Features

Commissioning: Young people's services

3 mins read Commissioning
While funding is scarce, commissioners can still help embed youth work principles in wider provision, says Toni Badnall-Neill.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has recently highlighted research that paints a bleak picture of youth services. Funding for preventative services for children and young people has fallen dramatically, resulting in "a particularly strong impact on the availability of open-access, universal services, with provision increasingly targeted at those in greatest need".

With an all-party parliamentary group inquiry into the role and impact of youth work now under way, this trend has implications for commissioners. Some features of traditional service models, such as open-access youth provision centred on informal education and community participation and led by specialist youth workers, are diminishing. While certain key elements of youth work, particularly its principles of relationships and building resilience, are increasingly becoming embedded into targeted early intervention with young people, the unique role of youth work within the community risks being lost without the principle of voluntary participation.

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