APPG launches new report on youth work in 2035

The APPG on Youth Affairs was delighted to welcome nearly 50 people, including young people, to Parliament on Monday 2nd November for the launch of our new report: Thrive or Decline? What youth work needs for 2035. You can find a link to the report here.

The report was written following three roundtables on digital and AI, devolution and funding for youth services, and meeting the needs of all young people. We also held a meeting in December last year with young people in attendance from around England to give their thoughts on the role of youth work and youth workers in their lives. We accepted written evidence, receiving a number of submissions which helped inform the report’s development. The main aims of the report were to investigate what youth work will look like in 2035, what young people will need from youth work, and how to support the sector to be ready for the challenges and opportunities. 

Chair of the APPG Natasha Irons MP welcomed everyone to the launch, thanking those who contributed to the report’s development and set out some of its themes and recommendations:

• How the National Youth Strategy is a good step in the right direction to support youth services, but that there is more to do in order to help the sector to keep pace with the challenges ahead
• Many of these challenges, including the development of AI and digital, the changing and complex needs of young people, and devolution and local government reorganisation need to be met with clear responses
• The need for long-term, sustainable funding, a need for young people to know what services are available to them and more investment, training, and recognition of youth workers to support young people to reach their potential.

Also in attendance were Lauren Sullivan, MP for Gravesham, and Jim Dickson, MP for Dartford. Two young people spoke about how the report resonated with them, and what elements they thought were particularly important. Matthew, youth worker at YMCA North Staffordshire, said that young people needed trusted adults and safe places to go, as well as things to do. Yusra, Future Voices Group alumna from the Youth Futures Foundation, talked about her own experiences with a mentor and how a trusted adult provided the help she needed. Both noted the recommendation from the report to explore creating a youth services database to help people locate provision as potentially transformative for young people across the country.

We hope that the Government will consider the recommendations made in the report to help the youth sector prepare for 2035 and the challenges and opportunities the next decade will bring.