Statistics reveal young people's thirst for culture
Howard Williamson
Monday, June 7, 2010
The Connexions triangle diagram used when the service launched provided a visual representation of its initial mission to have a universal service that was differentiated according to need.
At its base were the majority of young people, unlikely to need much beyond mainstream services. In the middle, there was a population of young people who might well require additional support and advice from Connexions personal advisers, but who were unlikely to need access to more specialist services. At the top, a relatively small proportion of young people would be in need of those specialist services.
Though we can get preoccupied with young people with multiple needs (the top of the triangle), they are usually in contact with one set of public services or another. The challenge is to make sure that they do not get stuck within the orbit of one particular service that may in fact be less appropriate than another.
It is the middle group that can be badly neglected, having neither the support of families nor the presenting criteria for a specialist response. Do we know what they want advice about? I was at the annual general meeting of a youth project a few weeks ago and the statistics from its advice service are instructive. Predictably, by far the largest number of enquiries related to employment and training, followed some way behind by issues regarding money and benefits. But housing issues only just topped enquiries about media and art. Then, some way behind, there came a cluster of diverse themes: education, health, law and rights, relationships and lifestyle, and sport and leisure.
It would be good to know some of the personal stories behind the statistics but the stats themselves tell an important story: culture still matters to young people even when their material and personal circumstances, though not desperate, are certainly less than satisfactory.