Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Youth and Community Development Team, Bradford College

· The relationship between universal and targeted services for young people;

1. We are concerned that the balance of provision has moved towards targeted work. We note at the present time that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find placements for our students in suitable generic or universal settings.

2. As a team we believe strongly that there is a need to support a variety of universal and targeted provision that is on offer to a wide variety of young people. This provision should focus on the delivery of informal education experiences for young people. Young people should be able to attend through their own choice.

3. Transforming Youth Work – Resourcing Excellent Youth Services (2002 DfES) proposed levels of resource that should be aspired to throughout the country.

4. Should members of the Select Committee desire there is a publication: ‘The Benefits of Youth Work’ produced by Lifelong Learning UK and Unite that offers a comprehensive and compact guide to benefits that youth work has to offer. This available at:

http://www.cywu.org.uk/assets/content_pages/187799973_Benefits_Of_Youth_Work.pdf

· The training and workforce development needs of the sector;  

5. As a team currently involved in training youth and community workers we are concerned about a number of developments affecting Higher Education.

6. We believe that proposed changes to the funding of Higher Education, particularly higher fees will impact negatively on the ability of potential students to attend and study courses such as ours. Despite the possibility of some financial relief we believe that the fear of potential significant debt will be a serious detriment, especially as our students come from diverse backgrounds, tend to be older and have family responsibilities. A significant number of our students come from diverse backgrounds. They enrich the profession by their background and experiences. We contribute strongly to the widening participation agenda. It is vital that this continues so that all communities are represented.

7. These factors combine to mean that over a period less students are likely to attend courses such as ours meaning the supply of staff throughout the field will be limited. Thus the wider service will be affected and new initiatives such as the National Citizen Service and the development of the ‘Big Society’ will be affected.

8. Additionally as a number of our students receive sponsorship from employers through traineeships these numbers are likely to be reduced.

9. Graduates from our courses are likely to gain jobs in either the voluntary or statutory sectors. There are a range of pay scales but they vary considerably. A graduate is not likely to be guaranteed a particularly high wage and this may act as a deterrent from studying in the first place.

10. As our students undertake academic study and professional fieldwork placement experiences they struggle to earn money through part-time employment sufficient to support themselves and their families through their period of study.

11. Professional courses such as ours are regulated annually on a monitoring basis and revalidated on a five year cycle by the National Youth Agency (NYA). It is vital that the funding to the NYA is at a level to ensure it is effective in its validation, regulation and support role. Recent announcements of job losses at the NYA are a cause of great concern indicating that it will have difficulty fulfilling its role effectively.

12. As noted our students undertake profession placements. Youth and Community Development courses are not funded at a national level to support the agencies sufficiently to offer the professional supervision to a level that we would ideally value. This has been an on-going problem for many years and means we cannot demand or expect the level of supervision necessary to ensure that the maximum is gained from the placement experience. In many ways we are fortunate that we have exceptionally good relationships with the field but the agencies we work with would gain greatly from a fair level of remuneration for the role they fulfil.

13. We understand that the changes to higher education funding mean there are likely to be less funds available to the subjects in the humanities. As the curriculum for youth work involves the subjects of psychology, sociology and social policy to give an analytical and philosophical underpinning to their studies it is likely that our course will be negatively affected by the loss of these subject specialist staff and the experience off working alongside other students in subjects such as social work, education, or health and social welfare. Thus despite its practical work related nature the emphasis of the course will be negatively impacted upon.

· How services for young people can meet the Government’s priorities for volunteering, including the role of National Citizen Service;

14. Youth workers play a significant part in training young people, including supporting them to be volunteers and potentially contributing to both the ‘Big Society’ and the National Citizen Service. The loss of potential youth work staff noted in 5 above means that these developments will be hindered. Additionally courses such as ours could contribute to the training of volunteers offering both academic and practical training and experience.

15. Given the mechanisms being in place for young people to become involved in the National Citizen Service then youth work can play a part in opening up these opportunities to young people and linking into the new service proposed.

16. Professional Youth Work courses such as ours have the expertise and flexibility to equip youth work professionals with the skills and knowledge, to effectively contribute to and operate within the changing face of community and youth work practice.

· Which young people access services, what they want from those services and their role in shaping provision;

17. In our experience a variety of young people from different backgrounds and communities access services. It is vital that the potential of youth work remains through a properly funded and resourced service

December 2010