As I left my B&B on the morning of our third IDYW conference the receptionist shook her head on hearing of my destination – the Wybourn Young People’s Resource Centre. She hinted that this was not a place to which any right-minded person would venture. As it was I got lost on the estate, but was rescued by two of the friendliest folk you’d care to meet. Chuckling that the place was dear to their hearts – they had been members in the eighties – they pointed me to the classic shape of the renovated former chapel.

The welcome was warm and by the beginning of the event over 40 supporters were soothing our anxiety as to whether anyone would turn up!  It was already clear that Sue Atkins had subverted the frugal notion that we would all bring our own food. All manner of plates of pizza, salad bowls and scrumptious cakes appeared, frankly much to everyone’s delight – the general response being ‘I’ll save my butties for the journey home!’

Knowing these temptations lay in wait we got down to the serious business of the gathering. We opened with the Co-ordinator’s Report, my attempt to give an overview of the year.

IDYW Co-ordinator’s report October 2011

Following on Bernard Davies painted the backcloth to the appearance of our book/DVD, This is Youth Work : Stories of Practice. which is now available on the site on the dedicated page – click on the link furthest to the right on the top banner. We ourselves had that very morning our first sight of the eye-catching hard copy. Thus we played the video of young people from the North-East talking about what youth work means to them – complete with necessary sub-titles! Then we listened to two of the narrations of the twelve stories featured in the book, which are also on the DVD. To round off this encounter with the content of the book Bernard explored two of the themes for practice that emerge from the stories and which are enlarged upon in the publication itself.

The morning session closed with Annette Coburn offering an impassioned argument for youth work as critical pedagogy, whose starting point is the young person and not the youth worker or the state. In common with Jon Ord she espouses a border crossing pedagogy, which might enable engagement in settings where the voluntary principle is compromised. Unfortunately we had no time to pursue this challenging proposal further. To tangle with Annette’s thinking, go to Liberation or Containment, published in Youth&Policy 106.

There followed a break for gorging and gossip!

The afternoon session opened with a riveting  contribution from Rachael McGill of the National Coalition for Independent Action [NCIA], within which in particular she unravelled the destructive consequences of the ConDems’s obsession with ‘commissioning’. In her brilliant critique, Voluntary action under threat: what privatisation means for charities and community groups, she comments,

Commissioning is people getting what the government says they should get, not the service they need
In the commissioning model, a service will only be funded if it fits the pre-determine
priorities of the commissioners. Brand new or innovative work is too high risk for a market-based
system and too hard to cost and evaluate. While grants supported the principle
behind an organisation’s existence, sometimes providing core funding for office and staffing
without specifying particular activities, commissioning is project-specific. The loss of support
for the broader philosophy of an organisation can mean the loss of its ability to respond
flexibly to changing local need.

The rigid monitoring of most commissioned services and the growing practice of ‘payment by
results’ (meaning the organisation will get paid according to successes achieved, such as
number of unemployed people put into jobs) doesn’t allow for natural development. It
discourages holistic or preventative services which have less clear or immediate outcomes.
Long term thinking and planning are impossible because contracts are short, with no
guarantee of renewal, and government priorities and funding systems are always changing.

Rachael’s sweeping and informative analysis was complemented from below by Tania de St Croix musing on the trials and tribulations of working for a voluntary sector organisation squeezed increasingly by demands from above. Indeed Tania, along with a couple of other brave souls, is involved now in the struggle to create from scratch a workers’ cooperative beholden to nobody except the young people drawn to its provision. Finally Sue Atkins, the Director of Youth Association South Yorkshire, spoke of the tensions involved in keeping alive an organisation, winning funding, whilst hanging on to your principles. In her inimitable style she wove an analogy, wherein she saw herself as tending an organic garden of democratic youth work, whilst sometimes having to accommodate a grow-bag of artificially imposed activities, but always refusing to have the garden turned into a patio of conformity!

In the closing session we explored ways forward for the Campaign. It was agreed overwhelmingly that the appearance of the book/DVD gave us a positive tool to use at a local, regional and national level to stimulate debate and activity.  Bernard Davies in accepting the role of co-ordinating such a development underlined the need for us to be pro-active. All manner of possibilities await us if we have the energy and will.  Even as I pen this report we are hearing of  meetings being proposed in the South-East and South-West, the Midlands and Scotland.

Despite the odds we have momentum, let’s maintain it. Visit the site for more news and most crucially get in touch if you want support in moving things forward.

And just to add our thanks to Lenny and all the folk at the Wybourn, cheekily renamed ‘The Centre for Real Youth Work’, for their hospitality and support.