Jane Davidson has been attacked for her role in the decision to end Assembly Government support for the Wales Youth Agency - effectively shutting the youth work support body down at the end of the year - and to bring its work in-house.
But she is adamant it is the right thing to do for youth work: "The concern that some people have had is that youth work will no longer be a recognised skill," she says. "I have to say clearly that it will be a recognised skill. We see that skill as something that should be enhanced."
Before coming into politics, Davidson was a full-time youth worker running a youth and community centre in Dinas Powys Methodist Church. "In 1988 John Rose (now acting chief executive of the Wales Youth Agency) and I took a group of young people to Kenya," she remembers. "We raised an awful lot of money, and washed a lot of cars in Safeway's car park to raise the money, but it was an absolutely life-changing experience."
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