The NYA Blog
What price can you place on a smile?
10 February 2010
The smiles of two young boys for their mothers as they were rescued in Haiti recently moved many. It brought to mind a moment nearly three decades ago, which still moves me. I was leader of a weekly youth group. The young people shaped the programme and organised most of the activities, including a weekend away in Wales. One lunchtime, I was walking through the school with the headteacher when I saw a member of our group. "Hello Ian!" I called without thinking twice he turned to look at me and smiled. Astonished, the head told me that Ian had been in his school for three years and never before had he seen him smile. I felt honoured.
What did we do to achieve this relationship and positive response? On reflection, we accepted the members of the group for who they were, did not know anything of their background except what they had told us and were consistent in our approach and behaviour. We listened and set boundaries and we made enjoyment of the time together a priority. The prime factor was probably that we wanted to be with them and we enjoyed working with young people. This was non-formal education outside school.
We are rapidly approaching a period of financial austerity in public and third sector services and there are widespread fears that funding for preventative work will be cut. The skilled and experienced support of youth workers and other professionals with whom young people have a trusted relationship, enabling them to chart a different life path, is likely to be reduced, possibly drastically. This is because there are relatively few non-statutory areas in which local authority managers can make savings.
Those who work with young people are marshalling the evidence that loss of this provision will lead to significant numbers of young people slipping out of school and other learning opportunities into qualifying for targeted youth support. In the long run this will cost more in money and in life chances than the savings made. The government must be reminded that the statutory guidance explicitly links educational leisure-time activities to youth work methods and approaches.
Sarah Hargreaves leaves her post as NYA Policy Manager on Thursday 11th February 2010.