Editorial - Quality youth work must be protected

One of the country's most seasoned youth work leaders finds his role eliminated this week. Hampshire County Council is scrapping Malcolm Rittman's county youth officer post and replacing it with a central strategic manager for youth and community services (see p2).

The change is part of the county's restructure of children and young people's services, in which youth workers are to be placed in multidisciplinary district teams. Rittman has opted not to take the new role, given its emphasis on strategic management.

Hampshire's move is in keeping with the essentially sound principles of "integrated targeted support" and "joined-up provision" outlined in Youth Matters: Next Steps. The idea is to engage young people in shaping services through involving all agencies relevant to their development.

In another sign of the times, Essex is moving towards a system of generic children's workers, which will eventually replace its youth service (see p9).

But the elimination of the principal youth officer (PYO) role provides particular cause for concern. East Sussex also removed its PYO post, creating two heads of integrated children's services three months ago to manage its youth service.

The worry is that the quality of youth work will suffer if its management is transferred from people embedded in its practice to strategists who often have no youth work experience and function from a distance. Similar fears prevail that the shift to integrated working might undermine youth work skills and lead to its dilution as a profession. When a local authority becomes devoid of a clearly demarcated youth service overseen by a PYO, these concerns are exacerbated. As for district teams, their creation might lead to variable quality of youth work provision.

Other local authorities are likely to follow Hampshire and East Sussex in seeing the abolition of the PYO role as necessary for integrated working.

While this is a cause for concern, it should not create panic. Until real evidence emerges about how these changes affect provision, judgment needs to be reserved.

Proper investment in training and leadership skills at local level will be crucial to ensuring the changes are as painless as possible.