The first National Youth Conference brought together professionals from all areas of work with young people, including minister Margaret Hodge.

"The youth service is crucially important to meeting our goals and I want to see a better youth service. The youth work approach is more important now than ever."

So said youth minister Margaret Hodge in her keynote address at the Young People Now Foundation's first National Youth Conference.

More than 350 delegates from all over the country gathered in central London for the event last week to debate the key issues facing work with young people.

Sponsored by the Camelot Foundation and the Learning and Skills Council, the conference featured Hodge's speech, two plenary sessions analysing government policy and partnership working, and workshops relating to the best practice of work with young people.

Department for Education and Skills (DfES) official Neil Remsbery conducted a well-attended workshop for those wanting an early look at how the consultation on the green paper Every Child Matters - which ended this week - was shaping up.

Remsbery, a member of the children's green paper team, revealed that around 1,000 individual young people have submitted contributions, suggesting the exercise had engaged the people the policies are aimed at.

"It seemed essential to get views on the green paper from young people," said Remsbery, noting that the young were in favour of a children's commissioner independent of government.

He also confirmed that issues around information sharing between agencies and concerns that extended schools would disadvantage excluded pupils had been taken on board. He added that the education department knew extended schools could not be "the only answer".

Remsbery said voluntary organisations involved in children's trusts would be expected to share information on young people. He also unveiled a proposed modular children's services qualification to allow easy movement between professions. And he said the arm's-length involvement of youth offending teams was seen as an "anomaly" within DfES ranks.

Remsbery said the selection process for the long-awaited post of children's commissioner could take the form of an election, open only to young people, or a more traditional interview panel with some form of youth input.

In her keynote speech, Margaret Hodge was keen to confirm that youth services are a vital part of the Government's plans, aiming to clear up nagging doubts among delegates that youth work was sidelined in the green paper.

"Every childcare worker, teacher, youth worker and health worker, as well as social worker, should see child protection as an integral part of the work they do," she said, adding that prevention work was where youth work fitted into the child protection agenda.

Hodge also spelt out the Government's latest plans for carrying on the Transforming Youth Work agenda and reforming the youth service. Foremost is the introduction of a national benchmarking system for local authority youth services.

"From next April, we want all youth services to be benchmarked against measures we will identify," said Hodge. "I'd like youth services to set out where they are compared with these measures and explain how they can close any gaps. I also want to see robust and credible plans of how youth services will reach their targets."

Alongside this call to action, she announced that Ofsted was upping the number of youth service inspections it carried out annually to 30. Hodge also reaffirmed former youth minister Ivan Lewis' assertion that action would be taken against failing local authority youth services that didn't turn themselves around.

"As a last resort, the education secretary would use his powers of intervention on failing youth services we have worked with that have not improved," she said, referring to cases where the DfES has taken over failing local education departments.

Hodge said the forthcoming children's bill would contain measures placing "accountability" on all children's services, youth work included, when it came to matters of child protection.

In the final plenary session of the conference, three speakers gave different perspectives on "The Road to Successful Partnership", and how best to overcome organisational divisions and culture clashes.

Dele Ryder, strategic manager at Positive Activities for Young People in south London, drew a parallel between professional partnerships and personal relationships, as outlined in the self-help book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. He weighed in with advice such as "nurture your network" and "know yourself".

And Phil Hulks, director of national ministries at Christian youth group Crusaders, talked about how to square a faith-based organisation with the needs of the wider community.

"I see the Church as a massive resource that needs to be made available to people," said Hulks, who claimed there were almost 8,000 full-time faith-based youth workers, along with many thousands more part-time workers.

But he added: "If we lose our funding by staying true to who we are, then so be it. After all, you have to remember why your volunteers volunteered in the first place."

Despite talk of inspections, targets and intervention, conference chairman Tom Wylie, of The National Youth Agency, told delegates that Hodge's clarification of youth work's importance in its plans for young people did much to dispel doubts about the Government's commitment to the sector.

But he said it should be remembered that youth workers practising at grass-roots level are where the action is. He added: "Government and policymakers must always think about the effect their actions have on those who carry out work with young people."

Additional reporting by Hugh Perry

BIGGA FISH RAP Kid-Man, Envi and Bigga Fish! We come to tell you what we think of this We're from the streets and we need to be heard So pay attention, first things first Victoria Climbie was a victim It took a tragedy before they looked at the system So they looked at the system and they changed the schedule To try and help the youth reach their potential Addressing teenage sex and pregnancy Education, failure and poverty Introduced Connexions and left it as it is But the youth on road are still at risk So now they propose to reform service But the youth need a say, they're the ones affected And if we had our say, our way it would be a better day And this ain't all we got to say Police don't help me, always stop and search me For something I don't know about or seen Talk about youth in a hoody and call it a threat But I'm a youth in a hoody and I ain't started no trouble yet And David Blunkett needs to rethink You can't blame the crime on the music It's the failure of the system And not paying the youth enough attention Life round our ways ain't no joke So we spit it in the bars that we've wrote That we thought u should know So instead of blaming the music you should listen to the lyrics And it might let you know what we need from these critics All we need is someone to take time and listen Not tell us what we need - we can make our own decisions.

HOW TO GET FUNDING

You get the impression that Jane Hurst is secretly rather fond of her nickname of "The Funding Queen". In a workshop at the Young People Now Foundation's National Youth Conference, she showed plenty of the verve and creativity she has used to source, in partnership with voluntary organisations, 1m in external funding for the London Borough of Sutton, where she is head of play, youth and community.

Rags and riches

Anticipating the assumption that Sutton is all leafy suburbs with no real need to raise money, she pointed out that just down the road from millionaire's row in Cheam is the St Helier Estate, which ranks among the five per cent most disadvantaged areas in the country. The point here is that when looking for funding it is vital to fully research your area and have detailed awareness of all relevant statistics and trends.

Knowledge of your area and your own strengths and capacity must be backed up by focus, passion, creativity and excellent communication with all stakeholders, she stressed. While short-term funding obviously brings problems, they are not insurmountable. One externally funded post in Hurst's borough has kept going for 10 years. Key objectives should be to build up a strong track record as a deliverer, starting small if needs be, and to build strong relationships with funders, most of which are keen to give out money to the right projects.

- Tim Burke

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

Department for Education and Skills official Neil Remsbery's outlining of a modular children's services qualification that would allow easy movement between professions was echoed in a conference workshop about building diverse pools of talent within organisations that work with young people.

The main theme was the need for core qualifications that enable people to move jobs without retraining. Liz Morrey, workforce development project manager at The National Youth Agency, said: "It seems getting the right workforce into youth work is a tall order."

Gill Millar, regional youth work adviser for the Southwest, spoke about the problems of recruitment. She said: "Organisations are taking on more staff, but recruitment has not kept up: marketing is at local level and low key." Another problem she saw was the failure to recruit from teaching and social work.

- Alison Love.