In Defence of Youth Work

Penned to mark National Libraries Day this satirical piece by Julian Barnes on The Defence of the Book might raise a smile through gritted teeth as you begin your week.

As the political and economic crisis deepened in the years ahead.

Poverty threw up a few improvements, like the renaissance of the canal system. The re-establishment of the old barter system was welcomed by many. But it was the Defence of the Book that caused the most surprise. The widespread library protests of the early 2010s, more than a generation back, meant that much of the service had then been saved, an outcome for which all three parties had taken the credit (though it was thought that the ritual suicides of three novelists and a poet outside the Houses of Parliament had proved the tipping point). But little opposition was expected when the National Coalition announced that every remaining library was to be closed within a month. Since the digitisation of all forms of information, libraries – like churches under communism – were inhabited mainly by the elderly, that last generation which held on to the idea of the physical book as an item of value in itself.

Since the contents of libraries were deemed valueless, the Coalition simply instructed its enforcement agency (formerly known as the army) to burn the buildings to the ground. But after the first two incinerations, there were mass protests, and human shields were formed round many libraries. More menacingly, two offices of the enforcement agency were burnt down in retaliation. There was a broad suspicion, especially among the elderly, that once information and culture were only available digitally through the englandwideweb, truth would be easier for the government to control. To the surprise of many, the printed book began to take on a symbolic significance, as once it had done in the early years of printing.

Read on at The Defence of the Book

Perhaps we need a Youth work version.

By 2022, with the demise of the poor person’s public school extra-curricular activities programme, the national citizen’s service, spurned by most 16 year olds, with the reduction of university places, the wholesale closure of Humanities and Social Sciences departments and fees affordable only by Premier League footballers’ offspring, together with over 50% youth unemployment and the collapse of workfare, the National Unity Government [led by a troika of David Miliband, Louise Mensch and Chris Huhne]  had imposed a compulsory period of 10 years’ National Service, focused at the one end on providing an armed presence in schools and at the other on organising the surveillance of ageing dissidents and free thinkers, surplus to society’s requirements and, as the Minister for Culture, Eamonn Holmes pithily put it ‘a pain up the arse’. This central plank of the Government’s never-ending austerity strategy was run by the Ministry of Attitudinal Control [MAC] formed by a bringing together of the Ministry of Defence, the Metropolitan Police and Catalyst, the consortium led formerly by the defunct National Youth Agency and NCVYS Ltd, formerly the RSB.  However unexpectedly on the anniversary of the birth of the almost forgotten punk Johnny Rotten matters took an anarchic turn…….. Neither supporters of the government, irreverently known as the NUGITS, nor the staff of MAC or indeed their burger chain sponsors could believe their eyes…..

I wonder if it’s worth playing around with such a scenario. I know it’s a cluttered para! All with a view perhaps to getting our message across to….to be honest, I’m not quite  sure. Ideas as ever welcomed!

Not sure who to credit for the smart caricature.

Whilst the National Youth Agency claims the the consultation undertaken by the Derbyshire County Council about its Youth Service has been comprehensive, folk on the ground beg to differ. Listen to this local radio coverage of an angry meeting in Chesterfield the other day.

For further info on the County Council’s proposals – see our previous report, Activities, Activities

One of the positive consequences of publishing our book/DVD, This is Youth Work has been a surge of interest in organising workshops to explore its content and the process through which it emerged. Already sessions have taken place  in Huddersfield, Medway and Ealing with significant success, At this moment our primary target groups are students and practitioners, but we are looking to focus also on the trade unions, politicians and funders in the near future. In addition some events are less about the book itself and more about the Campaign and the present state of youth work under the Coalition. Through till Easter the following gatherings and workshops are in the diary.

IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK JANUARY SEMINARS

FROM DEFENCE TO OFFENCE?

Around thirty supporters came together in our two sessions in London and Manchester respectively focused on ‘Where Are we Up To?’ and ‘Where Are We Going?’. Despite being sodden with drizzle on our way to and from both venues we refused to be downhearted. Passionate and argumentative debate ensued. Across the next week I will post some provisional and partial thoughts on what transpired as the basis for further discussion and activity. Each post will take up one of the four themes of the seminars.

The opening contribution to the first session around the Campaign’s sense of identity and purpose was led by the self-styled ‘raggedy-arsed’ Lenny Sellars from Grimethorpe, home of arguably the greatest colliery brass band formed in the revolutionary year of 1917. His forthright challenge might be summed up as follows:

• Has our commitment to defending democratic youth work been compromised by our involvement in the wider campaign to defend jobs and services in their increasing plurality?
• Are the omens for the development of IDYW good or bad?
• With the demise of New Labour, our initial foe, who or what is today’s nemesis?
• Is IDYW failing to widen its support because it is viewed as too political and/or too intellectual?

Inevitably these questions kicked off a wide-ranging and critical exchange of opinion. Amongst the differing points raised were:

• a continuing belief in the provision of open youth work as an integral part of public services informed by social need not private or corporate greed. In this sense we need both to defend jobs and services, whilst criticising as necessary their purpose and delivery. In particular does this necessitate challenging the right of management to manage, opposing the bureaucratic structures, posing as an alternative the control of services by the users, the workers and the community?
• a deep concern that both the tradition and potential of a complementary partnership between the statutory and voluntary sector was being undermined by both the savage cuts and the loss of independence by voluntary youth organisations, drawn increasingly into delivering the state’s welfare and policing agenda.
• a recognition that the space for critical reflection within youth work – still advocated powerfully by many within the training agencies – has been curtailed severely over the last fifteen years or more. Today many workers have been intimidated into passivity or indeed have embraced the ‘targeting’ regime without question. In fact too there is evidence that a newer generation of lecturers are espousing explicitly the new managerial agenda. Nevertheless islands of reflexive practice survive. In what ways can we revitalise the case – for example, through the Stories workshops? In what ways do we revive the tradition of making space collectively outside of work to discuss work?
• a consensus that ChooseYouth at its best provided an inspiring platform for young people to articulate their support for youth work and that we continue to support the Alliance. However its rhetoric overemphasises the preventative  against the informal educational argument for youth work and elides youth work with youth services – see later arguments within the Positive for Youth discussion.
• an understanding that we do need to pitch our arguments in different ways according to differing audiences, but this in itself is neither anti-intellectual or anti-theoretical. Taking the web site as an indicator of the dilemmas raised, most of the content is informed by myself. Clearly it leans heavily to the Left in its inclination, but I hope the posts also illustrate a healthy eclecticism, utilising video as well as text. An obvious antidote is for more supporters to provide alternative material and analysis. In the course of the discussion Lenny made a gripping point about his uncles speaking directly and bluntly to the striking miners in a language mutually understood. Something we should try to do in terms of youth workers. Given, though, that youth workers are a motley crew of volunteers, part-timers and so on, is it not legitimate at least to expect three year trained ‘graduates’ to possess an adequate sociological, psychological and indeed political vocabulary via which to check reality?

Lenny’s uncle speaking directly from the heart and mind.

As for nemesis and omens, we were reluctant to view the enemy, summed up in one person’s phrase as ‘vulture capitalism’, as unbeatable, whilst feeling that if the Financial Times posits a crisis of capitalism, it’s perhaps a good time to go on the offensive! Indeed Sue Atkins, characterised by herself as ‘a woolly optimist’, was moved to argue that now is very much a moment to be seized. In the coming period we ought to both defend and promote open and voluntary youth work in all its pluralist variety.

As ever, more than ever, your critical responses welcomed. In addition those present at the seminars might well want to point out glaring gaps in this brief report.

The next post from the seminars will focus on the government’s Positive for Youth strategy.

TT

Restructuring within the the Church of England’s Education Division is threatening the existence of the designated National Adviser posts for childrens and youth services. At this juncture as the assault upon open and pluralist youth work continues unabated, we cannot afford to lose yet another distinctive youth work voice. We are being asked to sign a petition urging a change of mind. Please consider whether you might do so

In recent weeks the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York have championed children and young people. Both have argued passionately that we should be do more as a society and as the Church to make a difference in their lives and to do all we can to enable them to enjoy life and thrive!

Right now, childrens and youth services are undergoing unprecedented cuts. Local Authorities are increasingly looking at who is going to deliver services locally as they cut back and reduce funding. The Church has the potential to make a significant contribution, not just regionally, but nationally in debate, in policy decisions of national instiutions and of the Government.

It is against this backdrop that a short sighted and ill advised re-structuring is being planned which would see the Church of England effectively lose BOTH its National Children’s Officer and its National Youth Officer – to be replaced by a “Going for Growth Advisor.” This must not happen because:

1. We will loose the distinctiveness of “Children” and “Youth” being in the title of national posts.
2. The specialisms of Children and Youth Work cannot be held by one individual under the broad title of “Going for Growth Advisor”.
3. Directly linking the proposed post with the delivery of a “strategy” document is short termism and dilutes the ability of this person to be an advocate for children and young people regardless of the Going for Growth agenda.
4. The proposals to spend money saved (by reducing two posts to one) on consultants and project based work are not thought through – ideas put forth are either for activities already carried out (e.g. data collection); work that does not need funding (i.e. help the Church of England Youth Council to be more involved in key decision making – this is about an act of “will” on the part of Archbishops Council, not one of finance); work that is already being done – with professional expertise in Diocese (e.g. running regional conferences for children and young people)

As I post this concern I trip over too the Archbishop of York’s confused and conservative musings on gay marriage and social structures.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/28/archbishop-york-legalise-gay-marriage

I wonder about his position on youth work with LGBT young people. It would be interesting to hear from youth workers within the Church.

I’m under severe manners to ignore Paul Oginsky. Thus without further ado it is good to bring your attention again to the Youth & Policy conference, Thinking Seriously About Youth Work and Policy.

• Thursday, March 15, 2012
• Time

  10:00am until 5:00pm
• YMCA George Williams College, Canning Town, London

Naomi Stanton writes, Youth and Policy’s fourth ‘thinking seriously’ conference, supported by YMCA George Williams College, will explore the implications of Coalition youth policy for the youth work field. The conference aims to bring together political, academic, managerial and practice perspectives for open dialogue about policy affecting young people and youth work.

Over recent months, many events have taken place with subsequent policy implications for youth work organisation and practice. Following the implementation of Coalition spending cuts, the Select Committee on Services for Young People, and the riots of summer 2011, a conference to reflect on these events and their policy consequences in early 2012 is timely and useful. We hope that the conference will present a challenge to practitioners, managers and academics to consider the new landscape, and how policy and practice might be better shaped in the light of evidence and experience.

We are delighted that Paul Oginsky has agreed to attend the day and will be subject to a Q&A session about the rationale of current and imminent youth policy – so bring your questions for him!

Other highlights include a reflection on the Select Committee by Ian Mearns (MP), a youth work panel session to be led by Bernard Davies, and workshops on the NCS, teenage pregnancy, the PREVENT agenda, and the role of faith-based and voluntary organisations in the Big Society.

Please contact conferences@youthandpolicy.org for more information and/or a booking form.

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Having passed on the info and I hope loads of you make it to the conference, I remain under discipline as to my true feelings about Mr Oginsky. However to help in your quest to find questions for Mr NCS, as he is fondly known within the social enterprise milieu, here is an interview with this ’self-made’ guru.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/interviews/2007/10/paul-oginsky-an.html

And if you are looking for evidence of his theoretical accomplishments, look no further than this derivative exercise in egocentrism, the Oginsky model.

Oh, and I give in, almost a year to the day I posted these reflections on Oginsky, following his comment that “If youth work is being closed down, then youth workers aren’t communicating how effective and beneficial youth work is to their local authority.”

CUTS : BLAME THE YOUTH WORKERS!

I’ll own up, I’m just frustrated I won’t be able to be there! Don’t miss it and be the first to write a report on the shenanigans.

The Seventh Annual Huntley Conference is to take place on Saturday, February 18 from 9.30am – 4.30pm in the London Metropolitan Archives 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R 0HB. The overall theme is Arts and Activism : Culture and Resistance.

For the first time the event will incorporate in parallel, Step Forward Youth! The First Huntley Youth Conference.

The August 2011 Riots – what happened & why?
Come and be inspired by Professor Gus John, Symeon Brown, El Crisis, Akala, Kai Rutlin and others. Step forward and join in the debate. This runs at the same time as the main conference from 10.30am. Feedback to the main conference in the afternoon.

To Book:
Entry Fee: £8.00 (pre-booking essential, includes lunch)
Concessions: under 16 free
Call: 020 7332 3851
Email: maureen.roberts@cityoflondon.gov.uk

For full information – see this pdf Culture and Resistance : Step Forward Youth

I’m no film buff. Most of the time I’m hostile to the cinema – its conformity, its platitudes. However years ago I was entranced by the impressionistic, sprawling creations of Theo Angelopoulos, who died tragically in a traffic accident the other day. To get an idea, be patient though the opening credits and watch the opening minutes of his breakthrough film, The Travelling Players [1975] – a series of images Van Gogh would have given his other ear to paint.

As for what’s this has got do with youth work, I can only offer a personal view. The films of Angelopoulos are all concerned with life as unfinished business, with contradiction and doubt. We can have our best guess, but we remain uncertain about its outcome. With this in mind we can but hope to make our best contribution to a more just, equal and democratic society. To my mind doing youth work, desiring that young people might be more aware, critical citizens is haunted by the same uncertainty. We can never be sure of its outcome, which makes it all the more worth doing.

More about the wonderful Angelopoulos below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/jan/25/theo-angelopoulos-chronicler-modern-greece

I’m in the midst of taking a breath after two challenging IDYW seminars, accompanied by frenetic and accident-prone travelling. A missed last bus and an 8 mile walk in icy drizzle sums up my ineptitude! Looking back it is clear that our discussions on both days took place against a backcloth of economic and political crisis. Talk of the market and of capitalism wriggled in and out of our critical conversations. Such a focus is not at all the obsession of  left-wing dissidents or indeed the contemporary Occupy movement. It is the deep concern of the mainstream.

Thus, while I am knocking together provisional thoughts on the themes of our seminars. I’m posting a video of Paul Mason from Newsnight, musing on the changing character of politics today and the role of social networking, particularly relevant in terms of young people’s grasp of ‘what’s kicking off’, plus a couple of reviews of Paul’s latest book and for the diligent a link to reading Marx’s Das Kapital via a series of videos created by David Harvey. Anyone pursuing the latter will be awarded a specially struck medal, which is not really in order, as Harvey has a serious crack at peeling away the layers of crap surrounding political economy. He shows that we can all understand how the capitalist economy works ; that this knowledge is not the special property of a super breed of supposed ’scientists’. Believe me, have a butcher’s.

Reviews of Paul Mason’s, Why it’s Kicking Off Everywhere

Charting the Way Forward in Revolutionary Times

Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere by Paul Mason – review

History in the making

And for the curious and inquisitive, Reading Capital, 1 and 2 – David Harvey.

In the last of the briefing papers prior to this week’s IDYW Seminars, Bernard Davies highlights and criticises key points in the Positive for Youth ’strategy’, supplemented by some more general observations taken from earlier posts on our site. As with all the papers it is worth repeating that our collective thinking is very much perceived as the catalyst for debate. In this sense we would welcome responses from people unable to attend the seminars. Obviously we will post summaries of this week’s discussions for your delectation and delight!

For discussion at the IDYW seminars: 19/20 January 2012

Notes on the Government’s Positive for Youth (P4Y) ‘strategy’

The purpose of these notes is to highlight some of the key points of the government’s P4Y ‘strategy’ as a basis for asking: what response – if any – should IDYW make beyond what has already appeared on the website. (See also the appendix for more general comments on the appearance of the document.).

Rhetoric and realities

• The ‘passion for ‘youth’ which this new ‘cross-government’ policy statement constantly proclaims converts into little more than ‘facilitating’, ‘supporting’, ‘monitoring’ and ‘committing to a “one year on” audit’ – and comes with no dedicated money.
• Its repeated emphasis on young people’s ‘voice’, their role in decision-making, ‘youth proofing’ etc is revealed as little more than empty gesturing. For example:
  • It all but ignores young people demand for open access provision – expressed in ‘demands for ‘safe and attractive places to spend their leisure time’ and holistic services ‘available in one place’;
  • Even as millions of pounds are cut from local authorities’ budgets, it rules out ring-fencing spending on such facilities.
• The paper also protests too much about how positive for youth the government is. Despite its stated intention to ‘move away from measuring negative outcomes prevented’ (Ministerial introduction), it repeatedly focuses on young people’s ‘risky behaviours’, on the need for ‘targeted support’ (paras 4.14 – 4.19) and ‘intensive support’ (paras 4.20 – 27), on ‘under 18 conception rates’ and ‘the number entering the criminal justice system for the first time’ (para 5.37).

Analysis – what analysis?

• These ‘negative’ conditions are largely explained as the ‘outcomes’ of being in ‘poorer families’ and ‘deprived communities’. No government or banker or indeed employer can apparently be held responsible for this poverty and deprivation – only individuals (especially individual young people with under-developed brains!), families and ‘communities’.
• Repeatedly this disconnect with the current realities of young people’s lives is masked by a dishonest shiftiness of language. A financial crisis reaching to the fundamentals of capitalism thus gets translated into ‘the current difficult economic climate’ (Ministerial introduction). Young people’s views on the resultant social divide are explained merely as concerns ‘about those who are materially well-off’ and those who aren’t’ (para 2.14).
• What is not owned up to further deepens this dissembling:
  • The paper contains no substantive reference to the current, only-too-real experience of the over 1M 16-24 year olds without jobs.
  • It never acknowledges that ‘not in education and training’ may now have something to do with the loss of EMA – and that many squeezed into that category are part of the 1M+.
  • Nor that the homelessness on which the paper dwells for four paragraphs may have something to do with cuts in welfare benefits.
  • And how is it that the battery of statistics quoted from the O2 research ‘Think Big, Start Small’ fails to mention the one that ‘almost one in four (23%) of young people feel(ing) depressed about their future…’¹?
• And then here are the examples of claiming credit for policies which were the previous government’s – such as the MyPlace developments; or which are inferior substitutes for them – such as ‘the new Bursary Fund’ (replacement for the much more generous EMA), and the ‘Early Intervention’ funding (replacement for funding streams which, with all their faults, were much more flexible and, again, more generous).

Action – what action?

• The ‘consultation’ on which the paper repeatedly claims to rest was from the start tightly boxed in my by non-negotiable assumptions. ² Two key ones were: minimum government funding and minimum direct government action – unsurprising given this government’s obsession with getting the state out of public services by the end of this parliament.
• The result: everyone but the government must do the P4Y implementing: young people themselves (in the name, of course, of ‘youth voice’ and ‘young people driving decisions’); ‘parents, carers and families’; ‘community leaders, volunteers and other adults’; the media and advertisers; ‘business leaders, employers and individual professionals’; professionals in education, health and care services, local authorities.
• This is why the government ends up merely as facilitator, supporter, monitor, auditor – as just to ‘set direction and promote new and positive ways of thinking and working’.
• For actual action we have to rely on commissioning others, on ‘growing the market’ and making it ‘more contestable’, on ‘social investment’ and ‘social enterprise’.

And youth work and Youth Services?

• In ways reminiscent of New Labour policy papers, P4Y manages to give youth work and youth workers (though not the Youth Service) an occasional rhetorical stroking. For example:
  • Youth workers … can make a crucial difference to young people’s lives, including by offering ‘informal learning and personal and social development’. (Para 3.12).
  • … detached and centre-based youth work and youth workers make a vital contribution to the lives of many young people’ – helping engage them in their communities and supporting their personal and social development through informal learning. (Para 4.73).
  • … investment in young people’s capabilities and character through high quality youth work … can have a significant impact on young people’s life chances. (Para 5.20).

The paper also ‘confirms’ local authorities’ statutory duty to secure sufficient leisure-time educational and recreational activities. (Para 5.7).

• However all these are qualified in ways which leaves at serious risk youth work with which young people choose to engage in open access settings, which starts from their concerns and interests and which is therefore genuinely emancipatory. For example:
  • The local authorities’ statutory duty is only ‘to secure’ provision and, as the paper twice reiterates, extends only as far as ‘is reasonably practicable’.
  • The government is now to consult anyway, ‘including with young people’, on new statutory guidance on this duty – which in present circumstances must raise serious concerns that it is to be watered down still further.
  • The ‘stroking’ inserts all end with caveats which betray where this policy’s priorities for youth work really lie:
    • Page 25 – The one substantive ‘youth work’ case study included focuses on ‘the most vulnerable students … at risk of permanent exclusion’ from college.
    • Para 3.12 – with ‘the needs of young people from socially excluded groups’;
    • Para 4.73 – with ‘those young people who don’t get the support or opportunities they need from their family or community’ – even though, we are repeatedly told, it is just these ‘communities’ which must now take over this provision;
    • Para 5.20 – with youth work as ‘an important form of early intervention for young people at risk of poor outcomes’.

• Para 5.20 also re-emphasises that ‘local areas will need to consider what balance of targeted services and open access services will best meet local needs’ – which, with up to £200M and 3000 full-time youth worker posts disappearing in this financial year, can only be a formula for abandoning open access provision.

• It is in this context, who then has the responsibility for providing the explanatory ‘narrative for the role and impact of youth work’? ‘A group of national youth sector leaders’ which, because ‘commissioned’ by the minister, can claim no representation of the field or guaranteed independence of government. (Para 5.12).

And instead?

Instead we could have the open access youth work as documented by IDYW book, with accounts of practice – contradictory and often unfinished – which illustrate how some of the very outcomes sought by P4Y could be pursued – for example:

• Releasing the ‘voice’ of young people. (‘On the boundary’; ‘Creative improvisation’; ‘The power of graffiti’; ‘A modest journey in self-discovery’).
• Helping ‘ethnic minority’ young people to confront ‘discrimination’ (‘Holding onto your dignity’; ‘Beyond stereotype and prejudice’).
• Helping young people to engage ‘positively with, within but also beyond their communities. (‘On the boundary’; ‘Creative improvisation’; ‘Beyond stereotype and prejudice’).
• Dealing with ‘knife crime’ (‘Creative improvisation’)
• Responding to young people’s personal, family and mental health stresses. (‘Pen and paper youth work’; ‘I wouldn’t be the person I am today’; ‘The youth centre as sanctuary’)
• Diverting young people from adult-perceived risks of ‘anti-social behaviour’. (‘The power of graffiti’; ‘Beyond aggression to eye contact’; ‘The youth centre as sanctuary’).
• Supporting young people to get the most out of their schooling and re-engage in education. (‘Casual – and informal’; ‘Getting accredited’; ‘A modest journey in self-discovery’; ‘The youth centre as sanctuary’).
• Making accessible ‘careers advice’ available to young people. (‘Casual – and informal’; ‘The youth centre as sanctuary’).
• Supporting young carers. (‘The youth centre as sanctuary’).

How to respond?

P4Y’s proposed ‘accountability and transparency’ arrangements include:

• ‘A national scrutiny group of representative young people … (to) advise Government ministers. (Para 6.12).
• An annual UK Youth Parliament debate in the House of Commons chamber. (Para 6.13).
• Meeting with the ‘partners’ who have contributed to the policy’s development – which in practice largely means those that signed a Guardian letter dated 20 December offering uncritical support for P4Y.³
• A ‘Youth Action Group’ made up of the Chief Executives seven ministerially selected ‘Large national charities’, two of whom signed the Guardian letter.
• Advise from Catalyst, the Department for Educations’ ‘strategic partner for the voluntary and community sector’ which include NCYVS and NYA (also a signatory to the Guardian letter). (Para 6.17).
• Scrutiny by the Children’s Commissioner – whose future role is now unclear as it is to be combined with that of Ofsted’s Children’s Right Director. (Para 6.19).
• Using these ‘collaborative arrangements’, a ‘one year on’ audit of progress in implementing the policy. (Para 6.20).

For discussion

What can IDYW do to influence P4Y via these arrangements?

Is that anyway where it should be putting its energies and limited resources?

Appendix

The Youth Service is dead : Long live youth services? A sorry tale!

20 December 2011

In the dying days of 2011 youth work as a distinctive form of voluntary, young people-centred education seems to have been laid to rest, no longer recognised as such within government policy. It’s been coming for a while. New Labour started the rot, replacing talk of youth work with an insistence on ‘positive activities’ and the targeting of ‘anti-social’ youth.  Reciting the same mantra the Coalition in the ‘P4Y’ policy statement of December 19 seeks to consign the unruly world of authentic social and political education to the graveyard.

If they could be bothered with my comments, the spin-doctors of such as the NYA, NCVYS and UK Youth would be aggrieved. Having had the ear of the Minister for the last 18 months they hail the report, its emphasis on the role of business partnerships, its vision and sycophantically announce, “Today we can be positive about the Government”.  From this position of utter capitulation they promise us they are going to insist on decisive Action Plans for its implementation. The Coalition, indeed Capitalism, trembles.

How did this come about? Let me try out the following as a simple starter for discussion:

1. Under New Labour, wedded itself utterly to the neo-liberal agenda, discussion about youth work was replaced by talk of ‘positive activities’ and youth services in the plural. If conscious the latter was a clever move. Youth work had always been synonymous with the Youth Service. The idea of youth services seems to retain this relationship, but in reality this is an illusion.
2. For under the Coalition the Youth Service is on the edge of extinction while a plethora of youth services are said to be rushing to the aid of young people. By now youth services means any and every intervention into young people’s lives undertaken by Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Some of these are useful and necessary, if flawed in their emphasis on young people and families as deficient – related to employment and training, enhanced PSE in schools, early intervention – but they do not constitute youth work. More and more these incursions into young people’s lives are imposed on the state’s terms. Youth work, let us repeat, starts from young people’s agendas and is founded on a voluntary relationship.
3. But the job’s been done. Today, youth service, youth services and youth work are used interchangeably as it suits. And in the vanguard of  those it suits are local authorities bent on outsourcing and commissioning, together with major voluntary youth organisations such as NCVYS and UK Youth and the host of aspiring social enterprise outfits queuing up to bid for contracts to rescue the ‘vulnerable and disadvantaged’. The rationale for this promiscuity of principle is that these agencies and their workers are taking with them their youth work values, skills and methodologies packaged neatly in an all-purpose tool kit – youth work is dead, long live youth work. Thus we come full circle. The notion of youth work is resurrected when pragmatically necessary to describe any form of work with young people [for which funding can be procured] and is thus rendered meaningless.

Postscript

In addition Tony Taylor gave the following responses to questions posed by Charlotte Goddard for her research for an article to appear in CYPN.

Why do you think many youth organisations are being so positive about the paper?

I think the senior management of major voluntary organisations made their and thus their agencies’ minds up that survival depended on adapting to the State agenda. I have to say too that the mentality of the present breed of chief executives is different than those of the past, who would indeed never have taken the title of chief executive. Frankly the present crop are new managerial in inclination and sycophantic in their relationship to government. Interestingly they have rationalised that the way forward is for their organisations to embrace the notion of youth services. Indeed I have heard at least one of them claim a higher moral ground than those of us defending youth work, suggesting that our stance is narrow and that he/she is concerned to address the width of young people’s problems. This is an attractive, if disingenuous stance, as it allows these leading organisations under commissioning/privatisation to put in bids to deliver almost any form of work with young people, be it early intervention family and youth social work, restorative justice, preparation for employment and training, soft policing/surveillance projects, leisure and diversion etc…..In essence what this means – and is shamefully brushed under the carpet – is that these organisations abandon their historical role as independent actors in civil society and become no more than agents for the delivery of the government’s welfare measures. I should modify this by noting it will be interesting to see if BYC, under pressure from its members, can chart a more critical course in leading the Youth Voice initiative.

Can youth work be delivered through the models suggested by the paper (mutuals, involvement of business, payment by results etc)?

If by youth work we mean an emancipatory practice that is a critical, creative and unpredictable form of informal education, any imposition of prescribed outcomes, necessary guarantees and results is its very antithesis. Whilst it is not impossible for mutuals or indeed business to support such open-ended work, the neo-liberal ideology underpinning P4Y seems to preclude this way forward.

What will be the effect on young people if the proposals for delivering services to young people in this paper come about?

I have never been one of those, who exaggerate the impact of youth work upon young people in our society. What I am convinced about is that where and when youth work holds to its democratic principles and emancipatory practice it contributes greatly to the nourishing of critically aware citizens. As a distinctive form of education it ought to be sustained and developed. Instead it is being suffocated. As we can see much work with young people will continue. It would be a terrible cock-up if, for instance, young people didn’t enjoy parts, if not the whole, of the NCS – at least the residential weekend, which is hardly earth-shatteringly innovative!! However the overriding emphasis of P4Y is upon social conformity. If I am to speculate I can see a trend in which the youth services engage with either  ‘anti-social’ young people defined as needing early intervention or the aspiring social entrepreneurs, would-be politicians, symbolised by the raft of Young Advisors, Young Commissioners. Young Entrepreneurs type initiatives. Many young people not falling into these contrasting camps will simply be sidelined. None of this is immediately measurable. None of this takes serious account of a profound economic and political crisis, ignored utterly in the government’s document.