There’s something about this time of year that brings back long-buried childhood memories. Last day of term, blackboard wiped clean for the last time, exercise books tossed aside and a long glorious summer holiday ahead (strangely, the weather was always sunny back then). For those in their final year, excitement about a whole new future, full of challenges and opportunities.
For today’s youngsters though, things are different. And it’s not just that laptops, interactive screens and CCTV are more familiar than the graph paper, log tables and correction fluid of my youth. For young people leaving school in the next few years, it’s less of a voyage of discovery and more of a plunge into shark-infested waters.
With youth unemployment soaring – the Centre for Cities estimates it will treble by 2011 – it’s understandable that the government has been into the archives and had a close look at the old box file marked ‘YTS’. We cannot let talent go to waste and we can’t condemn today’s 18-24 year olds to the worst possible start to adulthood.
The new Young Person’s Guarantee will kick in after 12 months of benefit claiming, and provide a range of options including subsidised jobs, training and six months of work experience in the shape of the Community Task Force (CTF). The CTF will focus on work that benefits the community. Sound familiar? Perhaps that’s because of strong similarities to the original New Deal choices of Environmental Task Force (ETF) and the voluntary sector option.
Groundwork was one of the largest deliverers of ETF at its height, and we learned a lot through being involved with the initiative. It helped us deliver a lot more environmental improvements in deprived neighbourhoods – and it left us a huge legacy in terms of how we work with unemployed people. But ETF had flaws, which we must learn from if we are to tackle the enormous youth employment challenge ahead.
In some areas, ETF gained the reputation of being a ‘dumping ground’ for those young people with fewest skills and who were least job-ready. That sometimes put off other potential recruits and it also provided a big challenge for delivery organisations in terms of motivating and managing young people. The voluntary sector option too had its critics, with work sometimes described as monotonous and failing to stimulate young people.
In truth, CTF is likely to be an option of last resort. That means it will be challenging for those organisations that end up running the scheme. It will require decent investment in the staff needed to inspire those young people who have become most alienated by the system.
We think that real paid jobs in the shape of intermediate labour market schemes are more effective in moving young people on than unwaged work. But, with the dole queues lengthening, it’s wise to have a range of different options on the table. Groundwork Hertfordshire’s voluntary Green Team, with over 80% success rate in progressing participants to employment or training is one of several models from which the CTF can learn.
CTF schemes must provide meaningful and stimulating work – and a sense of purpose. Correctly designed, they have the potential to make a real impact on quality of life in local communities and by extension on the self-confidence and self-worth of those young people involved. Even more ambitiously, CTF could provide a training ground for the often talked about ‘carbon army’.
In 20 years’ time, will the acronym CTF bring back memories of positive change for people and places? Or will it be a byword for exploitation and wasted youth?
Given the enormous challenge we face, the answer lies in looking at the past and learning from our successes and failures.
Added on Thursday, 6th August 2009 | This entry has 0 comments
There’s something about this time of year that brings back long-buried childhood memories. Last day of term, blackboard wiped clean for the last time, exercise books tossed aside and a long glorious summer holiday ahead..