Following a lively debate on our Facebook page, precipitated by the Labour Party leadership contest and the appearance of Jeremy Corbyn’s Better Future for Young People document, Jason Pandya-Wood, Head of Sociology at Nottingham University and co-author of the just published, ‘ Youth Work: Preparation for Practice’, has issued the following open invitation.
Friends, some of us have expressed a desire to build on the great campaign work done by people on this IDYW forum (& elsewhere) to design and act on a new political engagement strategy for investing in youth work. I’m particularly keen to see what we can learn from the successes of broad based community organising (see Citizens UK) and from our collective experiences of political lobbying.
I’d like to invite you to a meeting in Nottingham to start this process.
Please can you indicate ALL dates that you can do in the doodle poll by following this link? Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
http://doodle.com/9dddyqm9nkcn3c4f
Best wishes,
Jason
In Defence of Youth Work welcomes Jason’s overture. We believe that it would be a step forward to create a broad and pluralist alliance in support of youth work. We acknowledge that our campaign is perceived by some as too radical in its orientation, whilst ChooseYouth for all its sterling work is identified by others as above all prioritising the profession. Whatever is the case these issues can be talked through together in a spirit of positive dialogue. As we understand it key players such as ChooseYouth, the NYA, NCVYS, UK Youth will be invited to contribute to the exploratory meeting. The Institute of Youth Work has already indicated its support. It would be daft to expect this initial coming together to do more than agree a tentative way forward, but we hope sincerely that this will happen. There is a growing mood of resistance to the consequences of austerity, a resuscitation in a commitment to the common good. In a small, but significant way the proposed meeting is a reflection of this desire. Long may it continue.
IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK 
[…] to our post welcoming this initiative from Jason Pandya-Wood, A Campaign for Youth Work, a date for an initial meeting has been set. The coming together of kindred spirits will take place […]