A bunch of salt-of-the-earth youth workers were sharing their experiences and wisdom with a couple of people charged with compiling a report on the state of play. The usual stuff was trotted out: the voluntary principle, the educative purpose of youth work.
There was the predictable mantra about under-resourcing and simply just not being able to do enough for challenging young people who presented a complex range of needs. Complaint and concern was expressed about being sucked into meeting targets set by others, on other agendas such as the re-inclusion of the "Neets" in learning and training.
There was acknowledgement of the need for some "tough love": holding young people to account for wayward behaviour and making them aware of the consequence of their actions. Youth work was not a soft option: given half a chance (that was not usurped by some wide-boy organisation making ridiculous claims of what it could achieve faster, cheaper and with more young people), it embedded standards of citizenship and responsibility in young people.
And then we got in the taxi. Three colleagues in the back were continuing to wax lyrical (and sufficiently loudly for the driver to hear) about the balance of opportunity and accountability. They were placing the occasional extremities in the behaviour of young people in a broader and balanced context. The driver then commented to me that, given the issues we were apparently interested in, we had been in the right place. I asked what he meant and was subjected to a 20-minute tirade about the deterioration of standards in the UK. When he got the chance, he said, he was going to emigrate. His two teenage kids had to endure the gauntlet of yobs every single day they went to and from school. His wife was routinely subjected to verbal and occasionally physical abuse from teenagers hanging around on street corners. How could he instil decency and manners in his children in this environment? His answer, apparently, was to operate a draconian domestic regime, drilling out of them any unacceptable language or behaviour they might have acquired during the day.
When I suggested that some of the young people about whom he was complaining might need some renewed opportunities and support in their lives, I got short shrift and a sharp rebuke: these kids are "pissed-up pond life and the only answer is an endless supply of ammunition".
Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan, and a member of the Youth Justice Board. Email howard.williamson@haymarket.com.
