Budget cuts hit students training to be youth workers
The future looks bleak for would-be youth workers – and the colleges that teach them.
- The Guardian, Tuesday 9 March 2010
As local authority budget cuts bite deep, the future looks increasingly uncertain for students training to become youth workers. Not only do they see a shrinking jobs market, but many who study at college for the degree they need to qualify as a full-time professional are struggling to fund themselves.
The picture is different at YMCA George Williams College, in Canning Town, east London, a charitable foundation that offers FE and HE courses and is the country's biggest trainer of youth workers. Currently 315 are enrolled, though only 85 are full time. The rest are home-based distance learners.
Mixed economy
"We're a mixed economy," says the principal, Mary Wolfe. "We're funded by Hefce [the Higher Education Funding Council for England] but also get money from other sources, such as the Rank Foundation. We've given bursaries to some full-time students. Around 5% to 7% drop out – that's lower than most."
Even so, senior tutor Dr Brian Belton expects some fallout as students struggle to fund their studies. "This will hit people training full time, who tend to be younger, and impact on the college," he says.
It's not only local authority youth services under the cosh. Some councils also pay for "detached" youth workers, for instance those attached to a local church. Belton says these posts also risk being squeezed.
No one yet knows the full extent of the cuts or their impact. Unite, the trade union representing youth workers, has made Freedom of Information Act requests to find out; and the National Youth Agency, which aims to improve young people's services through public, private and voluntary sector partnerships, has commissioned its own survey. "We aren't optimistic about what it will reveal," says its chief executive, Fiona Blacke.
Social activities led by youth workers "can be the way young people learn to learn", and will suffer, she says. Youth work's role in stopping some teenagers going off the rails is widely acknowledged. "When you realise it costs £150,000 a year to keep a young person in custody and £30,000 for a youth worker, it's a no-brainer."
