GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

about more than just a few weeks over the summer. Youth work has to happen

every week of the year and youth work has to be meeting young people where

they are and not having a very prescriptive set of activities in a very specific

order that is a sort of process that you go through and then it spits you out at

the end and then you are on your own. I think the NCS does work really well

for young people it works for. My concern is that it does not work for the young

people that we actually as a Labour Government would be desperately trying to

reach out for and the ones that we would prioritise. So it probably plays a part.

It probably plays a slightly different role to what it currently does.

MIKE SEAL: It is just kind of looking at the knock on. I have been for years the

Programme Leader for Youth and Community Work at Newman University,

Birmingham, and there used to be in the West Midlands area, depending on

how you count it, four or five universities who delivered it. Now there are two

and both are under threat. So it is kind of a knock on that happens, because I

suppose what we would like is a commitment as well, I suppose, for that

ongoing quality training that you need to have for youth and community work

and that is not just about university but it is about quality training that people

have. The trouble is, once you close a course, it is pretty hard to get it

reopened, so I think some kind of commitment and steer from a future Labour

Government that says, “We will take that commitment all the way through”

would be welcomed.

CAT SMITH: Thanks, Mike. I do not really know what I can add to that. I think your

analysis of the current situation of youth work education is probably fairly

accurate and it does feel very depressing when we think about it, but I am one

of life’s optimists and I think that we can rebuild a youth service that is exciting

and dynamic, but we only do that by working with young people. I realise that I

have delivered what is quite a processy and probably quite detailed speech

about how we are progressing in the sort of minutia of rebuilding this, but far

more important than all the words I have said today is the fact that we need to

ensure that young people rebuild the youth service and not just some 30

something politician like myself, because as far as many young people are

concerned, I am past it. Yes, they tell me that as well! It is so important and I

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