Thread by @abi_angus

Today i presented a whistlestop tour of #youthwork in the UK to @TheCFEY team, including a look at funding... The headlines around closed youth centres and lost youth work jobs are pretty bleak, but i hadn't fully wrapped my head around some of the numbers until recently... 1/

Money for youth work has been being cut for over a decade. Since 2010, all regions in England have lost at least 60% of their funding for youth services, and some have lost all of it. Over 4,500 youth work jobs have been cut and 750 youth centres closed. 2/

I started a youth work degree in 2010, by the time i graduated in 2015 the youth service wasn't quite the same. Youth workers i worked alongside in placements were losing their jobs, or being retrained to provide more generic support and signposting to whole families. 3/

Looking at money available for youth work now, it's impossible to not comment on NCS funding. Many LAs are having to find pots of unrestricted funding to pay for youth services, but the Dept. for Culture, Media and Sport are funding youth provision predominantly through NCS 4/

A few years ago I spent a summer working for an NCS provider, supporting young people who enrolled but found it hard to engage in the programme. I saw how good it was for some young people but also saw the barriers for many. Just 1 in 6 of YP who are eligible take part in NCS 5/

Bearing in mind that NCS is only designed to reach a small proportion of YP (16-17 year olds), and only takes place over a limited period of time over the summer, I was interested to compare the DCMS funding for NCS with LA funding for more universal youth services. 6/

When money is in billions and millions it can be difficult to make it seem tangible, so i made an infographic! I looked at a quarter of the funding NCS received between 2016-20, and compared that to national LA spending on youth services in 2018-19. 7/

With so much pressure on schools to meet such a huge range of needs, it blows my mind that funding is so concentrated on a project that benefits very few YP, rather than thinking more about how a well funded youth service could be supporting more young people! #YouthWorkWorks! 8/

Until all YP can access youth work, I'm not convinced throwing huge amounts of funding at a summer project is a good plan. And that's only looking at access, there are a range of issues with the NCS approach to youth work and social action that other people have written about. 9/

It also opens up Q's about universal vs. targeted youth work. I'd like plenty of both! I believe part of what's cool about youth work is providing safe spaces for YP to mix, talk and build relationships with different people. But when money is not there, what's priority? 10/

References!
local.gov.uk/lga-devolve-na….

ymca.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

youthandpolicy.org/articles/time-…

ymca.org.uk/wp-content/upl…