IYS Youth Work team are dedicated to offering BPoC young people safe spaces to explore their identity, experience decision-making, increase their confidence, develop interpersonal skills and encourage leadership development.

IYS young people have a range of services they can Utilise: 
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TLC
Duke of Edinburgh
The Block
Block Beats
SixFive
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IYS are constantly looking at ways to better serve our young people and our wider community.

IYS Education Programme is a year long education module for S5 &S6 which tackles race and intersecting oppressions through a youth-work approach.  

The education programme enables young people to engage in anti-racism and empowers pupils to become drivers of social change in their school and local communities.

Through the IYS Pro Black, Anti-Racist Education Programme pupils learn how to recognise inequalities and systems of power and learn to engage with each other avoiding harm and re-traumatisation. Led by Black educators and educators of Colour, the programme recognises the role of racial trauma and white fragility, and makes an active effort to mitigate its effects.

Anti-racist Pro Black Education Module tackles
 - Community guidelines and setting up safe spaces for difficult conversations
-How to be a reflective, brave and active learner

Builds and understanding of
-Introduction to pre-colonial societies
 -Introduction to the origin of race as a social   
    construct and pseudo science

The programme looks at race and how it intersects with key areas in young people’s lives:
Race & Health
Race & Education
Intersectionality
Race & Criminal Justice System
Race & Environmental Justice.

Young Black People and People of Colour are at the core of everything IYS does.

Through our advocacy work, we make sure their voices are heard by policy-makers and in key decision-making processes and advocate for them to have a space to do so themselves  For too long, these voices have gone unheard, and policy-makers have been comfortable with incremental change.

IYS are pushing for equitable support and funding and specialist services for young Black People and People of Colour across Scotland to ensure these changes are long term and meaningful.

Current Advocacy Programs
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The Restless Natives Employability programme aims to tackle the barriers to employment faced by young Black people and people of colour 11-25 with support at every stage of their journey.
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Our holistic approach means we engage with both you, as well as potential employers through the delivery of our anti racism training.
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We can offer you tailored support to help you reach your potential.

Our Practitioners can help with:
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- Looking for a new Job
- Dealing with anxiety and building confidence
- UCAS admission and getting into University
- Finding a post-grad role
- CV and Cover Letter Writing
- Accessing workplace/school accommodation for deaf /disabled young POC

Whatever it is, our experienced Practitioner can get on your level and work with you achieve what you know you can.

interested in one-to-one support on how to launch your career from one of our experienced practitioner?
Click here to sign-up!

As part of our Restless Natives program we are committed to developing a new generation of BPOC creatives in Design, Multimedia and Tech. This initiative will be kept alive at this time as a virtual internship program.

Anti-racism training for organisations
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IYS offers training and employer support to help workplaces build anti-racism into their workplace practices and procedures.

Our training has been delivered to over 30 organisations with universally positive feedback.

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Our continued engagement with young Black and POC gives us a specialist outlook that others lack, and a perspective that is alarmingly absent in workplaces across Scotland. We offer half-day and full-day workshops to all types of organisation, with training developed to help you begin to deal with issues and barriers specific to your sector or field. Get in touch for more information

Youth Ambassadors are a core element in IYS decision making and ensure a youth-led anti-racist approach on policy and advocacy decisions in the organisation.

The programme is driven by the need for change in our institutions and systems. Young peoples’ perspectives and visions are too often dismissed and we must make our voices heard.

The Youth Ambassadorship guides young people to become active change makers in their communities & Scotland wide, to understand and dissect race and oppressive power structures prevalent in society, while coming together as a community of young Black activists and young activists of colour.

At IYS we recognise the crucial contributions BPOC youth make and have to offer. We work hard to ensure that as Ambassadors young radicalised people have both the opportunity to contribute and make positive change, while this programme is equally a great learning opportunity with great scope for self-development as well as community development
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