Cautious welcome to youth project

It’s clear to me that the impact that the decimation of the Staffordshire County Youth Service is having just isn’t understood in the wider public domain. Yet more youth centres and buildings are being sold off this week and Labour’s excuse that it’s ‘a restructure of the service’ is becoming tiresome.

One man’s restructure is another man’s sell off! I believe this is firmly the latter, a desperate sell off to grab some cash. Yes, there are still pockets of good work going on in parts of the Youth Service but, and it’s a big but, in all honesty there aren’t enough people in the Service now to provide even basic youth work other than in very few places. It really does matter. The Youth Service is the only thing that stands between some young people and regular contact with the Criminal Justice System!

I’ve been trying for months to improve on the two hours a week which the Youth Service is providing at the new Mile Oak Youth Centre. An absolute nonsense… all that money raised and spent on the new facility, which opened a year ago, and then County can’t afford to use it because of Labour’s cut backs in the Youth Service.

This week, however, I’ve moved a bit closer to some real progress in getting more youth work in Fazeley and Mile Oak and also developing an overall plan, across several public agencies, to tackle the wider anti social behaviour problems in the area. I’ve established a project group including the County Youth Service, Police, County Youth Offending Service, Fire & Rescue, District Council, HomeZone, County Education (different Services within County Education including the Children’s Commissioner, Family Intervention, Education Welfare and Community Learning Partnerships), local church and community groups, the Royal Air Force and, hopefully, the Environment Agency and a couple of private sector companies.

Some odd organisations there you may think? Well, firstly I’m delighted that we’ve now got so many key people and agencies around the table. It’s has taken some persuasion to get them all and we now need to make this work. What’s the plan? Simple in theory but probably not in practise.

First and foremost a simple principle. It is a fact that most of the problems of loutishness, vandalism and anti social behaviour are caused by a hardcore of around 25 to 40 young people in Fazeley and Mile Oak. The principle is to try and ‘engage’ with those youngsters and, importantly, their families to try and get them to do something useful with their lives. But, and this is important, if they turn down the chance to do something different and continue with what they are currently doing, enforcement, tough enforcement, will be the result.

I think that the criminal justice side of things is pretty ineffective when it comes to anti social behaviour so a key issue here has to be the principle I mention with real and effective enforcement by the police following on from efforts to bring these young people on board. The RAF, Fire & Rescue Service and others will be offering the opportunity for youngsters to try activities which could give them some self discipline and pride but it’s all down to getting the initial engagement.

I think I’d sum it up by referring to that TV programme, Bad Lads’ Army. Not quite the same but certainly the same principle. I’m chairing the first meeting of the multi agency group next week and will be writing on the progress or otherwise of this regularly over the next few months.

Two other things. The new police office in Fazeley is now up and running properly and the public alcohol consumption restrictions will come into force in the next three weeks.

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