National Youth Agency (NYA) chief executive Fiona Blacke said staff are now covering a range of areas that would previously have been delivered by specialists. This has resulted in a blend of staffing specialisms that she likened to a “smoothie” drink.
“It’s concerning that there is a move toward the ‘smoothie approach’ to staffing youth services, so rather than having distinctive roles for youth social workers, youth workers and others, people are moving toward having generic staff roles,” she said. “There are some places where the expectations of staff are that they fulfil multiple roles.”
Figures released last month revealed a significant drop in spending on universal services at local authority level. And a survey by CYP Now in August found that, on average, 9.6 youth service posts were lost in each local authority in 2011/12 and 6.8 posts have gone in each authority so far this year.
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