Call to boost after-school youth work to reduce risk of violence
Joe Lepper
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Improving the availability of after school youth work programmes could protect young people from serious violence, according to a Labour MP leading an inquiry into youth violence.
Speaking in a House of Commons debate on youth violence, Vicky Foxcroft, Labour MP for Lewisham Deptford, said that evidence given to the Youth Violence Commission shows that knife attacks are most common on weekdays in the period after school finishes and before parents come home from work.
Foxcroft, who chairs the cross-party commission, is urging ministers to consider boosting support for after-school youth work as a way of keeping young people safe following a recent rise in violent crime.
In addition, she wants the government to publish official data showing the times when knife attacks are most likely, to help better plan efforts to tackle youth violence.
Foxcroft said: "Youth workers, teachers and police officers told the commission that the most dangerous time for knife attacks involving young people is between 3pm and 6pm, but the Office for National Statistics, the Metropolitan police, the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, city hall's London Datastore, London ambulance dispatch data, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and the House of Commons Library were unable to get us data on the times at which knife attacks take place.
"When professionals in the field are consistently raising concerns about after-school attacks and grooming, why is this data not published?"
Addressing youth minister Tracey Crouch, who attended the debate, Foxcroft added: "Will the minister commit to obtaining the data and publishing it? Does she agree that after-school youth work and activities could help to keep young people safe?"
Crouch said that finding out the times of the day when young people are most vulnerable to knife crime "are valid and important questions to ask".
"I will make sure that colleague who may be responsible will provide her with answers," she said.
Earlier this month, the government announced it will provide £200m of funding for youth organisations in violent crime "hotspots". This is in addition to the £22m provided to youth groups through the Early Intervention Youth Fund.
During the debate Foxcroft also raised concerns around the youth sector's funding system, saying that it is forcing local youth charities to compete against each other for funds, rather than collaborate.
This competitive funding climate also means that large organisations are more likely to have the infrastructure and resources to successfully win grants and contracts, she says. In addition, funding is often too short term.
"Funding challenges have made the sector super-competitive," said Foxcroft.
"Local charities with similar aims have little incentive to collaborate because they are all bidding for the same pots of money.
"Large organisations with professional bid writers are much more likely to get funding than small charities, even if those charities are doing good work on the ground."
Crouch admitted that "funding and services are fragmented and siloed" adding that the Civil Society Strategy, published in August, commits the government to a review of the statutory duty for council youth services.
"If, following that review, the guidance needs to be strengthened, we will do so," Crouch said.
"We need the public, private, social and faith sectors to work much more closely at a community level."