Stepping up for social action

As soon as the news broke that Charlotte Hill was to leave UK Youth to become the inaugural chief executive of the government's new youth social action programme Step Up To Serve, people started posting messages of congratulations to her on Twitter.

For a self-confessed "Twitter addict" with 3,000 followers, Hill would have approved of both the medium and the sentiment. The warm words are a reflection of the high esteem Hill is held in by the youth work sector, as well as recognition that being put at the helm of a flagship government initiative is a rare opportunity indeed. But with the ambitious target of doubling the level of participation in youth social action UK-wide by 2020, the task will be the toughest of Hill's career. But she doesn't appear to be overly daunted by it.

"The thing we need to be really clear about is that this is absolutely a collaborative campaign and it won't be us doing this ourselves," she says. "It's about how we unlock barriers, raise the profile and investment opportunities, create more opportunities, ensure that opportunities are high quality and that we're raising the profile, not just of young people and their families, but also businesses."

The campaign has widespread support from among others The Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition. "With the cross-party backing and high-profile supporters I'm really hopeful - there's just so much potential there for the young people involved and the communities they are living in," Hill adds.

She is particularly keen on encouraging social action to play a part in education and takes inspiration from Canada, where teenagers have to complete a set amount of hours of youth work and volunteering before they can graduate from school.

"It is built into their psyche that this is what you do," she says. "There are some brilliant schools that totally understand that young people who get a whole education, including these soft skills, go on and achieve far greater educational outcomes.

"We have to not only unlock the barriers in the youth sector, but we have to get the business and education sectors engaged and the good profile of the sector raised across the board."

Despite "social action" being the apparent buzzword of the moment, Hill says the concept has been embedded in youth work for more than 100 years.

"It's been called different things, but if you look at youth work, that's what people do.

"There are massive benefits for young people around their confidence, resilience and communications.

"I think that is clear, but we need to continue to make the case around the benefits for the community of young people being involved in social action and change the mindset to see young people as a positive resource."

One of the ways of doing this, Hill says, is to raise the profile of social action and youth work with the public - an issue highlighted in a recent CYP Now survey of youth workers, which revealed that 96 per cent thought the public did not understand what they do.

"As a sector, we have to do a whole amount more to raise the profile and make people understand the value of youth work," she explains. "Part of this is us shouting about the outcomes more and us harnessing the benefactors of the outcomes.

"They do it brilliantly in America with the Boys and Girls Clubs. There are always adverts about them and they have the backing of Jennifer Lopez and Denzel Washington - plus the very vocal backing of Barrack Obama.

"They have a movement over there around it, but we haven't and we need to replicate that over here.

"At Step Up To Serve, we're going to be banging the drum for youth social action."

Another person who has been a huge advocate of young people and social action is minister for civil society Nick Hurd, who gained responsibility of youth policy last July when the portfolio transferred to the Cabinet Office from the Department for Education.

At the time, Hill told CYP Now that the "natural fit" for youth policy lies within the DfE because "good youth work is after all a proven means of educating young people" - a statement she "totally and utterly" stands by today.

"That said, my experience of working with Nick Hurd has been hugely positive," she says.

"I think his passion and commitment to this agenda really shines through - he really wants to drive it forward and I think the terms he's creating and the priorities they have established are really good.

"I've always said if it wasn't in the DfE, the Cabinet Office is the next best place for it and I think Nick's approach to the way he's engaged in the sector has been really positive."

Transforming the organisation

Making the most of less than ideal circumstances is a trait that has marked Hill's time at UK Youth, and was perhaps a guiding factor in her appointment as chief executive of Step Up To Serve.

She took over at UK Youth from John Bateman at the age of 31, originally joining the charity in 2009 as advocacy and communications manager before taking on the top job a year later.

Since then, Hill has transformed UK Youth from being a government-dependent organisation into one that is funded largely by its corporate partners (33 per cent) and sales (26 per cent), protecting the charity from a demise at the hands of the state.

"When I started at UK Youth, we were largely dependent on the government for our income and we had a huge amount of money from grants from all different departments," she explains.

"Those grants have pretty much disappeared now, so if we had carried on relying on them, I have no doubt that we would have been a significantly smaller organisation if we had still been an organisation at all.

"It's a pretty dismal picture, but I'm really proud that, in tough economic times, we've more than doubled our income and that we have been able to carry on delivering really good quality support for our network of youth clubs because we've been able to bring in new partnerships."

Those partners include the likes of Starbucks, Microsoft and HSBC, which support and deliver programmes to the 693,000 young people linked to UK Youth through its national network of youth clubs and associations.

"These are all programmes we would have done with government programmes in the past," she says.

Positive experience

"My experience of this has been a hugely positive one - we get volunteers, we get profile, we get association with brilliant work, it helps us get young people into programmes and we get space we wouldn't have had access to previously."

According to Hill, these partnerships work both ways and she offers an example of how they help businesses become more aware of young people and their needs. "B&Q have developed a youth board since working with us, so I feel like we're not only getting really important investment in our programmes with young people, we're helping the scope of businesses and the way they work with young people. We're changing the way they view young people which is a really good thing."

Hill doesn't actually take up her post at Step Up To Serve until 22 April, giving her time to build on her work at UK Youth and reflect on her time there. "I've had five brilliant years here and I'm generally always proud of the quality of the work that we deliver and that we have the most amazing group of people working at UK Youth," she says.

"I may be the chief executive, but I only achieve anything because I have a really brilliant group of people who are just phenomenal to work with and great colleagues from across the sector who I'm really pleased to be able to continue working with.

"I really hope we can build on demonstrating the impact of our work.

"I think some really positive steps forward have been made and we can continue to build on how we, as a sector, all collectively demonstrate the impact of our work. That's got to be a priority going forward and I think, in turn, will help us bang the drum and raise the profile." So if you have any bright ideas on how to do it, Tweet them to her.

CHARLOTTE HILL CV

• Studied political science and philosophy at the University of Birmingham
• Spent most of her 20s working in Westminster
• Joined UK Youth in 2009 as advocacy and communications manager before being appointed chief executive the following year
• Before joining UK Youth, Hill and her husband spent almost two years living and working abroad