A Charter for Collaboration

The promise by Civil Society Minister Mims Davies to develop a Youth Charter is an important early win in the campaign by youth sector organisations seeking to build a case for a more stable funding and support infrastructure for youth work and youth social action. The fact that our parliamentary system is gummed up by Brexit and that we face a series of votes in the months ahead that are likely to keep shifting political priorities shouldn't make us pessimistic about progress. It just means there are more opportunities to demonstrate that the core aims of a charter - a commitment to putting the interests, needs and voices of young people at the heart of joined-up policymaking - are crucial to developing more effective solutions to some of the big issues facing society: developing an economy that can support flexible but fairly paid work; reducing demand on our health and care systems through better prevention; and aligning individual behaviour change with international regulation to tackle global environmental threats.