Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Centre for Youth Work Studies, Brunel University

This submission is made on behalf of the academics involved in courses of professional education for youth and community workers at Brunel University. Currently, these courses are located in the School of Health Sciences and Social Care. At the present time, Brunel has a BA (Hons) Youth and Community Work programme and a MA Youth and Community Work course. Students completing these courses achieve a JNC qualification in addition to their degree.

The submission deals specifically with the Training and Workforce Development Needs of the Sector (point 5), although it also touches on other points.

The Sector’s Training and Development Needs

1. We argue that the economic and social conditions that have developed in the UK and elsewhere have made young people’s transitions more and more challenging. Some young people find transition to adulthood more difficult that others and require increasing support. We believe that post-recessionary Britain will exacerbate these challenges and will make the provision of skilled and reflexive youth and community work more necessary in coming years. The circumstances facing many young people (especially given projected changes in Higher Education funding) will mean that the kind of support provided by youth workers will assume even greater significance.

2. There is evidence that youth services are effective (see, for example, Merton, B. et al. 2004, ‘ An evaluation of the impact of youth work in England’, DfES Research Report RR606), lead to positive outcomes for young people, make a good contribution to the outcomes defined by Every Child Matters (see, for example, NYA, 2008, ‘The contribution of youth work to Every Child Matters Outcomes’) and are efficient in their deployment of resources (see, for example, NYA, 2010, Valuing Youth Work). Despite this evidence, we think that more could be done in research and evaluation terms to demonstrate the value and contribution of youth workers to children’s and young people’s services in both local authority and voluntary sectors.

3. Given all of this, reports of actual and impending cutbacks in budgets for youth services are alarming.

4. It is clear that the youth and community services have continuing need for a well-trained and competent workforce. NVQ qualifications may meet some of these requirements (at the level of youth support worker, for example) but we argue that the complex needs and circumstances faced by young people mean that specialized knowledge and skills are required to support them in their transitions. We believe that a first degree or a postgraduate qualification provides the necessary intellectual and practice depth for this.

5. These graduate-level courses offer students combined academic and vocational qualifications. This means that they have, in the past, had considerable potential in the labour market and our own experience at Brunel is that our students have been able to secure employment in a range of services for young people in London and the South East. Indeed, all of our students are required by the University to be in employment while they complete their courses. This means that they are able to make very strong theory/practice links that enhance both their intellectual and practice development.

6. We argue that as occupational requirements change and develop, these students are in a very strong position to advance their own capacity because they are strongly rooted in a practice culture from the beginning of their course (and, indeed, for many of them, before their courses begin).

7. Current changes to HE funding, particularly the withdrawal of funding to social science and humanities subjects will undermine the capacity of students to read for degrees in youth and community work. There are few bursaries available to these students who are often mature and from so-called ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds. Their experience is frequently invaluable in making contact and working with young people who, themselves, have often found education challenging and have sometimes experienced it as both marginalizing and excluding. It would be a disaster of considerable proportion if these students were denied opportunities to become qualified in youth and community work.

8. It is worth pointing out that many university youth and community work courses are strong performers in terms of widening participation. The demographic of our current second year undergraduate students at Brunel University, to take one example, demonstrates that the cohort is more than 90% BME, and this position is reflected more or less across the sector.

9. The structure of many courses (especially undergraduate programmes) in youth and community work means that students will be unable to support themselves by working if fees rise as projected. Placements (which are unpaid) usually leave little time for extra employed work. Many students undertaking first-degree courses in youth and community work have dependent families and are studying in order to be able to support those families at a later point, as well as being committed to careers in the sector.

10. The withdrawal of HEFCE Band C funding is universally considered to be very unhelpful in relation to undergraduate courses in youth and community work.

11. The coalition government’s social policy strategy is based, partially at least, on the so-called Big Society agenda. This privileges voluntary action, the work of volunteers and a broad vision of localism and community development. Youth and community workers should be central to this strategy and it is difficult to see how it will be effectively delivered in the absence of a skilled professional workforce supporting local initiatives. We are absolutely convinced that the evidence demonstrates youth and community workers’ knowledge, skills and values necessary to supporting and developing that work. Indeed, they should play a leading role in it.

12. The development of the National Citizen Service has the potential to realise the capacity of young volunteers. This will need careful work to ensure that it delivers effectively and youth and community workers have considerable expertise in this field.

Recommendations

We make several general points that we think the Select Committee should take very seriously in its deliberations.

1. We argue that the Select Committee should confirm the important role of youth work in the various early intervention and prevention strategies that have shaped children’s and young people’s services in recent years. Youth workers trained to degree level have a vital continuing role to play in this work.

2. Youth workers already make an important contribution to activities in the civic domain and have undertaken work that will realise the Big Society aspirations proclaimed by the coalition government. Their professional education will support this work.

3. The Select Committee must acknowledge the potential damage that projected cuts to public service budgets will do to the existing network of services for young people and that these will lead to very serious consequences for young people, their families and their communities. We argue that the Select Committee should take a strong position on this.

4. Steps should be taken to protect the funding of university courses leading to JNC recognised professional qualifications. These could include bursary provision and/or the development of new forms of HEFCE funding for degree courses that include professional qualifications like those referred to here. We suggest that NYA has an important role in developing this with government.

5. The establishment of youth worker professional education should have parity with that of other allied qualifications (teaching and social work, for example). This is especially important as youth workers have become well established in recently integrated children’s and young people’s services.

6. We believe that an ongoing research initiative evaluating youth work should be taken, perhaps coordinated by the NYA, and that this should draw on academic and professional expertise. It should be tasked to establish an evidence base that can demonstrate the continuing contribution made by youth workers to young people’s successful transitions to adult status and their work in developing the capacity of local communities.

December 2010