I’ll Tell You What Youth Workers Really Do!

As a contribution to the debate about the character and purpose of the work, see Howard Williamson’s sharp Opinion piece, I’ll tell you what youth workers really do

His closing anecdote about first being inspected makes me smile and cry a little.

My problem as a youth worker was being able to work out in advance what this balance of practice was going to be. It all depended on the groups of young people I was working with, what was unfolding in their lives, and the demands and requests they made of me. I realised this was a rather unpalatable position for managers and inspectors almost from the start of my paid youth work career. The first inspector to visit me asked to see a copy of my unit plan for the coming year. I told him bluntly I did not have one. He seemed to think I was joking or lying. I simply said that I would like him to judge my real practice retrospectively, not my paper practice prospectively. In a year’s time, I said, I’ll tell you what I did.

In today’s climate, try saying this and getting away with it!

Young People, Jobs and Youth Clubs

Doug Nicholls has been in touch with the following significant message:

Once again the scourge of mass youth unemployment has returned. I did not think it would happen again after the devastating effects of the 1980s.

As you will know CYWU is now part of Unite the Union. Unite is organising a national march for jobs on May 16^th in Birmingham. See attached leaflet and transport details from all parts of the country are on www.unitetheunion.com.

Youth workers have organised a special event for under 25s on the day. Please see attached details. A further leaflet will follow. This will take place in The Repertory Theatre, Centenary Square, Birmingham where the march ends from 2.30-4.00pm. There will be food and refreshments.  It will give young people an opportunity to express their hopes and fears in this terrible economic situation and their voices will be listened to by MPs and leading union figures. There should be an opportunity to make a DVD of the event and concerns raised also.

Not only is there a very high youth unemployment rate, but support services for young people are now being cut badly in many parts of the country.

I write to appeal for your support for this event generally and the youth event more particularly. Please promote it to your constituents. Please declare your active support for the event if you are able. Please encourage youth groups to attend and help make a difference. It would of course particularly assist if you are able to promote it to Midlands based constituencies of yours.

We want this to be a community event. We want this to be a young people’s event. The late notification is indicative of the urgent situation our economy and young people are in.

Please publicise, find attached leaflet.youth-event-may-16th-1

Meanwhile, children’s workers employed by Coventry Council have threatened to hold a strike over feared job losses.

Following a meeting on 29 April with the union Unite, staff in the authority’s children’s and family education service said they were prepared to take industrial action over proposed council budget cuts.

Unite’s national secretary for community and youth workers Doug Nicholls said: “We are determined that democracy and good sense will prevail. These jobs and services will not go. Skilled professionals and children’s support will not be thrown on the scrap heap along with our manufacturing and public services.

Fuller story at CYPN and the Coventry Telegraph

Whilst next week, staff in Rhondda Cynon Taff‘s youth service are set to hear the final proposals for a major restructuring of the service, which is designed to plug a £4.8m hole in council finances.

Earlier this year, the council revealed plans that would see six centres closed, four merged into two and four youth clubs transferred into schools in the Welsh Valley region. Grants paid to voluntary youth providers will also be reviewed to ensure there is no duplication of service.

Dawn Rees, branch secretary of the Community and Youth Workers’ Union, part of Unite, said: “We are going through a massive restructure with no real consultation. We are being told ‘you like it or lump it’. The big concern is that the cuts and closures will be detrimental to the service and leave some areas with no youth provision at all.”

Further detail at CYPN

INVOLVING YOUNG PEOPLE

BUILDING THE CAMPAIGN

Involving Young People

Norman Maines in his message of support for the In Defence campaign raises a classic dilemma, often sidestepped within Youth Work. To what extent do we ever relate to young people as equals in arguing about and doing something about the state of Youth Work? My suspicion is that we shy away from involving young people directly in the defence of jobs and services  for fear of being accused of manipulating them to serve our own ends. Certainly in my own experience the one time I got formally disciplined was in respect of my support for an embryo youth council, which didn’t play by the rules, within which  young people sought to question and criticise on their terms. The thrust of the Council’s and management’s argument was that I had put young people up to no good. Certainly this estimate was deeply patronising to the young people themselves. Indeed they put out a newspaper, which closed with a back page announcement that its contents owed nothing to the young people themselves and everything to the youth workers clouding their minds! Sadly, yet predictably, the irony fell on closed ears.

In this context it would be illuminating to hear your views on how young people might be authentically be our partners in the Defence of Youth Work?