Derbyshire County Council says it has tripled the number of young people it has engaged over the past five years by cutting the number of youth centres it runs and redirecting resources to detached and mobile youth work (YPN, 7-13 February, p4).
In the present climate of tightened youth service budgets, redirecting money from costly buildings to frontline youth work is likely to be an increasingly tempting prospect for local authorities. But Graeme Tiffany, an executive committee member of the Federation for Detached Youth Work, argues that detached youth work alone is not necessarily money well spent.
Political gain
"In some areas, senior youth work managers have employed detached youth workers in areas where there has been political gain from doing so," he says. "And detached youth workers are going out into the streets and selecting easier groups to work with, because they have to meet their outcomes."
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