Youth workers feel ‘professionally abandoned’, says director of London’s VRU
Fiona Simpson
Friday, March 25, 2022
A decade of cuts to youth services has left youth workers feeling “professionally abandoned and neglected”, according to the director of London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU).
Lib Peck told CYP Now that practitioners feel “very abandoned as a profession”.
Public perception of youth work as “not really even thought of as a profession” means some youth workers are left in the same roles for years with very little opportunity for professional development, she added.
Peck’s comments come as the VRU, which aims to tackle violence among young people in the capital, has announced £1.1m of funding for the second round of the Rise Up youth practitioners' leadership programme, run by London Youth in partnership with Leap Confronting Conflict, Power the Fight and Clore Social Leadership.
The course, which has already supported 85 professionals during the Covid-19 pandemic, will offer 90 youth workers across London “specialist training to boost skills in addressing conflict and violence, and developing leadership skills so they can be even more effective in supporting young people”.
The course was developed in conjunction with youth workers who felt they needed “some extra professional development”.
Youth workers called for training on how they could contribute to strategic discussions as well as look at career progression on top of managing conflict and supporting young people, Peck said.
“What we really wanted to do was create a space for cohorts to discuss challenges with each other while adding to their professional development and we are adding to their skill.
“It’s looking at a whole range of things, from how you deal with critical incidents to the principles of how you’re working with young people, how you’re being sensitive to their experiences and their background.
“It’s really giving a holistic approach as well as thinking about that worker's progression,” she added.
She called for the government to commit to long-term investment in youth work to provide training and professional support for youth workers at a local level.
“The government should be recognising the expertise in the sector and providing the relevant level of investment. I think the more things you can do at a local level, by and large guarantees success,” she said.
London’s VRU has also recruited a group of 10 frontline youth workers as part of a youth work practitioners’ advisory board “to inform and influence how decisions are made to ensure the voice of youth workers is key to the VRU’s approach to tackling violence and supporting young people”.
