The National Youth Agency: Comment - Not in our name

It was not. Youth work seeks to promote the personal and social development of young people, not groom them for terrorism. Youth work methods educate the young; they do not indoctrinate them. Youth work values emphasise our common humanity and shared citizenship, not sectarian hate. Anyone not subscribing to these principles is not doing youth work.

More than a decade's formal education in England's schools and colleges has not inoculated these young men against the virus of extremism, but youth work cannot ignore the apparent fact that some sport-loving young people were being prepared for terrorism in community settings. Settings that commonly appear to operate without accountability, inspection or registration, supervised by personnel who had neither the training, qualifications, nor the ethical basis to be described as "youth workers". Recitation of the phrase "voluntary engagement" is not an adequate defence for either this practice or the absence of a proper regulatory framework. We need stronger arrangements to safeguard our young, our communities and our pluralist society. The profession should adopt an agreed position on the very nature of youth work across the local authority, voluntary and community sectors. The State should help the profession to establish this unity and regulate it.