Budget cuts hit students training to be youth workers

As local authority budget cuts bite deep, the future looks increasingly uncertain for students training to become youth workers. Not only do they see a shrinking jobs market, but many who study at college for the degree they need to qualify as a full-time professional are struggling to fund themselves.

This is bad news not only for them, but also for colleges that run degree courses. They’re seeing significant numbers drop out. In the past, when councils were better off, the youth workers they employed could expect to be sponsored during their studies. But in many places that money has dried up.

Some universities have already stopped offering degrees in youth and community work. Most FE colleges appear to be battling on, though one college, Havering, declined to comment when contacted by Education Guardian about the future of its course and the prospects for students.

Job prospects

Bal Gill, programme co-ordinator for the youth and community work degree course at Ruskin College, Oxford, says he hasn’t taken on anyone sponsored by the council for several years. And the students he has are worried about job prospects and security.

“They aren’t sure there’s a future for youth work. We have people going off on other courses, rather than risking one they aren’t sure about. We’ve had three switch to social work – you can get bursaries for that, where you can’t for youth work degree courses.”

A national shortage of social workers means the job prospects in that field are better, making it even harder for youth work courses to compete. With students struggling to pay their way, it’s perhaps unsurprising that out of 30 who began a foundation degree at Ruskin, only 15 completed. Part-timers, who take four years to complete their course, have acute financial difficulties, Gill says. “People have had to leave because otherwise they would have lost their houses.”

At Bradford College, course tutor Graham Griffiths has also noticed a drastic decline in numbers of youth work students sponsored by their employer. “In 2007 we had 17 who were, but this year only two out of 30 are,” he says.

He expects several of the 30 to drop out. “They’re struggling to get grants. Some full-time students are also working – as taxi drivers or in supermarkets. There’s a lot of pressure on people.”

Trainee youth workers come from myriad backgrounds. Ruskin’s intake includes a refugee who fled the atrocities in Rwanda, someone with a 40-year background in industry who, Gill says, “wants to make a difference”, and an 18-year-old who has already spent four years as a youth work volunteer.

Graduates will face the prospect of dealing with difficult teenagers. “You want people with life experience so they can draw on this,” says Griffiths. Yet those are often the ones too financially stretched to stay the course.

The picture is different at YMCA George Williams College, in Canning Town, east London, a charitable foundation that offers FE and HE courses and is the country’s biggest trainer of youth workers. Currently 315 are enrolled, though only 85 are full time. The rest are home-based distance learners.

Mixed economy

“We’re a mixed economy,” says the principal, Mary Wolfe. “We’re funded by Hefce [the Higher Education Funding Council for England] but also get money from other sources, such as the Rank Foundation. We’ve given bursaries to some full-time students. Around 5% to 7% drop out – that’s lower than most.”

Even so, senior tutor Dr Brian Belton expects some fallout as students struggle to fund their studies. “This will hit people training full time, who tend to be younger, and impact on the college,” he says.

It’s not only local authority youth services under the cosh. Some councils also pay for “detached” youth workers, for instance those attached to a local church. Belton says these posts also risk being squeezed.

No one yet knows the full extent of the cuts or their impact. Unite, the trade union representing youth workers, has made Freedom of Information Act requests to find out; and the National Youth Agency, which aims to improve young people’s services through public, private and voluntary sector partnerships, has commissioned its own survey. “We aren’t optimistic about what it will reveal,” says its chief executive, Fiona Blacke.

Social activities led by youth workers “can be the way young people learn to learn”, and will suffer, she says. Youth work’s role in stopping some teenagers going off the rails is widely acknowledged. “When you realise it costs £150,000 a year to keep a young person in custody and £30,000 for a youth worker, it’s a no-brainer.”

One growth area for jobs is, curiously, within FE itself, where there’s an increasing market for specialists to work alongside students with troubled backgrounds.

Smart move

Henley College, which serves one of Coventry’s most deprived areas, found hiring youth worker Joanne Gaffney a smart move. “Students bring a lot of challenges in trying to complete their studies,” says assistant principal Alan Jones. “They can be struggling with drugs, homelessness or forced marriage.”

He says Gaffney helps with “curriculum enrichment”, encouraging 16- to 18-year-olds to join clubs, go fundraising and take part in community events. She has also sorted out the college social centre, in the past a no-go area for women, the disabled and those with learning difficulties.

In Coventry, a bitter three-month industrial dispute has been fought as Unite tries to stop the city council contracting out its youth service in a cost-cutting exercise. Unite says part-time youth workers who help to run the city centre One Stop Shop, a lifeline for vulnerable teenagers, face a pay cut approaching 40%.

Team manager and branch secretary Jan Lloyd has dealt with many young people in crisis. “Working with Connexions and the PCT [primary care trust], we see about 100 people a day.”

Unite’s youth work sector national secretary, Doug Nicholls, says 4,000 more youth workers are needed across the country to meet an agreed government ratio of one for every 400 13- to 19-year-olds. But there’s little chance of that happening. Amid recessionary times, the outlook for idealistic students and their college courses can only get tougher.