The North East Youth Alliance hosted their first large scale conference recently to bring people together from across the region who work in the youth sector to talk about key challenges and opportunities, and launch their new campaign Youth Starts Here.
Key speakers included Kim McGuiness, Northumbria’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Leigh Middleton, Chief Executive, National Youth Agency, Justin Watson, Chief Executive, People’s Foundation Trust and Bethia McNeil, Chief Executive, Centre for Youth Impact.
With over 200 youth workers, volunteers, CEO’s and trustees the conference room was full of vibrant conversations, opinions and thoughts about the future of the youth sector. Kim McGuiness commented: ”Child poverty is happening and it’s happening worryingly so here in the North-East and this can not be ignored. The Youth Starts Here campaign is here to be bold – to call Government out on the problems and demand for better for our young people. Since 2011 youth services in our region alone have been slashed by £32 million pounds but we are led to believe it’s all fine because the Levelling Up paper announced £16 million pounds for youth services. That’s for the whole of England and Wales – you do the maths- what an insult to today’s young people. And in those 350 pages on Levelling Up child poverty wasn’t mentioned by the Government once. It says it all. We’re geared up with solutions – opportunities that will inspire young people, mentors that will change lives and the support them and it’s all this that ultimately helps prevent people from becoming victims of crime or being drawn into it. This is where we need investment. Today has shown such a strong shared vision demanding action for our young people and it’s about time we see some.” Youth Starts Here campaign is all about shining the light back on the youth sector, for too many years the incredible work the sector does has been ignored, funding has been cut and the appeal of a career in the youth sector has dwindled. The campaign aims to highlight all that is great about the working with young people and what a rewarding career and profession it can be.
Kev Franks, joint CEO of NEYA said: “It was great to have so many committed, motivated and passionate people at the conference to hear about what we are collectively doing to support young people and youth work in our region. We look forward to working in collaboration with other organisations to continue to support the delivery of high quality youth work and raise the profile of youth work over the coming months and years.”
NEYA will be rolling out the campaign over the coming year and hope that opinions will change and youth work will once again become an attractive proposition as a profession.
