Youth-inspired services give us hope

Young people across the country do battle with unemployment, and poor access to health and social care. At the same time, our press is only too ready to make the minority of teenagers the emblem of the majority, who are actually hard working, diligent, socially aware and active.

Indeed, if the latest figures on drinking are anything to go by, young people are leading the way in reducing their consumption of alcohol, while people of my age are apparently drinking themselves into early graves and prison cells.

However, on my travels I witness many instances of young people, who, despite the challenges they are facing, are taking the fight to society, not by rioting, but by engaging with the challenge of designing and delivering services. These are designed by young people for young people who see the possibility of creating positive futures for themselves and their communities.

They are in areas in which young people have not been cowed by the withdrawal of funding, but have taken over and reinvented what a youth service is. In some ways, the future lies in their ability to recreate not just services but society itself.

Take for example the organisation Urban Development in Stratford in East London. It is working with teenagers who would not normally find a place in what I have experienced as standard youth services. They develop their innate talents as musicians and business people in a way that gives them a genuine chance of breaking into the music industry. The organisation is not so much youth-focused, as youth-led and inspired by young people. In actual fact, they run the show.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the country in Hartlepool, young people have been engaged as community researchers whose role it is to understand the needs of the community, not just for youth services but for health and social care services. These young people have identified needs that are local and specific in order to push for services that are really required and not simply like everywhere else. 
 
They have challenged where money is spent by the local authority, and in particular have tackled some of the effects of vandalism and antisocial behaviour in their community. The result has been the transformation of once-derelict houses into homes that are fit to live in. The repairs, gardening and some social care services have been carried out by a social enterprise established by members of the local community led by young people.

This is not just a one-off. Across the country, there are interventions made by young people that will shift our understanding of how services should be designed and delivered and who should benefit from much-reduced public expenditure. These adolescents speak to the resilience of this generation and their ability to create new ideas.

Some will argue that the harsh economic climate brings out this resilience and forces the young to think on their own feet. Whatever the case, their efforts will need public funding if they are to have a lasting impact.

Many of the teenagers engaged in these projects would have been the subject of services that no longer exist as a result of funding cuts. From talking to those involved with Urban Development, I know that many young people would have been walking the streets if they had not used their energies creatively to come up with the inspiring events it puts on and that continue to impress the music industry.

It is seeing this kind of youth-inspired service that gives me hope. These are new services that have found diverse sources of funding and support from new areas and it is to these young people we must look to the future.  

Lord Victor Adebowale is visiting professor and chancellor at the University of Lincoln and chief executive of Turning Point