you will need to complete a number of Challenges – activities that you intend to do – that either you have not tried before (e.g. taking part in a two day canoe trip) or that builds upon a previous achievement. You will then need to keep a diary or portfolio so that you can show others what you have done; this could be photos, leaflets that you've designed, drawings that you've made, documents that you've kept or anything that shows what you've been involved with.

As well as your Award Group Worker – who will guide you through your Award – you'll need to find a group of 2 or 3 friends with whom to decide what you want to do and after the activity, review what you have done.

After completing each Challenge you'll receive a Challenge Certificate issued by an accreditation worker and once you have completed all of your Challenges you can submit your portfolio for accreditation and get a nationally recognised Youth Achievement Award Certificate.

About UK Youth

UK Youth is a leading national youth work charity supporting over 750,000 young people, helping them to raise their aspirations, realise their potential and have their achievements recognised via non-formal, accredited education programmes and activities.

Visit the UK Youth website