Back schools with funding or risk ‘spike in youth violence’, report warns
Joe Lepper
Friday, July 17, 2020
Schools need to be backed by the government with extra funding to avert a spike in school exclusions and youth violence as the UK recovers from coronavirus pandemic, a report has warned.
The final report of the Youth Violence Commission warns that schools need to be effectively funded to be able to meet the “challenges" ahead of children’s return to education in the autumn term in September.
Without emergency help school exclusions and incidents of violence are set to increase, the commission warns. The attainment gap between those excluded and their peers could also increase.
“If schools are unable to adapt and cope with these challenges, then there are serious risks of an additional spike in school exclusions, and a further widening of the attainment gap,” states the report.
It adds: “This report highlights the immense damage that school exclusions inflict on young people’s life prospects, including the close connection that exclusions have to increased rates of serious violence between children and young people.
“Swift measures must be put in place to ensure that schools alternative provision and pupil referral units are adequately resourced and prepared for the challenges ahead.”
Youth workers also need to be backed with funding to effectively tackle youth violence, states the report.
“High quality youth services can transform the lives of young people by helping them to build their emotional and social skills, particularly around confidence, critical thinking, resilience and employability,” states the report.
“To do so, however, these services require substantial and long-term funding commitments that recognise the cost-benefit of investing in early intervention and preventative youth services.
“Central government should provide local authorities with statutory funding and a clear statutory duty for providing youth services, the levels of which should be determined by the number of young people living in each local authority area.”
The Local Government Association (LGA) backs the report’s call for further investment in youth services to tackle violence, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
Escalation of knife crime and county lines drug dealing networks are a particular concern of Katrina Wood, vice chair of the LGA’s safer and stronger communities board.
“This report rightly supports our call for significant extra funding for these cost-effective prevention and early intervention services, including in schools, which can have an impact on tackling serious violent crime, including county lines activity and knife crime," she said.
“Knife crime is causing horrendous destruction and grief in our communities.
“If councils are to be able to tackle serious violence in their communities, the government needs to use the forthcoming Spending Review to fully fund the services, such as local youth services, youth offending teams and councils’ public health budgets, that help to protect our most vulnerable children and young people.”
The Youth Violence Commission report also raises a concern around a “glaring lack of trust between the police and those children and young people most at-risk of serious violence”.
This lack of trust is in danger of worsening due to stop and search and other police tactics being increasingly deployed against young people during coronavirus lockdown.
“More than ever, it is imperative to avoid any short-sighted criminal justice-based ‘crackdowns’ that are likely to prove counter-productive in the long-term,” states the report.
“Ramping up stop and search practices and removing the requirement for these to be intelligence-led, for example, would severely undermine evidence-based prevention strategies that centre on building trust and confidence in the police.”
This month, police were criticised for their inconsistent approach to dealing with young people during the coronavirus pandemic in a survey by youth organisation Leaders Unlocked.
This found that vulnerable young people were being fined and threatened by officers during lockdown in situations such as exercising in public.
The cross-party Youth Violence Commission was launched in 2017 to look at the causes of young violence across England, Scotland and Wales.
