Conference Reflections 1

We welcome your critical  thoughts on the conference. To start the pram perambulating, here are some early contributions from those attending.

Lenny muses:

I think the new management culture (bureaucracy) has been developing and strengthening its own systems and structures to the point where it has taken control of society.  I felt this shortly after Thatcher kicked our arses in the miners strike.  Where bureaucracy used to support, it is now in command.  Where bureaucracy once supported capitalism, capitalism now supports bureaucracy.  I must admit I’m not the greatest fan of Marx and so I don’t believe capitalism will necessarily consume itself.  I think Marx underestimated the strength of technology and that technology has protected the structures and that… what the fuck am I raving on about?!!!    How do you deal with an aggressive management culture?  We can’t fight it toe-to-toe because it is far too big and we are far too small (at the moment).  My own strategy has been a self-destructive one.  I have told the system that I disagree with it and now I’m a marked man.  It doesn’t matter how much honesty and integrity I have, I’m still seen as an agitator, a trouble-causer and an irritant.  I was called a “loose cannon” a couple of months ago that really hurt.  I always see a loose cannon as being someone who is reckless and destructive whereas my focus has always been on “fixing” things which don’t work properly.  If I’m not allowed to fix something, which is pretty much the case here, then I expose it.  I’m also a very cautious worker and … I digress… again.  How do you deal with an aggressive management culture?  If you want to keep your job I suggest you create an anonymous channel for critical debate.  I suggest that you, me all of us make this debate as public as possible so that others who are disillusioned may seek some comfort and support and encouragement in knowing they are not alone.  If we can encourage everyone to talk by offering anonymity then we will have a situation where our voice is louder and we will also be able to look at our numbers.  At the moment we haven’t got a clue how many people out there are disheartened by this situation.  Maybe there is only a handful of us but maybe there are thousands of us.  I think this information is important so that we can build strategies around it.  It’s a bit of a vicious cycle isn’t it?  People won’t speak out because they feel exposed and vulnerable but people feel exposed and vulnerable because no one else is speaking out.

Trevor adds:

Thank you for the lead in organising the IDoYW; which incidently looks like txt speak for I do Youth Work. which can’t be bad!

For me it renewed my focus on reasons that I am a youth worker and the one thing I focused on was that there is an urgent need to ‘claim the name’ by which we need to ensure that to be called a ‘Youth Worker’ you have to be JNC qualified!  At present anyone can call themselves a ‘youth worker’ and I personally resent this as I couldn’t claim to be a ‘Lawyer’, ‘Social Worker’ or ’Doctor’ so why isn’t the name Youth Worker protected in the same way?  If we won this battle then many of the threats to Youth Work would stop and we would have our place at the IYSS table protected.

And Andrew argues;

During my attendence of the most recent conference In Defence of Youth Work and the days following I have been in conflict regarding the tone and premise of the campaign. I do not disagree with the arguments raised. However in all honesty I found many aspects reactionary. I feel in some situations we missed the point. Yet the point was elusive to me, until now. The whole campaign in my view should be ‘In Support of Youth Work.’ To defend is to define. To defend is to identify a moment in which we associate and identify as needing defending.

To promote is to explore to look forward to open up. It is to say ‘We as an organisation of professional Youth and Community Workers promote and encourage Youth Work as a recognised celebrated successful way to informally educate and be educated. In doing so we will explore & provide opportunities to develop youth work with guiding principles of voluntary participation, leading to social, economic, physical, spiritual and political emancipation and empowerment. This will allow young people to be informed, yet challenged, critical yet communitarians, contributers not consumers within their family, society, culture, country and the world in which they live.’

We do this with support of central government, voluntary aided organisations, charities, faith groups and community groups. Our agenda is Young People and the community in which they live. It is our intent to promote and support this agenda as our own and In Support Of Youth Work for today tomorrow and the future.

CYWU COMPOSITE IN SUPPORT OF OUR CAMPAIGN

COMPOSITE 1 – JNC PAY AND CONDITIONS AND THE DEFENCE OF YOUTH AND COMMUNITY WORK.

Conference believes that Joint Negotiating Committee for Youth and Community Workers (JNC) is the recognised national terms and conditions agreement for Professional Youth and Community workers in the Community Youth Workers and not for profit sector of Unite.

Conference therefore calls on the newly formed Regional Industrial Sector Committees to draw up a campaign to support and actively promote JNC within the public and voluntary sectors and in conjunction with the National Industrial Sector Committee to undertake research into any threats to JNC and inform members of progress in this work.

Conference notes the pressure and recognition that central Government has placed upon Youth Workers over the past year in reducing anti social behaviour, gang crime, crime in general, and reducing the numbers of those young people not in education, employment or training, using drugs and lowering teenage pregnancy rates. Conference recognises that this success is due to youth workers’ unique relationship with young people which is one of voluntary engagement with young people.

Conference further recognises that Central Government funding has not been passed down to Local Authority Youth Services but commissioned out, and in addition Local Authority and voluntary sector Services have been pressurised to provide extra services for young people on Fridays and weekends.

Conference therefore calls upon the Union to put pressure on Central Government and Local Authorities to direct funding to enable Local Authority and voluntary sector Youth Services to employ more staff and resources where they have the experience and expertise to provide cost effective services to young people.

Linked to this, this conference also notes with concern the way that Youth and Community Education and Training is moving away from being informed by progressive values, social justice and inclusive processes towards a depoliticised, narrower, competency based framework.

Conference therefore calls on the National Industrial Sector Committee to put pressure on all institutions involved in the education and training of community and youth workers in order to reverse this trend through fully supporting and promoting the “In Defence of Youth Work” campaign”.

As I have underlined in my Summary piece this is a powerful statement, bedevilled by the fact that many IN DEFENCE supporters are not on JNC pay and conditions. We need to wrestle with this dilemma in the coming months. And, whilst I may be alone, I have never been convinced by the tactic of embracing the government’s line that youth workers are significantly in the business of reducing anti-social behaviour, crime etc….. In my opinion, conceding to this agenda back in the early 90′s has played a part in the insidious undermining of our distinctive identity as informal educators. The claim in the third paragraph of the Composite that our supposed success in reducing ‘bad behaviour’ is based on our voluntary engagement with young people is to muddy the waters deeply. A dimension within the IN Defence campaign is to argue precisely that the State’s strategy of insisting upon a behavioural approach to young people has pushed youth workers more and more into prescribed, imposed relationships, the very antithesis of voluntary engagement.

TT

Break the Shackles of New Labour

You will find below a challenge to youth workers and management thrown down by Bernard Davies. It first appeared in a shorter version on the pages of Children and Young People Now at

http://community.cypnow.co.uk/forums/p/1591/4714.aspx#4714

It begins:

As youth workers struggle with their target-driven ‘agendas’, they can take heart from the gathering backlash against the New Labour ‘project’ for public services– and the high powered names it is attracting. Over a year ago Sir Brian McMaster, in sub-titling his report on excellence in the arts ‘From Measurement to Judgment’, pointed to a need to ‘move away from “top-down” targets’. More recently, BBC Reith lecturer Michael Sandel concluded that the era of ‘market triumphalism‘ now ended was far too dependent on a ‘market-mimicking calculus’ whose assumptions were ‘no better than a hunch’.

In response I mused: It will come as no surprise that I endorse Bernard’s succinct summing up of the contradictions now faced by youth workers and their management. What is now more interesting than further analysis from such as myself is the continuing and overwhelming silence of those within youth work still wedded to the target culture. Who is willing from within the ranks of the Youth Work bureaucracy to step forward and defend the selling of its soul to the ideology of the market?

Breaking the shackles of New Labour’s policy

Comments and criticisms of Bernard’s piece warmly welcomed.