Youth &Policy

YOUTH &POLICY No. 105 NOVEMBER 2010 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Youth Work in a Cold Climate Straws in the Wind The Antisocialisation of Children and Young People ‘Preferred Futures’ The ‘Teen Brain’ Research What has Cornelius Castoriadis to say about Youth Work? Editorial Group Ruth Gilchrist, Tracey Hodgson, Tony Jeffs, Jean Spence, Mark Smith, Naomi Stanton, Tania de St Croix. Associate Editors Priscilla Alderson, Institute of Education, London Sally Baker, The Open University Simon Bradford, Brunel University Judith Bessant, RMIT University, Australia Lesley Buckland, YMCA George Williams College Bob Coles, University of York John Holmes, Newman College, Birmingham Sue Mansfield, University of Dundee Gill Millar, South West Regional Youth Work Adviser Susan Morgan, University of Ulster Jon Ord, University College of St Mark and St John Jenny Pearce, University of Bedfordshire John Pitts, University of Bedfordshire Keith Popple, London South Bank University John Rose, Consultant Kalbir Shukra, Goldsmiths University Tony Taylor, IDYW Joyce Walker, University of Minnesota, USA Aniela Wenham, University of York Anna Whalen, Freelance Consultant Tom Wylie, Consultant Published by Youth & Policy, ‘Burnbrae’, Black Lane, Blaydon Burn, Blaydon on Tyne NE21 6DX. www.youthandpolicy.org Copyright: Youth & Policy The views expressed in the journal remain those of the authors and not necessarily those of the editorial group. Whilst every effort is made to check factual information, the Editorial Group is not responsible for errors in the material published in the journal. ii Youth & Policy No. 105 November 2010 About Youth & Policy Youth and Policy Journal was founded in 1982 to offer a critical space for the discussion of youth policy and youth work theory and practice. The editorial group have subsequently expanded activities to include the organisation of related conferences, research and book publication. Regular activities include the bi- annual ‘History of Community and Youth Work’ and the ‘Thinking Seriously’ conferences. The Youth and Policy editorial group works in partnership with a range of local and national voluntary and statutory organisations who have complementary purposes. These have included UK Youth, YMCA, Muslim Youth Council and Durham University. All members of the Youth and Policy editorial group are involved in education, professional practice and research in the field of informal education, community work and youth work. The journal is run on a not-for-profit basis. Editors and Associate Editors all work in a voluntary and unpaid capacity. iii Youth & Policy No. 105 November 2010 Contents Youth Work in a Cold Climate Tom Wylie 1 ➤ Straws in the Wind: The State of Youth Work in a Changing Policy Environment Bernard Davies 9 ➤ The Antisocialisation of Children and Young People: Undermining Professionals and Colonising Everyday Life Stuart Waiton 37 ➤ ‘Preferred Futures’: Active Citizenship, Government and Young People’s Voices Jason Wood 50 ➤ The ‘Teen Brain’ Research: Critical Perspectives Howard Sercombe 71 ➤ What has Cornelius Castoriadis to say about Youth Work? Tony Taylor 81 ➤ Reviews 95 ➤ iv Youth & Policy No. 105 November 2010 Contributors Tom Wylie serves as a Trustee for various youth bodies. He was Chief Executive of the National Youth Agency,1996-2007 and prior to that he was one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors. Bernard Davies is an independent trainer and consultant. He is a visiting professor at De Montfort University. Stuart Waiton is a Sociology and Criminology lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee. Jason Wood is Head of Research, Youth and Community Division, De Montfort University. Howard Sercombe is Professor of Community Education at Strathclyde University. Tony Taylor has been involved in Youth Work since the early 1970s. He currently coordinates the ‘In Defence of Youth Work’ Campaign. v Youth & Policy No. 105 November 2010 © YOUTH & POLICY, 2010HOW DO YOU DEFINE A ‘trafficked cHild’? Youth Work in a Cold Climate Tom Wylie Abstract This article anticipates the impact of the economic recession and public spending cuts on young people and services for them. It explores three different approaches to making the case for youth work in a hostile economic climate and advocates a stance of ‘principled pragmatism’. Such a position would seek to articulate how youth work contributes to different aspects of social policy but needs to demonstrate robust evidence of its impact. It also requires the development of youth work’s own infrastructure notably a more skilled workforce with a licence to practise and more determined national advocacy of youth work’s value in achieving social justice. Key words: economy; youth work; traditions; workforce; skill. outh work has rarely marched with the wind at its back and the warming rays of the sun on Yits face. There have been brief periods when its contribution to social policy was appreciated nationally, and relatively substantial finance, by youth work standards, flowed into the work. These periods included a few years in the 1960s after the Albemarle Report and again in the first decade of the 21st century with Resourcing Excellent Youth Services and Aiming High.1 But most of the time it has been a case of ‘make do and mend’ as capital to replace outworn buildings was not made available and, given the absence of agreed national standards on the scale of provision which should be made in neighbourhoods, funding for recurrent spending drifted towards capricious decision-making by local authorities, voluntary endeavour and charitable fund-raising. In recent years the national lottery has made an ad hoc input to different themes concerned with young people though the demands of the 2012 Olympic Games extravaganza in London will diminish this source. As a nation and as a sector devoted to improving the condition of the young, we are living once more in wintry and troubled times. The crisis in financial services has pulled the whole economy into recession. There is a distinct possibility that any recovery will be largely jobless as those businesses which survive may prove reluctant to re-hire people to those posts they have shed and reductions in public service employment may last for years. The consequences for the young will be particularly hard as the experience of being unemployed during young adulthood is not only immediately discouraging but has been shown to have severe results in terms of long-term health, future income 1 Youth & Policy No. 105 November 2010 YOUTH WORK IN A COLD CLIMATE and blighted lives. The scars will be notably marked in those areas from which public and private capital fled in earlier economic re-structuring and recession; these have become communities of the left-behind with horizons narrowed, hopes and aspirations diminished. Already one in five young people are unemployed, jobs for young adults are often casual or part- time and many in the youth cohort sit inside a population of 13 million living in poverty. The gulf is widening, both geographically and in human and social capital, between those who are doing well, those getting by and those going nowhere. Social mobility has stalled and the constraining contours of class and privilege are evident. Divided, unequal nations become underachieving societies in which the more vulnerable are prey to extremism. Although some short-term, remedial initiatives may be introduced, for example on employing apprentices, overall spending on public services will be constrained for years to come. It will not be a good time in which to grow up. Cuts in spending will have a devastating effect on what is offered to young people in the local authority and voluntary sectors alike. Indeed, the loss of youth provision is already evident. Moreover, despite occasional bursts of financial sunshine and sporadic policy interest over the last decade, the Labour government missed the opportunity to develop a vibrant youth work sector which would have had the resilience provided by a robust infrastructure to ride out an ice storm. Granted, there was a little new capital to improve the building stock; a few short-term innovative programmes; a marginal improvement to the legal basis for youth work; and some attention to strengthening the voice of young people in decision-making. But many of those who work in the sector felt diminished by the absence of consistent policy support for its values and approaches, by the endless re-structuring of services with as yet unknown consequences for funding streams, especially for work with those aged over 16. The latest configuration of local services, following the botched design and implementation of the previous Connexions fiasco, served to marginalise the place of young people as distinct from children, of personal development as distinct from safeguarding, and of youth work as a profession which can complement others and not be subsumed by them. Instead, we saw a renewed search for the holy grail of joined-up services, with a good deal of vagueness about what this means in practice for the structures of local governance and decision-making, for support to voluntary bodies, and for the workforce. Although recent Ofsted reports described the effective contribution youth work makes to young people’s lives and some improvements in the overall effectiveness of this approach, the sector is not well-equipped to face harsh economic winds. How is youth work now to argue its case in competition with cancer screening or care for the elderly? Or even with other parts of the wider children’s and young people’s sector including Sure Start, youth justice and the ever open maw of schools? Can it handle the process of being commissioned against outcomes? Making the case for youth work has rarely been more important. 2 Youth & Policy No. 105 November 2010 YOUTH WORK IN A COLD CLIMATE Three Traditions Three different traditions of advocacy for youth work have long been evident. First, the romantics. These adhere to ‘the old-time religion’ of youth work (though without the rousing gospel hymns): heart-warming tales are told of young brands plucked from the fire, of lives turned around.

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