Collaborative working can help get young people a better deal
John Freeman
Monday, November 1, 2010
I can understand why shopkeepers become frustrated by young people hanging around.
Mostly, of course, young people are not actively misbehaving; often they are just socialising on the way home. While they can sometimes seem to be a bit threatening, when approached, they are almost always pleasant and helpful. But teenagers are just a bit bigger and noisier than their younger siblings, especially in groups.
So sometimes things can get out of hand and I understand why some shopkeepers become frustrated. What I can't understand is the wish to install Mosquitoes, the much-criticised device that emits a high-pitched and unpleasant sound inaudible to people over the age of about 20. The aim is to make the location unpleasant for young people and to get them to move on. There are three reasons why this is deeply wrong. First, it is an indiscriminate measure, giving a clear message that all young people are likely to misbehave. Second, some children affected by the sounds will be too young to understand or complain. And third, it is a negative measure when positive action would be much more likely to have a beneficial effect.
Lobbying groups such as Barnardo's have been working to get Mosquitoes banned — and I support that. When we were building the children's trust in Dudley, I was encouraged that one of our early wins was that we were able to set up a multi-interest coalition, including the voluntary sector and the police, to prevent the use of these devices, but at the same time to work with shopkeepers and the youth service to deal with the symptoms in a positive way, without stigmatising young people. This is the sort of collaborative working that underpins the philosophy of children's trusts. It does not need a huge bureaucracy or legal compulsion, but it does need willing partners to consider problems and solutions. Children's trusts, you see, are a manifestation of the big society.
John Freeman is a former director of children's services and now a freelance consultant