Released a few weeks ago, all the language in the plan is right: nipping things in the bud, getting in early, helping young people back on the right track, making sure they get help, being around at the right time.
However, I thought that was part of what Connexions was meant to be about, especially the top sections of the triangle depicting the "universal service differentiated according to need". Obviously that intensive direct support in the middle ground and, at the apex, the active brokerage and referral for those young people with multiple difficulties never really happened.
I wonder how much those behind such ideas have made reference to past debates. There was once something called the Research, Policy and Practice Forum on Young People, which was part-funded by government. It dedicated one of its events to the idea of mentoring. Lord Warner, then chair of the Youth Justice Board, spoke of his leaning towards compulsory mentoring, which surprised many who thought the (possibly only) common feature of many forms of mentoring was its basis in a voluntary relationship. Lord Warner, as ever, defended his position robustly, although he conceded it "might require a bit of fancy footwork" to persuade others of his case.
At the time I was writing that youth policy was suffering from "mentoring overload". The answer to the needs of young people disengaged from school, in the care system, involved in substance misuse or attached to the criminal justice system was seen to lie in effective mentoring. This was, of course, absolute rubbish, as the academic experts testified. Mentoring was but one piece of a complex jigsaw of necessary policy interventions. Moreover, to judge its success against specific performance expectations in any one area was likely to be misguided, unhelpful and unfair. Mentoring had to be assessed "in the round" and could be valuable even if it did not deliver on its explicit targets. To evaluate it solely on the latter was tantamount to "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory", as Helen Colley put it in her book Mentoring for Social Inclusion.
There are more and less precise notions of mentoring. The role overlaps with that of adviser, counsellor, broker, advocate and, indeed, youth worker. The critical question is where they stand and how much latitude they have in their positioning. If their role is rigid and prescribed, young people will see straight through them and their impact will be questionable from the start.
- Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan, and a member of the Youth Justice Board. Email howard.williamson@haymarket.com.
