CYP Now - Youth workers feel ‘professionally abandoned’, says director of London’s VRU

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 is director of London's VRU. Picture: London 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.

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