Letters: We abandoned our kids when we allowed youth clubs to close

The closing down of youth clubs has only exacerbated the problems young people face, says a reader with experience in youth work.

Youth clubs are vital for kids to thrive

The media is full of horror stories about the state of the mental health of our children. As always when problems for teens arise, suggestion flood in which are almost always: our schools should be doing more about bullying, poor diets, kids watching pornography, knife crime, drug abuse, physical fitness etc. The list is unending, and we certainly cannot keep trying to dump this on already hard-pressed teachers. 

What is clear to me as a youth worker with 50 years’ experience, is that we are not looking hard enough at what is the cause of all these problems. 

If we listen to our teens, they tell us that they are bored, they have nothing to do. They are right, there is nothing for them to do in many communities, especially those of high deprivation. The youth clubs, and opportunities for children to just hang out and be kids have vanished in the last 20 years. The closing of youth clubs and other safe meeting places for teens, because local authorities can no longer fund them, has led to us abandoning our kids to get on with it. Hanging about the streets, which have become dangerous places.

I was appointed manager of the biggest youth centre in Scotland, called The Key in East Kilbride. It was designed by young people for young people. The Key had all the facilities for sport and recreation that was thought to be what kids wanted in the 1970s. When I took over that centre there were around 100 members. When I moved on five years later there were 1,200 members. That centre now has a very limited staff and is back to around 100 members.

We should all be appealing to our local authorities, our MSPs and MPs about how wiping out funds for youth work is one big mistake. Empowering our children and teens, by investing in services run by them, for them, is what we need to do. 

I always wonder why it is that our elite university students have the right to own, manage and run their youth clubs (students unions). But we do not trust non-students to do the same.

Max Cruickshank, Glasgow

A life saver

The Salvation Army says that making naloxone available in public spaces could save lives. This would work. I’m a support worker in a day centre and have to carry naloxone on me at all times and it’s so simple to administer. It’s saved countless lives. You’ll get the usual “it’s their bad choices, leave them to it” but it’s far, far deeper than that. Should be a standard in most public first aid kits. 

@Nickd73, Instagram

Make an exit

Re: Nadia Whittome’s article, and the mention of the US “exit tax”, to ensure that those leaving the country to relocate elsewhere still pay their fair share. A very fine idea! I bet the current president of the US doesn’t think too hard about his own ancestor leaving his country of origin (or about the flip side of that, which was that he was therefore an immigrant to the United States).

Judith Rhodes

Free to be

@cynthiaerivo Thanks to your openness about being queer, and to your music, I finally dared to be myself for a while now. I am now dating a woman and am finally seeing the beautiful sides of love. Your Letter to My Younger Self made me very emotional. You’ve been a great inspiration to me for years. Thank you so much. 

@Robin.vrijhoeven, Instagram

Read more:

• Chief Scout Dwayne Fields on empowering Britain’s youth – and why kids are coping better than we think
• The real Byker Grove: Inside the youth clubs that inspired Ant and Dec’s childhood TV classic
• While the government plans its strategy, youth clubs like ours could soon be lost

Choose wisely

The letter from Christine may reflect the current discontent among lifetime Labour supporters, myself included. But the question for the two who will vote Reform has to be: what will Reform do to make things any better? A casually racist party, owned by millionaires and backed by a right-wing media that allows them to criticise everything without being held to account on what they will actually do should never be the home for any voter, let alone disaffected Labour ones. 

Please think carefully before abandoning Labour so early in the parliament and definitely question the integrity and purpose of Reform.

Jon Beard

I well understand and share the severe frustrations with the Labour government of Christine and her friends. But how could voting for Reform help? Nigel Farage can make impressive promises about spending priorities but just look at his mate Donald Trump. The US president isn’t delivering for ordinary people: his main focus is the super-rich. And blaming immigrants is a useful distraction for them both – ‘divide and rule’ lives on. 

I hope that the government will recognise that cuts to disability benefits, arguably another ‘divide and rule’ tactic, is certainly not a good route to a thriving society.

Mary Robertson

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