Uniformed youth work scheme launches in London, Birmingham and Manchester

The funding was announced in February and is a joint initiative between the government and Youth United, which represents uniformed youth groups including the Scouts, St John Ambulance and Army Cadets.

The money will be used to set up activities and groups in England’s most disadvantaged areas, and to train volunteers to work with young people.? Among the localities to receive cash are many of the areas hit by the riots last summer.

The first programmes to launch through the funding will be a Police Cadet unit in Haringey, a St John Ambulance group in Birmingham and six Fire Cadet units in Manchester.?

In total 32 group leaders have been recruited for the new programmes and 125 of the 199 available places for young people have been filled. ?

Youth United chairman Rod Jarman said: “It is early days and a lot of the work so far has been around the infrastructure, but the first of the groups to benefit from this will start their programmes when the new school term starts in September.”?

He said he anticipates that the remaining 74 places will be filled swiftly because the Manchester Fire Cadet units are now in the process of sorting through applications from young people.?

Jarman added that the scheme has been set up to make sure that the most disadvantaged areas get the quickest access to a slice of the £10m funding.

“We are targeting the poorest areas first,” he said. “In some of those there will be existing units benefiting from this funding, in others new units will be created.”

The government and Youth United are hoping to train 2,700 volunteers offering 10,000 places across around 400 groups over the next three years.

Other areas being targeted by the scheme include Bradford, Knowsley, Hackney, Middlesbrough, Newham, Redbridge, Rochdale and Tower Hamlets.