The planned closure of YMCA George Williams College (GWC) last month (March) marked the end of an institution with more than 50 years of history in the UK, tracing its roots to the YMCA National College established in 1970.
My first visit to GWC was 10 years ago when they hosted an event at the old Canning Town site celebrating “100 Years of Youth and Community Work Education”. The event honoured the youth work sector's rich scholastic heritage. However, I also remember one speaker predicted the downfall of the entire industry claiming that “youth work training is dead”. Were they wrong?
As a specialist institution GWC's singular focus on youth work training made it both venerable and vulnerable. During my visits to the Canning Town and later Whitechapel sites, I often snuck into the library, marvelling at the vast collection of youth work literature. Books authored by staff and students filled the shelves, making the college feel like a grand tree of knowledge. Not least through the firm tradition of reflective practice that was espoused at GWC, this tree thrived and blossomed for decades with the full complement of Aristotle's “branches of knowledge”: episteme (scientific knowing), techne (skill/craft) and phronesis (practical wisdom).
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