Responsible Gambling Week 2017

Thursday 12th to Wednesday 18th October sees the launch of Responsible Gambling Week, which is led by the Industry Group for Responsible Gambling (IGRG).

During the two-week window in which this event is happening, we wanted to share with you what YGAM is delivering in this period. For those of you unfamiliar with YGAM, we are an independent UK-Registered Charity with a social purpose to inform, educate and safeguard young people against problematic gambling or gaming. Of the twelve Priority Actions as identified in the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB) National Responsible Gambling Strategy, YGAM’s social purpose contributes to delivery of Priority Action Eight; Education to Prevent Gambling-Related Harm.

YGAM trains, quality-assures and certifies practitioners & teachers to deliver our education programme. This programme builds digital resilience & financial literacy among young people, students and vulnerable adults under 25 years old and increases their knowledge around e-safety and red flags for those who choose to gamble. Additionally YGAM works with partner universities and employs students in part-time Living Wage roles to raise awareness of gambling-related harm as part of student services provision in the host university. Finally, the YGAM programme provides signposting for those whom may need support from GamCare.

The YGAM education programme itself comprises over 150 teaching and information resources, all of which are accredited & quality-assured by the Ofqual Awarding Body, ASDAN and quality-assured by the PSHE Association. Furthermore, the YGAM education resources and feedback from a sample of teachers & practitioners who participated in the YGAM training have been independently evaluated by City, University of London as part of an eight-month evaluation. No other programme in the UK has opened itself up to so much independent scrutiny. In 2016/17, almost 30,000 young people accessed our education programme and we worked with 348 organisations. For 2017/18, we are planning on reaching at least 100,000 young people.

In addition, YGAM has a trading subsidiary, YGAM Innovation Limited. One hundred percent of all profits generated by YGAM Innovation Limited are donated to YGAM the charity. This will enable the charity to diversify and build unrestricted income, which will be spent to increase the social and geographical reach of YGAM.

YGAM Innovation Limited is working in partnership with the University of East London, the global Ofqual-approved Awarding Body Pearson and operators to scope, develop, pilot and evaluate a customised Pearson Level 2 qualification aimed at those who work initially in the retail sector. In addition, YGAM Innovation Limited is seeking to work with operators and other partners to form a Government approved Trailblazer Group to create a new Apprenticeships Standard, given the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy. This area of work contributes to Priority Action Six; Piloting Innovations of the National Responsible Gambling Strategy.

To view YGAM’s latest Annual Review & Accounts for the period ending 30 June 2017, please click here. To view YGAM’s independent evaluation and feedback from our recent symposium, held in partnership with City Law School, which had a focus on preventative education, please click here.

During Responsible Gambling Week 2017, some of the YGAM team will be making a return trip to Gibraltar where they will be working with educational providers to deliver our teacher training workshops. The team will also be delivering workshops directly to young people and parents.

In addition, YGAM has a quality-assurance audit by the global Ofqual approved Awarding Body, Pearson through which we hope to achieve the Pearson Assured quality-standard for our educational resources. If achieved, YGAM will collect another independent quality-assurance benchmark, demonstrating the educational rigor, robustness and relevance of the YGAM education programme and be a global first for an education programme of this kind. 

Additionally the team are delighted to be given the opportunity to work with a global operator, University of East London and our partners at Wembley Stadium to commence the pilot of the Pearson Level 2 qualification aimed at colleagues who work in the retail sector as part of Responsible Gambling Awareness Week. We are also seeking to publish the initial YGAM Innovation Limited website to enable us to share progress of the pilot and potential rollout. 

Also during Responsible Gambling Week, our team are meeting with our quality verifier, as we start the journey to become an accredited ‘Investors in People’ employer.

Finally, I hope to announce the new independent Chair and independent board of trustees for the charity. Over the last six months we have been working with Peridot Partners to undertake an independent skills audit of our board and map out the skills, knowledge and behaviours that YGAM needs from its trustees to future proof the charity over the next five years. We have then worked with Peridot Partners, who have led a very bespoke and targeted recruitment campaign, which has generated an enormous amount of interest in the work of YGAM and many high quality candidates for us to consider.  

Leading the work of YGAM and YGAM Innovation Limited is an absolute pleasure, made even more enjoyable by the team and all our supporters, although to achieve what we have to date takes a huge amount of commitment, focus and drive. All our trustees, volunteers and employees go far and above what is required, so during Responsible Gambling Awareness Week, like any other week, YGAM and our partners are working hard to minimise gambling-related harm. 

Lee Willows, October 2017