Doug Nicholls, national officer for community and youth workers at Unite, said protection is needed after non-qualified youth volunteers and politicians were labelled as youth workers during reporting of the disturbances. Some media outlets even reported that youth workers were directly involved in the violence.
He said: "You can't call yourself a policeman or a fireman without having the right qualifications for the job.
"What we saw in the media were people being labelled as youth workers yet saying some pretty appalling things about young people that no youth worker would ever say.
"Parliament needs to protect the name. This can be done through parliamentary approval rather than legislation."
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