The Scottish Executive’s recent announcement that youth work and youth issues are to be given priority in terms of tackling social exclusion and promoting lifelong learning, that young people will be consulted and involved and that funding will be available to promote the policy is being welcomed by those involved in youth work.

Young people often receive bad press and, let’s be honest, the pervasive negative media image is largely undeserved. It clearly rankles with youngsters and with those involved in youth work and youth issues.

“Young people are not a problem to be solved. They are part of the solution,” says Simon Jaquet, chief executive of YouthLink Scotland, the independent national voice for youth work with the largest network of affiliated youth organisations. These range from the Boys’ and Girls’ Brigades, Sea Cadets and Outward Bound Scotland to the Iona Community, the Scottish Drugs Forum, Who Cares? Scotland and Save the Children.

“Some sections of the press don’t give fair, balanced coverage. There is a tendency to focus on the negative.

“The reality of young people’s lives stands in stubborn opposition to the prevailing media image. Those who work with them know young people as moral beings, enthusiastic learners, passionate believers and tolerant democrats.”

As a professional with 25 years experience in youth work, Mr Jaquet believes the government announcement is something of a watershed.

“This is a qualitative change. Government is beginning to put its money where its mouth is. It’s been a long time coming but the Scottish Executive is showing that it is a listening administration.

“Youth work has been changing young people’s lives for decades. At last this is being recognised. “It’s far from being the end of a long process. I think it’s very much a new beginning.”

Mr Jaquet is undoubtedly a happy as well as a busy man at the minute. The YLS core funding of pound;105,000 is to be “substantially increased” by the Scottish Executive and it will take over much of the work of Community Learning Scotland and half of its staff when it is wound up at the end of this financial year.

“In April we will become the single point of access for people wishing to reach young people outwith local authority education,” he says.

Becoming the lead agency for youth work and youth issues will give YLS a crucial educational role in its own right. “There are 570,000 young people between the ages of five and 25 involved with youth groups and clubs in Scotland. When you consider the entire school population is 740,000, you can see how important youth work is,” Mr Jaquet points out.

“We reach 10 per cent of the population and the clubs and groups involved are very much part of the young people’s education. Part of our job is to blow the trumpet for these young people and for their leaders.”

“Youth club” is an often misunderstood or misconstrued term these days, prompting images of table tennis, pool and a tuck shop.

“Youth clubs today are much more than that,” says Carol Downie, chief executive of Youth Scotland, which is affiliated to YLS. “The work that youth clubs or groups do far outstrips the old image,” she says. “For example, Wick Youth Club raised pound;20,000 to build a fantastic new play park with the support of the local community and which the council agreed to maintain.

“The Web Project in Dundee looks at developing information technology skills.

“The CAFE Project in Arbroath provides a community alcohol free environment (CAFE) for young people from eight to 18 because that was a perceived need in the area.

“Active Arbriachan, a rural community youth group in Inverness-shire, promotes sustainable environmental projects; not just tidying river beds but planting community woodlands and encouraging local schools to do the same.”

Ms Downie adds: “At Youth Scotland we do feel frustrated by the media. Very few of our press releases are picked up, perhaps because they’re good news stories. Put that against the amount of bad coverage young people get and you can see the imbalance and the frustration.”

Youth Scotland represents 669 clubs with 44,779 members and 5,308 leadersworkers. Its role is to speak on behalf of these clubs and provide safe and healthy environments where young people can gather.

“That’s the baseline,” says Allister Short, Youth Scotland’s network development manager. “But there’s more to the club environment than just hanging out.

“Youth clubs are about flexibility for young people, places where they can develop confidence in themselves, learn to value themselves and learn the kinds of soft skills, social and team building skills, which industry leaders now value. It’s here that they learn to socialise.

“And if these clubs weren’t valuable, weren’t fun, weren’t rewarding and weren’t working for them, then why would over 40,000 young people regularly attend them?”

The key to a successful youth club is a sense of ownership, says Ms Downie. “Take the example of Elgin Youth Cafe. The young people were involved in its design and are involved in running it. They feel ownership and that’s vital. It cuts down vandalism and graffiti for a start. People don’t damage what they feel is theirs.

“The principle is to involve the young people. Find out what they want, what is important to them.”

What the Scottish Executive is at last recognising, in Mr Jaquet’s view, is that the voluntary sector delivers services, is a major employer and fosters and develops social capital, what he calls “the glue which holds society together”.

There are around 90,000 adults involved in youth work, 90 per cent of whom are unpaid volunteers.

“The weekly volunteer is where it counts,” says Mr Jaquet, “and they need to see their work invested in and valued. It’s about recognition.

“For years youth workers have been working with socially excluded young people, before the term ‘social exclusion’ was coined. And they’ve been providing lifelong learning since before that became a buzz word.”

Another bonus of investing in youth work, Mr Jaquet argues, is that it is non-stigmatising for young people. “While involvement with a social worker or with learning support can be perceived to be stigmatising, that doesn’t occur with your local youth worker. Youth work is holistic and long-term.

“A youth worker can provide through care and aftercare for a young person with social problems or who gets involved with the criminal justice system. The youth worker can maintain contact in a way very few other organisations can.”

That said, Mr Jaquet believes government needs to increase support and training for youth workers. “I’m not saying all volunteers should have compulsory training, but all should have the opportunity to train and all, of course, should be scroll checked.”

Ms Downie would agree with this but points out that training requires funding. While welcoming the Scottish Executive’s initiative as “the first time that government has made such a significant investment in youth work”, she says Youth Scotland has less funding now than it did 15 years ago.

“Our core grant from the Executive is pound;75,000. In 1986 it was pound;86,000. Our core funding is presently 18 per cent of our funding. It used to be 50 per cent.”

Most clubs and other voluntary youth groups are run on very little money, mainly from membership fees, she says, though she welcomes growing local authority involvement in community learning projects and the increasing number of authorities seeking partnerships with Youth Scotland.

“What hits us is that while our core funding has been cut we are having to provide more training and training packs to do with child protection. We’ve had to look elsewhere for this money.

“The bottom level is we support 4,000 volunteer leaders and often we’re their only support, including in terms of insurance and legal support. These volunteers give society one million voluntary hours per annum.”

A lot of volunteers, says Ms Downie, pride themselves in not being part of a local authority. “It’s nothing against local authorities. That doesn’t even come into it. These are volunteers who simply want to be volunteers, to give back to their community. They don’t want to be paid. They just want to be recognised.”

One reason established youth clubs have been ignored in terms of funding may lie in the traditional image.

“I think youth clubs have lost out over the years because they’ve been seen as the poor relation. They’re not seen as part of issue-based youth work. I think the terms of core funding should be more open, more transparent,” says Ms Downie.

However, Youth Scotland believes the new funding climate will eventually benefit them and their members. Mr Short says: “Local authorities provide substantial funding to us and our members. They are beginning to recognise that they can’t do it all and, equally importantly, that we can’t do it on a shoestring.”

David Jones, East Renfrewshire’s head of community resources and an adviser to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities’ task group on youth, is keen to see this partnership approach develop.

“Local authorities work very much in partnership with the voluntary sector and we hope that the new situation will promote further partnerships and innovations,” he says.

“I think government has taken cognisance of all the consultations. There is now a changing climate as regards working with young people and the new attitude and funding is a logical extension of the partnership approach.

“It’s no longer just a youth clubs and Boys’ Brigades approach, vital as such organisations are. It’s a wider agenda, taking in issues such as youth information and access to all the facilities and services that can be provided.

“What is crucial is that young people should be part not only of formulating policy which affects them but that they are part of delivering that policy too.”