Advisers must have kudos as well as skills

Meanwhile, it has produced, inevitably and usefully, a serious debate about the content and nature of youth advisory services, where and how they are delivered and the training that those providing them should undertake. It is about time, though I hope that it will not reinforce the dividing lines between those with backgrounds in "careers" and those with backgrounds in "youth work".

I say this because, over many years, I have witnessed careers officers and youth workers at loggerheads over the precise definition of, and approach to, youth information and advice. The former, of course, were always more focused on careers in an occupational sense, while the latter were more concerned about broader pathways in young people's lives - and the information they needed to pursue those confidently. That is why one of the early youth information systems developed from a youth work perspective, The NYA's "focused access information system", had categories such as justice and the law, health and travel.