GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

The loss of open access youth work has been devastating for our

communities, as young people do not meet the threshold for the targeted

interventions and cannot get the support they need from their local authorities.

Unlike the Tories, we believe that youth services, like schools and other public

services, should be accessible to all young people all year round. Provision

should also be tailored to local needs, recognising that youth work takes place

in a range of settings in which young people choose to be. Under a Labour

Government local authorities will have a statutory responsibility to work with

partner organisations to develop a diverse universal offer of youth work

provision for young people. Youth work as a professional practice that focuses

on young people’s defined needs through informal education has also been

diminished and undermined by previous Governments who often concentrated

more on meeting employment targets. The fact that youth work is regarded as

a “positive activity” in legislation and the statutory guidance demonstrates a

failure to recognise youth work as a distinct educational process supplementing

formal education whilst harnessing skills not fulfilled in a formal environment.

This is something that was emphasised in the consultation process with

respondents highlighting that we are seeing increasing numbers of excluded

and home educated children and the vast majority of young people of school or

college age who do choose to engage with extracurricular activities do so

outside of school hours. Labour is listening and when we are in government

the main purpose of the youth service will be to provide nonformal education

through personal, social and political development. We will prioritise long term

community based informal education that young people engage in by choice.

Although youth work is a distinct educational process, the concerns of young

people and society’s commitment to nourish them are cross-cutting and require

a holistic approach to policy making. However, this sensible approach has not

been taken by the current Government. The fact that youth policy sits under

the responsibility of the Minister for Sport and Civil Society, an extremely large

portfolio covering civil society, social enterprise, sport, loneliness, horseracing,

gambling and lotteries shows that this important area of youth work is not

receiving the attention it rightfully deserves. We know that cross-cutting co-

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