But money is an important factor for those workers finding it tough to make ends meet, while others can feel a bit stale doing the same old job for years. In both professions, the next step for cash-starved or ambitious staff is into management. But not everyone wants to climb the ladder, and this is where teaching differs.
More education authorities are using the concept of advanced skills teachers as a way of opening up a new career path for talented staff, who are paid to share their skills with colleagues. As a result, schools retain experience and raise expectations and morale.
It is a different story in the youth work sector, however, where there isn't a formal process for continuous professional development, and support levels for staff wanting to develop their skills vary around the UK.
Norman Borrett, principal lecturer at the Centre for Youth and Community Studies at Bradford College, says the new posts in schools allow teachers to gain kudos for becoming specialists in their subject. "You get good youth and community workers at the cutting edge, but if they want to get career advancement they're almost forced into looking at moving into management," he says. "There isn't the range of incentives and rewards to keep them."
Stuck in a rut
Leeds Youth Service has many staff who are good face-to-face youth workers, but John Paxton, head of youth services, says some are stuck. "It feels like all we can do to reward them is to move them to a different type of youth work job or employ them in a training role - otherwise they'll end up applying for management posts," he states. "It's quite unfortunate that once someone has climbed their way up the youth work scale in terms of experience and recognition, the only progression is into a totally different role."
It is a similar picture in Herefordshire, where opportunities are limited for frontline workers and the county is even struggling to recruit a training officer. Jenny Lockwood, assistant manager of the community youth service, says: "Beyond JNC level three there seem to be few opportunities other than the one-day training on child protection or sex and drugs issues."
In December 2002, the Government's Transforming Youth Work: Resourcing Excellent Youth Services report identified a need for greater opportunities for continuing professional development for qualified youth workers.
Youth workers are encouraged to do vocational qualifications at JNC levels two and three if they want to update their skills, but the report placed a particular emphasis on management development programmes.
It is this lack of advancement for frontline youth workers that forms part of the Community and Youth Workers' Union's recent and ongoing industrial action. It is calling for an advanced practitioner senior grade under the JNC - which represents employers and staff in work and gives its name to professional pay scales - to acknowledge and reward staff.
An incentive to stay
General secretary Doug Nicholls believes youth work is no longer viewed as a career by some and that many of the most gifted and experienced face-to-face workers are leaving the youth service. "An advanced grade would act as an incentive and would help to stop the continued haemorrhage of good people," he says.
"There has got to be a general raising of the status and value of face-to-face practice, which is always the benchmark of whether a service is good or not. It tends to be forgotten."
Michael Gilsenan, youth partnerships co-ordinator with Staffordshire County Youth Service, is about to start researching the subject at De Montfort University to see whether an advanced role, similar to the teaching profession, might be developed in the youth service (see panel below).
In Leeds, Paxton reckons accredited training as an extension of the qualification courses would be a good idea. He believes it's up to youth work as a profession to look at how it helps workers to progress and suggests this could be achieved by having more specialist areas that people are recognised as being particularly qualified in.
But there are already indications that learning could become a higher priority, as the Government has recently given the youth service its own funding sub-block within the LEA block of the Education Formula Spending Share, which in theory could be used to fund training.
Fresh challenges
Bradford College has responded to calls for more training by setting up the Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Enhancement. This gives students in the not-for-profit sector the opportunity to get qualifications without having to give up big chunks of time, as they can work flexibly online. "They can do research, take part in debates and develop themselves," says Borrett. "You don't have to have a promotion into management, but there comes a time when you need new motivation or a challenge and training on a course can do that."
Online training is a good idea that has surfaced in recent years, but it can be a lonely business. Many youth workers would like more opportunities to attend conferences, or the chance for regular secondments between agencies and regions so they can meet new people and get fresh ideas and inspiration.
Tunnel vision
As Herefordshire's Lockwood admits: "I'm worried that there's potentially a dearth of fresh ideas because so few people get out of the county to see what's going on elsewhere."
Terry Mattinson, youth and community worker for Lancashire County Council, agrees that getting out and about can be helpful. At 57, he has been working on the front line of youth work for his entire career and believes that conferences can act as a good way of learning and meeting fellow workers.
He has the opportunity to do 80 hours of training a year and says he'll take any opportunity he can to use the time. But he adds: "The training budgets have been depressed recently and there isn't enough in them anymore. If you wanted to do an MBA, for example, you couldn't."
Despite this, Mattinson believes that he learns from teaching students and has put himself through an Open University course. As he says: "I've tried to push myself forward. You can become apathetic but you've got to go out there and do things for yourself."
NICK'S STORY
Nick Fokias realised years ago that he couldn't move up the career ladder and still work directly with young people: he chose the latter.
"You can't progress your career if you remain a youth worker," he says. "This has partly been a conscious decision for me, and partly because opportunities weren't brilliant under Thatcher anyway."
Despite this, he says his work and job has changed over the years as Timebridge Youth Centre has evolved and new young people come through.
He comments: "There's no greater variety than kids." Fokias, 57, has been a youth worker for more than 30 years. He joined the centre in New Addington, south London, in 1982 and has helped develop a diverse programme that includes a youth club, choir and music school.
"I enjoy my job," he says. "I've never wanted to go into management as I've seen how people's priorities change and how a management job affects their perception of the work."
He's largely happy with the training he has received and has had time off to go to a day-release course to get a degree in youth work. He particularly enjoyed the Improving Youth Work training he did recently: "I'm happy to go to anything that's relevant - sometimes I suggest training, and sometimes I do the courses suggested to me. I usually get the training I want, but it depends on the managers."
"I've never wanted to go into management as I've seen how a management job affects people's perception of the work"
ADVANCED SKILLS
The Transforming Youth Work: Resourcing Excellent Youth Services document identifies the need for "a continuous professional development programme for all staff, voluntary or paid". The National Youth Agency's web site explains: "Transforming Youth Work identified a need for greater opportunities for continuing professional development and, in particular, management development programmes. FPM, an independent training and consultancy organisation, has developed leadership and management programmes designed for youth workers in senior posts."
But what about those who are professionally qualified, who have been committed enough to continue to study and develop skills and understanding but don't want to go in the "management direction"?
There are two areas for consideration: an in-house structure that enables the development of a professional knowledge base and informal education theory; and a process within the service that encourages critical thinking and reflective practice rather than providing access to courses that lead to the accumulation of credits and competencies.
By contrast, advanced skills teachers spend 20 per cent of their time looking at advancing the practice of the teaching profession within a particular school or locality. The youth service I work within has created senior practitioner roles. These are on a JNC 3 scale and are a 100 per cent youth work post. Like the advanced skills teacher role, they have a minimum of management responsibility and expect a higher level of practice.
Michael Gilsenan
Find out more - Michael Gilsenan is about to embark on a dissertation for an MA in Community Education at De Montfort University. He will be looking into the continuous professional development of full-time qualified youth work staff. To contact him with suggestions or to be a research subject, email mike.gilsenan@staffordshire.gov.uk.
