I received the following from the National Youth Agency. Feel free to contact them directly if you’re interested! Dear Colleague, Opportunities to be involved in education training standards activity The National Youth Agency is seeking suitably experienced and qualified youth work professionals to get involved in its education training standards (ETS) work through joining professional [...]
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Laura Dekker and Safeguarding
On Saturday, 16 Year Old Laura Dekker completed her solo round-the-world sailing adventure. The Dutch teenager started her record breaking voyage at just 14 years old – but only after winning a court case that allowed her to go. Although Laura was born on a boat off the coast of New Zealand (and holds citizenship there), she [...]
Kids in the UK: Poverty and Happiness
This week there’s been a couple of key reports released relating to the quality of life for children and young people in the UK. Firstly the Campaign to End Child Poverty published new figures (estimates for mid 2011) that provide a child poverty map of the whole of the UK. On average, one in five [...]
Institute for Youth Work?
Do we need an ‘Institute for Youth Work’ and who gets to decide what it does? At the moment, it’s certainly not you and I. Children & Young People Now reported last week (registration required) that ‘A consortium of youth organisations is exploring the creation of an independent body to provide youth workers with a [...]
Changes to criminal checks
This morning brings us news of the government’s Freedoms Bill being unveiled later today, which proposes changes to the overly complicated and bureaucratic criminal record checking system: The new bill calls for a merging of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority to form “a streamlined new body providing a proportionate barring and [...]
Mental Health & Youth Clubs
From Children & Young People Now: Report underlines youth clubs’ role in combating mental health problems in young people. Youth clubs can help reduce young people’s chances of developing mental problems, according to an interim report published by Clubs for Young People and Young Devon. The report Somewhere to Talk — Someone to Listen looks [...]
Youth Sector Criticised for Lack of Evidence
This is a very interesting piece of news where the outcome will affect the youth work landscape in the UK for a long time: Select committee chairman blasts youth sector for lack of evidence. The chairman of the education select committee inquiry into young people’s services has accused the youth sector of failing to make [...]
Incredibly Articulate 15 Year Old Protester
You may have missed this one, but the video below shows 15 year old Barnaby Raine speaking out against the UK Government on the recent hike in University Fees. From the Huffington Post: The impassioned plea was made at the Coalition of Resistance National Conference in Camden, U.K., on Nov. 27, a youth, students and [...]
Mobiles at school don’t harm kids
New research by Michigan State University has found that mobile phone use by young people doesn’t appear to do any harm to their educational achievement. A three-year study of students from 20 schools found that using mobiles had no effect on the educational results of a group of 12-year-olds. I’m sure teens will welcome the [...]
Gov databases failing children and young people
Back in November I wrote about the development of Government databases (such as ContactPoint) that collect information on young people. I mused that: While there may be legitimate uses for this data, what is happening is that the records are never removed and so any interaction with the police, social services, schools etc. are permanently [...]
