As people begin to respond to the Letter, they are starting to comment critically on its contents. We will post  these reflections here and hope that fruitful argument will flower!

Kevin Morris from Sunderland suggests that we should  underline the insidious impact of the prolific ‘risk assessment’ that pervades practice and the attempts to remove any risk (litigation) from the work, or indeed any spontaneity – the ‘art of youth work’.

Andy Whinnerah from Stockton expresses his concern that:

One of the most worrying aspects of this is the paradigm shift that has occurred from the “old” paradigm of a service built upon the foundations of trust, relationship building aimed at bringing young people into an environment where work could take place and, generally, fairly intangible benefits such as increased self esteem, better socialisation skills and increased political awareness, to the “new” paradigm of a service built upon the foundations of intervention, targeted work, compulsion/coercion and the results of accreditations, meeting of hard targets and the reduction of anti-social behaviour and reduction of NEETS. These latter outcomes are noble in themselves and have a definite place in the broader church of youth and community work however to restrict the entire cannon of the work to these narrow functions is to deny the very core values that have shaped the development of generations of youth and community workers and that have supported and enhanced the lives of generations of young people. My greatest fear is that the universal and voluntary nature of youth and community work will be destroyed leaving a narrow and restrictive target led service which will in turn give us a new cadre of identikit youth workers who see no need to develop the “soft” skills that make current workers individual and responsive to a wide variety of situations and environments.

Brandon Wells from Glyndwr University has come up with a couple of apt slogans:

Youth Work is about more than youth ‘working’!

Lifelong Learning is about more than lifelong ‘earning’!

I’m already halfway to ordering a banner to be made! Thanks, Brandon.

Andy Gibson from Stockwood expresses his concern that:

One thing that we should think about is the alcohol question. Here are we as youth workers doing the governments bidding and targeting young people who are drinking and considered to be ‘the problem’. Where as in reality they are the victims of an avaricious drinks industry, targeting millions of pounds of advertising and marketing at making drinking cool and selling the maximum amount of drink to young (and maybe vulnerable) people as they possibly can. Building temples to alcohol consumption on our high streets and designing them so the only thing that you can do in them is drink. Who are the victims here? And what, as youth workers, do we do about it?

Simon Cooper from Hertfordshire argues:

I hope plenty of our colleagues sign your letter. In the sixteen years or so since I started out in youth work it has become extended school (at least would be if I were to bow to the pressure) what happened to recognising our values?

I am sick of hearing “target this target that get this many accredited outcomes this many recorded outcomes this many contacts this many participants”  !!

Where does the recognition come for the informal conversations that we have with young people these days? I know that the impact of impartial advice, support in making choices, giving young people a space to express their feelings ….( I could go on but I wont ) – is generally worth more to a young person than a certificate that says ‘I can bake a cake’.

Youth work is a passion and carried out by passionate workers, we are not robots and nor are the young people that we work with !

Sorry, this wasn’t supposed to turn into a rant ! But please add my name to the list.

Mike F-W of the Home Education Network observes

Someone posted a link of your article about youth work to an Elective Home
Education network.

I’m not a youth worker, though I once was a volunteer youth worker in my
20’s way back in the 1970’s (god that makes me feel old). I got so much out
of the work I did then.

Anyway, I’d just like to pass on our support for what you say about informal
learning opportunities, they are becoming so scarce.

Many of us home educators avoid government planned resources like youth
clubs etc, especially anything associated with connexions due to the level
of surveillance involved and the loss of privacy that is inherent in these
groups.

We often recognise the difficulties the front line workers are operating
under and the degree of coercion involved from central government.

When I remember the organic nature of local youth clubs in the 1970’s and
the good work that was undertaken at these groups back then and how all that
is now lost. I find myself totally unsurprised by the degree to which so
many young people today are involved in unsocial and self destructive
behaviour and cannot help but blame the counter productive policies of
central government and its control obsessive management of the population.

Best wishes

Mike F-W
Your man in a hammock