1000 new youth workers to be deployed into communities to find forgotten children
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A major recruitment drive of 1000 new youth workers will be
deployed into towns and cities across England to find the forgotten
young people who need support, before they reach crisis
point. The announcement marks the biggest investment into
youth work in a generation, and part of the first national youth
strategy in 15 years, reversing the Conservative government's
decimation of youth services over the last decade and a half.
It comes ahead of the...Request free
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A major recruitment drive of 1000 new youth workers will be deployed into towns and cities across England to find the young people who need support outside of home and school, before they reach crisis point. These youth workers will be embedded in local authorities, helping local areas locate young people who are not accessing youth services and work with them to give them something to do, somewhere to go, and someone who cares. The largest investment in youth services in a generation, it will jumpstart the work to rebuild the country's youth support offer, after a decade and a half of Conservative governments decimating services, shutting doors on thousands of youth clubs and robbing a whole generation of opportunity. It comes ahead of the opening of this year's Labour Conference, where the message to the country is that this Labour government is bringing back hope. The Prime Minister will assert that for too long, Westminster has not been working for people across Britain. Life is too hard and too unaffordable for many. This Labour government will bring forward the biggest change to Britain in forty years, with a new political and economic model. Today's announcement brings back hope for a generation of young people by rebuilding the country's youth services. Between 2010 and 2023 successive Conservative governments oversaw a drop in local authority spending of 73%, which led to the loss of many youth worker roles across the country and 1,000 youth centres across England. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy last year embarked on the biggest State of the Nation listening exercise with 14,000 young people, which highlighted the lack of opportunity, safe supportive environments and community for them to belong to. The message was loud and clear: young people were asking for somewhere to go, something to do, and someone who cares. It resulted in the launch of the first national youth strategy in 15 years, written and co-designed by the young people it will deliver for. The 1000 new youth workers, a key pillar of the Youth Matters strategy, will work in community spaces, providing support for young people before they reach crisis point - including those not currently in education, employment or training. Working alongside multi-agency teams, which could include schools and police, the youth workers will offer support across employment, financial literacy, mental health, youth violence and knife crime. This initiative will provide a significant step towards meeting the Government's ambition for 500,000 more young people to have access to a trusted adult by 2035. Lisa Nandy MP, Labour's Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said: For the majority of young people, there are no youth workers to support them, no physical spaces to enrich their lives, and nothing for them to do that matches what the online world offers. It is no wonder that they retreat to their screens in their rooms, they feel like they've been forgotten. "That's why this programme is vital, rebuilding around a quarter of the youth workforce which was cut by the Tories, and it is just the start. We want no young person left behind and no young person written off, ending the violent indifference that they've faced for too long. This is a Labour government in action, wrapping its arms around the next generation and giving them the chance to thrive." Ends Notes:
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