Last week, Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard wrote a rather dreadful comment piece in The Times lamenting the role of the Children’s Commissioner and suggesting that there wasn’t any need for such a position: “How about a Ginger’s Commissioner, for the rights of us redheads?” he asked. “What about a Wii Commissioner, for those who want access to computer games?”

As I’m sure many others did, I sighed, tutted and wished once again that columnists of his ilk would get out of their trendy Islington townhouses and dig a little deeper before putting pen to paper. So I was glad to see that Sathnam Sanghara composed a fantastic response to the piece; answering the criticisms with a robust defence. His standfirst said it all: “If this column were about puppies being held in indefinite detention with no judicial oversight, my inbox would be full.”

Attacking government quangos and those paid to head them up is easy fodder for op-ed writers, and I’d be lying if I hadn’t ever seen the title of a government agency and thought: ‘my taxes go to pay for that!?!’.

But I struggle to think of a section of society more worthy of a publicly-funded body that stands arms-length from government and calls it to account. Those under 18 are heavily reliant on the state, from the education they receive, the healthcare they need, or the thousands of them who are looked after through fostering, care-homes or social services. Many young people come into contact with the state through getting into trouble with the police, but for every young person under 18 with an ASBO, there are around 200 who are providing substantive care to a parent or sibling*; massively subsidising the nation’s social care bill as part of a workforce that would be illegal if it was recognised. All this, and yet because they haven’t yet turned 18, the state isn’t accountable to any of them. Earlier this year, young people were even banned from entering Parliament.

Perhaps Stephen thinks that young people should get together and form their own lobby group to ensure their views are heard and counted, just like every other sector does. There are, of course, organisations that do this, and I’ve seen some brilliant examples of where this is occurring (tomorrow for example, young people will sit in the House of Commons chamber to discuss some of those issues). But, by the very nature of their age, young people don’t have the financial resource, or the time, or the knowledge of how the system works, to effectively campaign amongst professional policy makers and politicians. They need adult support and funding. Especially if English isn’t their first language, or they’ve had an unstable upbringing, or they are simply too young to engage in a debate with adults.

Stephen picks on a single comment made by the current Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, as demonstration of the pointlessness of the role. Last year, Sir Al was quoted as saying that using stop and search powers to prevent knife crime could antagonise young people, and this was seized on as ridiculous both by a government minister (Tony McNulty) and a raft of pundits who get paid as much as Sir Al does to file their columns. The original quote follows the introduction of new powers that the police were given to stop and search people even if there was no reasonable suspicion that they were carrying a weapon. Sir Al, quite reasonably, said: “There is a balance here. On the one hand for young people to feel safer by having the presence of the police – but on the other hand making sure the new powers don’t create further antagonism by increased stopping and searching.” To my mind, that is exactly what someone paid to stand up for the rights of children should be pointing out: especially when I know teenagers who line their walls with the Stop and Search receipts they’ve received.

Sathnam highlights the work 11 Million (the organisation that the Children’s Commissioner heads) has done defending the rights of children who are detained, without legal representation, because of the action of their parents.

But if I was to highlight another reason we need a Children’s Commissioner, it is the effect Sir Al and his team had on the use of Mosquitoes, the devices that emit a high-pitch audio sound that only younger people are able to hear.  It is appalling that it took the intervention of the Children’s Commissioner to highlight how indiscriminate these devices were before councils and other agencies started considering and regulating their use. Until then, it seemed no-one in authority concerned themselves with the legal, let alone ethical, consequences of using these devices.

Perhaps when red-heads are subjected to audible irritation because their demographic is deemed a nuisance; or gamers are locked away in cells, without access to any medical facilities, because their mums and dads broke the law, then they will deserve a commissioner who makes sure the government is looking out for them. But whilst the UN deems the UK to be the worst place in the developed world for children to grow up in, then we absolutely need someone paid to argue the case for young people.

Like Stephen, I would love to compile a list of government quangos that should be got rid of, and put the Children’s Commissioner on that list. But unlike Stephen, I’d like that to happen because the state recognises and respects the rights that young people have, rather than his approach: simply deny there is a problem in the first place.

* Calculation based on the statistic of 869 ASBOs issued to young people aged 10-17 in England in 2007,  against 175,000 under 18s who are classed as Young Carers by Ofsted’s Supporting Young Carers report.

Image courtesy of FatMandy. Used under licence.

There’s been quite a lot of discussion over the last couple of weeks about the decision to allow BTCV and the Wildlife Trust to run a programme of volunteering for young people in London to regain their free travel passes.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced a radical scheme that allowed every young person under 16 the right to free transport on the capital’s buses. It was widely heralded as a positive step in order to tackle social exclusion, on the simple premise that if young people couldn’t get to places they couldn’t participate.

Young people who’ve caused anti-social behaviour, and other offences, have had their passes taken away (which in itself has led to discussions about whether that is the correct punishment). In order to get them back, they need to undertake a period of volunteering with the above charities, as outlined last week.

It’s just another example of the increasing stretching of the term volunteering, particularly by government, to fit a whole host of programmes and projects. I may be a volunteering purist, but I get worried that too many initiatives are muddling volunteering with participation, work experience or community service.

Volunteering obviously comes from the word “voluntary”, which means optional.  If you are asked to make a voluntary contribution, you can decide not to give. If you are asked to volunteer some information about yourself, you can choose not to. All this makes a mockery of both the government and opposition proposals for compulsory volunteering.

But volunteering isn’t just about making a choice to do something.  My favourite definition of volunteering is “philanthropy of your time”. The great 19th-century philanthropists (and today’s philanthropists) didn’t donate their money for personal gain, but because they believed in the greater good.  The libraries, art galleries, hospitals and trusts that enriched public life in this country came about because those people understood the basic principles of social return on investment.

And that’s why some schemes appear to be betraying the concept of volunteering on two related fronts. Firstly, whilst I’d never deny the right of volunteers to use their volunteering to develop skills and gain experience, nor that people should be stopped from volunteering because they want to improve their CV, I get particularly worried when volunteering is promoted as primarily about skills development and increasing job prospects. Hospital radio has always been the way budding DJs got to practice their ‘art’, but certainly at my hospital radio station it was always made clear that you were there to serve the patients; the skills you developed were a by-product. Volunteering is not simply about personal gain.

Which is my second point – volunteering is about doing something that makes a positive difference for someone else (or at least something else, in the case of environmental volunteering). That’s why I get a bit nervous by things like the National Talent Bank that appear to be about promoting volunteering without a single mention that volunteering is a means to an end; not the end in itself. Even v appears to be about counting the number of volunteers placed rather than the effect those volunteers can have.

And if I could have a third point, it would be that volunteering has to involve a sacrifice. I’m all for new ways of volunteering, including current thoughts around micro-volunteering, but I’d get slightly worried if you could count yourself as a volunteer because you had re-tweeted a message on Twitter. That’s akin to counting yourself a philanthropist because you dropped your 1p of spare change into a collecting tin.

Does this matter?  Well, I think so. Five or so years ago, before the current rush to push volunteering, lots of people (including young people) engaged in positive volunteering opportunities because they believed in the cause and wanted to make a difference. I certainly don’t want to rubbish the new initiatives that have tried to engage new people into volunteering, but we need to be careful we don’t lose or de-value that level of volunteering, or muddle good citizenship (participation) with the extra effort required for an activity to be counted as volunteering. Because, if a young person who helps run a Brownie night every week is compared equally with a young person who once spent an afternoon in a recording studio making a music track, we’re in danger of losing the real value of volunteering. And that is the effect it has on others.

So what do I think should have been done to give back travel passes to young people?  Well, my suggestion would have been the creation of young people’s courts, to introduce the principle of being judged by peers. Part of what the “jury” would look at was what pro-social activities the young person had been involved in. That could include volunteering, but it wouldn’t make the direct connection between volunteering and returning the pass. And the jury should of course focus on the effect that the volunteering had.

Photo courtesy of Actions Speak Louder. Used under licence.

Sorry, I haven’t blogged for a while, primarily because my new job (details) that kind of took over the last couple of weeks (plus my birthday).

During that time, two interesting new pieces of news broke. Firstly the report of the Youth Citizenship Commission, and secondly the launch of The Youth of Today, the butterfly that resulted from the caterpillar that was the National Body for Youth Leadership.

I’ve been wanting to blog about the Youth Citizenship Commission since it reported the Friday before last, but having seen the reaction from others it doesn’t exactly set the world alight. Perhaps I should at least read the whole report prior to writing about it, but if the press release is anything to go by I can’t exactly imagine it being a riveting read.

Yes, there are some interesting nuggets of ideas, including keeping schools open when polling is going on and proper funding of UKYP, but essentially it boiled down to revealing that young people felt disengaged with politics and that there needed to be better citizenship education in schools. Hardly earth shattering.

What was even more disappointing was its stance on Votes at 16.  Personally I’m in favour of a reduction of the voting age, although I don’t actually think it’s the number one priority and I understand there are quite reasonable arguments against reducing it. So what annoyed me the most about the commission’s finding was that they didn’t come to a conclusion. If the Government of the day produces a Green Paper, asks a commission to investigate various elements of it, it doesn’t really want it to come back going “erm, we don’t really know – make your own mind up.” That’s a bit like a forensic scientist saying “well, what do you think happened?”.

And, once again, I see mandatory volunteering being bandied about: this time for Key Stage 4 pupils. I’m all for using lesson time to allow young people to help in their community (I used to help out at a local school instead of do PE), but I really worry when I see words like compulsory being thrown into the mix. Before it becomes compulsory, someone has to at least answer the concern that it could alienate a generation of future volunteers.

Perhaps what is most depressing though is that I can’t help feeling somewhat cynical that the much more radical Power Inquiry came up with far more exciting solutions to these problems, yet it faded into nothing. What is the point of these inquiries if change doesn’t come about from them?

The Youth of Today looks a more promising proposition. I’ve already blogged about it when the original proposal was announced, and I still really hope it is a catalyst for recognising the importance of developing young leaders. But, as other commentators have pointed out, my reaction was that it seems a bit too heavy on the institutionalised mandate: leadership appears to be about MPs, councillors and similar elected bodies. I realise there are other schemes that promote innovation and individual excellence, but I’d hope the Youth of Today takes a broader, more grassroots approach to what leadership is. With the exception of our friend in the States, I struggle to think of many politicians who really fit my idea of what good leadership is. And not all young leaders get excited by the prospect of a trip to the Houses of Parliament.

As an example of what I mean, I’ve been party to conversations about the Young Achievers Awards, an independent charity that seeks to recognise inspirational youth volunteers (colleagues of mine are trustees for the charity). Young Achievers Awards are presented to people like Ryan Hartson, a 23-year-old from Rotherham, who was described by his MV co-ordinator as “an all round mentor and role model to literally hundreds of young people.” Ryan initially helped and then ran dance lessons, before organising a Battle of the Bounce competition that attracted over 200 young people. He’s gone into schools to talk about his work, not bad for someone who had to deal with bullies when he was younger due to a speech impediment.

As part of his prize for winning a Young Achievers Award, Ryan met with Jonzi D, artistic director of Breakin’ Convention (an international festival of hip hop dance). As a result of that meeting, Ryan was invited to audition for this year’s convention in Nottingham. His company was successful, and got the opportunity to perform with some of the biggest names in hip hop theatre.  They’ve also performed in Bradford as part of the Breakin’ Convention there, as you can see:

Apart from being a great opportunity for Ryan, what was brilliant was the feedback from the Breakin’ Convention, which included him being described as “very organised and a complete joy to have on our stage.” To me, Ryan absolutely symbolises what a young leader should be about, and exactly the sort of person that The Youth of Today should be championing.

Incidentally, you might like to know that this year’s Young Achievers Awards are now open. You’ve got until the 27^th September to nominate a suitable young person.

Image courtesy of colodio. Used under licence.

If you type the name Darryl Marfo into a search engine, you may find yourself ending up in pretty despicable racist forums. You may well find yourself reading the national newspapers that covered his arrest in April. What you won’t find, unless you specifically look for it, is news that all charges against him have been dropped.

Darryl was the inner-London student, brought up by a single mum, who won a scholarship at the prestigious £25k-a-year Pangbourne College in Hampshire. Not only did Darryl win the scholarship, but he excelled, playing rugby for the England Under 16s team, chairing the school council, helping write the school newspaper and ending up as ‘chief cadet captain’, aka Head Boy.

And then, in April, Darryl was at a house party with other students when some sort of fracas broke out. Darryl was on the end of some racial abuse, apparently from a solider from nearby Aldershot barracks, and allegedly “grabbed a kitchen knife”. No-one was hurt in the incident, but the police were called.

Two people were subsequently arrested as a result of the incident. One of them was Darryl.

I’m not for one moment condoning using any sort of weapon, and I wasn’t there, but “grabbing a kitchen knife” could mean a variety of things. Not surprisingly this turns into ‘pulling out a blade’, ‘brandishing a weapon’ and ‘knife brawl’ for the benefit of good newspaper copy.

Several national papers ran the story (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and most stated that parents of other children were demanding that Darryl be suspended from the school. A mother was widely quoted telling the Daily Telegraph: “We are paying £25,000 a year to this school and it’s not what we expect.”  Another said that parents would be writing to the school’s governors to demand action be taken against Darryl. The school, to its credit, said it wouldn’t take any action until the police investigation had concluded. This was especially important as Darryl would be sitting his A Levels whilst on police bail.

Meanwhile, another student (on condition of anonymity) contacted the local paper in Reading, where the other boy who was arrested lived, demanding that this student was innocent: “In our eyes he was a hero. He should never have been arrested… He was identified by mistake by someone who was not at the party.”  An email to Reading’s evening paper (from someone whose sex is known but is not identified) said that the unnamed boy had removed the knife, and stated: “We are proud of what the other Pangbourne pupil did and he should be praised and rewarded.”

But something didn’t stack up with this story. Only the Telegraph made it explicit that it was the other, unnamed boy, who was arrested on the night. Daryl was arrested several days later after he contacted the police about the incident.

And here’s another question: Why was Darryl’s name so freely bandied about (complete with obligatory Facebook photo) when the other boy’s identity was never revealed? Obviously Darryl was the better newsline, but there was no legal reason not to name the other individual, and if it was that easy to get Darryl’s details then it couldn’t have been that difficult to get the name of the other individual? Why did no-one else (not the eyewitnesses, or the people who contacted the local papers, or the concerned mother) want to be identified? Why are the only young people named in any of the newspapers Darryl and his younger brother (who also happens to be at the school)?

And another question: Why were the parents so determined that Darryl should be suspended, but not the other boy who had been arrested? Darryl’s crime was serious, but it also appeared that he had been the victim of racist abuse that night, so surely there were some mitigating circumstances for his alleged actions? There was no suggestion that he had actually threatened anyone with the knife, let alone caused any injury.

And what action, if any, has been taken against the unidentified solider who was responsible for the racist remarks? Why didn’t any newspaper bother itself with investigating this angle? And which of the boys stood up for Darryl against the racist abuse (because they should be named and praised).

I really hope that this is a serious of coincidences, and there is nothing sinister here. But I couldn’t help feel somewhat uncomfortable when I saw the original story, and nothing I’ve seen since has made me feel any better.

Image courtesy of welshwitch36. Used under licence. (The photo has no relevance apart from it was taken in Pangbourne and I quite liked it)

Monday’s papers covered the news that Bear Grylls is to become the new Chief Scout, taking over from Peter Duncan. Most of the coverage has been positive; shame on the Daily Mail for their rather churlish attack by leading on his TV-fakery claims (claims that indirectly resulted in him getting the Chief Scout job).

BBC Home Affairs editor Mark Easton picked up an interesting part of this story when he looked at whether changing work patterns are the reason that Scouts, like every other youth organisation, are struggling to recruit enough leaders to satisfy the demand from young people.  (He picks up on an issue I’d written about ages ago – that young people would love to participate in activities if only there were the adults to run them).

But I think he’s swallowed the Scouts line a little too easily – there is an obvious reason why they don’t want to make too much of the negative stereotypes that Scout leaders have had. If you don’t think CRBs deter volunteers, read the comments here.

Mark’s argument is that in “the olden days”, when workers worked 9-5, they would be able to get home and dutifully go off to run their local scouting group. Nowadays, with flexible hours, and work eating into more of people’s leisure time, the ability to volunteer in this way is impossible.

There is probably an element of truth in this. But Mark assumes that Scout leaders were office workers, and I’d wager that in much of the country they often were blue-collar workers, working in shifts in factories or trades where you stopped working when you’d finished the job.

We might have a culture of more flexible working, but that works both ways. Again, I’d wager that 30 years ago most companies wouldn’t have had a CSR section of their annual report, nor have a volunteering policy or recognition that skills developed outside the organisation can be extremely beneficial to what the employee does whilst at work.

And whilst I’m sure there are companies where if you asked your boss if you could leave half-an-hour early to help run your local Scout troop you’d be told exactly where to go (and it wouldn’t be in the direction of the Scout hut), I’d reckon the number of employers who would be receptive to the idea is increasing not decreasing.

So, I think both Mark Easton and the Scouts are missing the point. If people wanted to volunteer for their local Scout group then there are ways and means of making it happen. I just think the role isn’t attractive enough: there are too many negative connotations associated with it, there is too much red-tape, there are old-fashioned attitudes in the Scouts that just don’t sit comfortably with the young adults that the organisation needs to attract. But I don’t think this is exclusively an issue with the Scouts, I think many of the points equally apply to other youth organisations.

All that said, I wish Bear the best of luck in his new role; he’s young and enthusiastic enough to push through radical changes and make the Scouts an organisation that people want to volunteer for.

Image courtesy of wwannaby. Used under licence.

I spend an interesting afternoon yesterday at the Hammersmith HQ of Haymarket Publishing – the publisher of the youth sector magazine Children and Young People Now. They, along with the National Youth Agency, were launching a report identifying initiatives around the UK that aim to counter the negative public perceptions of young people.

I was a last minute stand-in for a colleague, but I was glad I went: catching up with the inevitable small group of people who work in this field.  It was great to see (if not talk to) Fiona Blacke, the new Chief Exec of the NYA and recent Twitterer.

The discussion was useful, but it was preaching to the converted, and although I agree with UKYP‘s Andy Hamflet that it’s great to see people coming together and starting a movement, we need to engage a much wider circle if we want to make a difference. It needs to be young person led, yet adults have to stand up and be counted when it comes to challenging the negative perception of young people by the media.

But, without doubt, the comment of the afternoon came from Lisa White at 11 Million. She said her colleagues had been discussing the horrific Baby P case, and a similar story that is going to become major news over the next few months concerning a recent incident in Doncaster.

The public have been rightly outraged at the abuse that Baby P (who we can now know was called Peter) suffered during his short life. And yet what Lisa argued, and a sentiment I totally understand, is that had Baby P survived, or had the abuse been inflicted on him in his teenage years, then the public’s sympathy for him would have waned the older he got.  The words “suffered physical abuse as a child” is a phrase that we read far too often without thinking about what that actually means.

As Channel 4′s excellent Lost in Care programme highlighted, kids who are permanently taken away from abusive parents aren’t always placed into a loving, caring adoptive family. Baby P was young enough to still be attractive to potential-parents, as most adoptive parents go for children under five, but they also, on the whole, avoid children who have physical or mental health problems.

Had Baby P not been adopted, he would have most likely been fostered. Children can be placed in a foster parent for periods of up to six months. If Baby P was two when he was taken away, he would have been moved a minimum of 32 times before his 18^th birthday. And, because of a lack of suitable foster carers, those moves would regularly be into other counties or cities. That there are children who come out of extended fostering reasonably stable is an enormous credit to them.

Baby P may have one of the 10,000 children placed into a care home. Unlike the rest of Europe, the UK prefers fostering over care homes (although that is starting to change, particularly with the introduction of social pedagogy). Many young people, particularly teenagers, live in collective accommdation rather than with individual families.

Children in care fall massively behind their peers when it comes to educational attainment. According to the DSCF 14% of looked-after children received five GCSEs A-C in 2008, as opposed to a national average of 65%. Children in care also are twice as likely to offend than the national average, and half of young people in Young Offenders Institutes have been in care.

The kids the Daily Mail see as feral are often the kids whose lives began in a similar vein to Baby P. Abused by their parents, taken into care, let down by the state and aged 18 kicked out on to the streets and told to fend for themselves. That’s not justifying the actions of out-of-control children, but there needs a more sympathetic approach to their plight.

Photo courtesy of DrGaz. Used under licence.

Although this possibly is outside the remit of this blog, I’ve been caught up in the discussion about whether the voluntary sector needs an ombudsman (an independent person who helps resolve issues between an organisation and individuals). With recent proposals for compulsory volunteering for young people, I think this discussion is very timely.

Rather randomly, I originally got involved because my colleague, Patrick Daniels, is one of the directors of the Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM), and had launched their new website. He wanted people to try the poll he’d added, and so I did. The question was ‘The case for a volunteer ombudsman is strong‘, and I’d ticked agree because that was my initial reaction.

It turns out that the AVM don’t share my view, and there has been opinions in the trade press and on blogs about whether a volunteer ombudsman is the right way to go. There’s an interesting discussion in this week’s Third Sector (reg. required). I think John Ramsey from AVM makes some valid points about the problems of formalising an external complaints procedure, and the desire to use resources to improve standards rather than to create a system of regulation is a laudable one.

That said, I still think there is still significant inadequacies when it comes to protecting volunteers. Perhaps the argument is about semantics-I’m not sure a volunteering “ombudsman” is necessarily the right term-but I still think a standardised external complaints procedure would be a good idea.

Jon says that research suggests volunteers generally felt satisfied with their volunteering, and I’ve no reason to disagree with that. However, most consumers are probably generally satisfied, but that doesn’t negate the need for Trading Standards, the OFT or media outlets like Watchdog, You and Yours or the consumer rights experts that appear in weekend papers. Without knowing the details of how this survey was conducted, volunteers generally self-identify, so those people who leave having had a negative experience of volunteering may not class themselves as volunteers.

From personal experience, there have been a number of times I’ve left volunteering opportunities as a result of bad practice or what I deemed unacceptable behaviour. What prompted me to leave was not necessarily the negative experience, but a feeling there was little I could do about it that would create change within the organisation. And I don’t think I’m alone in having that experience.

Although there are hundreds of ways to volunteer, away from the big cities it’s likely that there are limited opportunities for someone interested in a particular issue or skill. Therefore, I don’t think it’s as easy as saying if a volunteer doesn’t like the organisation, they should simply leave. Equally, whilst I think the independence of the voluntary sector should be protected; there is a genuine moral concern about an organisation that dominates a particular sector being able to remove volunteers without any form of accountability.

My idea would be to have an independent organisation that conducts an annual audit on the state of volunteering and promotes good practice. They could receive evidence of malpractice from individuals (or other organisations) that helps form their report. In the most severe of cases organisations would be named, and the complaint and subsequent investigation written up in the style of Ofcom’s Broadcast Bulletin. It would detail what the complaint was, a response from the organisation responsible and a commentary from an independent panel (not a judgment as there wouldn’t be a formal code to base decisions on).

In his Third Sector piece, Jon Ramsay says one problem would be the limited sanctions an ombudsman would have on an organisation. But I think it would a massive impact – a commentary that reflected badly on an organisation would be picked up and noticed by their funders, benefactors and the public alike. Look what happened when Intelligent Giving highlighted a lack of accountability at Children in Need. The result was a radical change to its accountability procedures. I do think something similar for volunteering could really make people take their volunteer management seriously.

I imagine it’d be similar to the Fundraising Standards Board, which investigates instances of bad practice around giving money to charities. They have a complaints procedure that comes into play if an organisation’s own system doesn’t produce a satisfactory result. The main downside of the FRSB is that it only investigates charities who are members.

That’s not to say all this should come at the expense of promoting good practice, and there needs to be development of incentives such as those best company to work for surveys (of which Patrick and I work at the best charity to work for, apparently). But assuming that the quality of volunteering is going to rise without fixing what is wrong is, I’d argue, somewhat naïve. Some organisations, with large reserves of money and a good public image, won’t necessarily have the motivation to change unless there is an independent assessment of their volunteering practice.

Image courtesy of dhueur. Used under licence.

On Wednesday we had a meeting at work to discuss recruiting new trustees for YouthNet, and in particular the desire to get “youth trustees” onto our board.  We’ve been having similar discussions at the charity I’m a trustee of, the Citizenship Foundation, where I think I am if not the youngest, I’m certainly not that much older than the youngest.

It’s an issue that a lot of youth charities are trying to tackle. The perception is that traditionally trustees were the great-and-the-good, retired professionals brought in for their contacts, experience and (often) wealth. It was therefore reassuring to see that of the 10 people sat around the table at our meeting on Wednesday, all but two were trustees and none of those were over 40 (I think).  It’s worth saying that it was a self-selecting group, so I guess people interested in developing our board are more likely to be trustees themselves. And YouthNet has a pretty proactive workforce.

Like many youth charities, YouthNet already has ‘user panels’ that help guide staff how on decisions that affect the services we provide. We also regularly receive feedback from users, undertake consultations and surveys and get out and meet young people (although possibly not as often as we’d like). So why, in addition to this, is there a feeling that young people should also be involved as trustees of a charity?

Trustees provide the governace of a charity; they are there to keep it accountable. It makes sense that a charity should be accountable to its benefactors. Many charities also see being a trustee as a development opportunity in itself. Charities like the Young Achievers Trust and British Youth Council recruit only young trustees for those reasons.

But for other youth charities, having young people on their board ensures the other trustees can fuse their knowledge and expertise with the benefactor’s personal experience. Young trustees often help remind everyone the real reason the charity exists. My previous employer, Headliners, had ‘graduate trustees’ – young people who had recently been benefactors but were then recruited on to the trustee board alongside other trustees.

Ultimately trustees are there to prevent the organisation from abusing its charitable status. They are financially liable for the decisions that the charity makes and as a result can’t be aged under 18 [Edit: see comments]. Charities with multi-million pound turnovers need trustees who can scrutinise complex spreadsheets, understand employment law and hold senior management to account.  They need to think strategically, take an external view of the charity, ask difficult questions and challenge perceived wisdom within the organisation. Whilst there are undoubtedly young people who can (and do) do that adequately, those are big asks for anyone who doesn’t have significant experience in management.

So how do you ensure that young people are involved in the governance of charities, without it becoming tokenistic or simply involving high-achieving young people? And should the organisation be involved in supporting the young person who is a trustee, or should that be down to the trustees themselves?

I have my own views, but I’d be grateful for others thoughts on involving young people as trustees.

(Usual disclaimer applies)

Photo courtesy of IRRI Images, and shows the International Rice Research Institute Board of Trustees, presumably with some benefactors. Used under licence.

Gordon Brown has announced that he wants to require young people to undertake 50 hours of community service, and that this will form part of Labour’s manifesto for next year’s (presumably) general election. It’s not particularly surprising; David Cameron and the Tories have long been floating the notion and Gordon Brown was responsible for the setting up of youth volunteering charity V and generally pushing for young people to be more active in their community.

But I think it’s a horrendous idea. The suggestion is that it will help charities, but personally I can’t think of anything worse than third sector organisations being expected to provide opportunities for young people mandated to do “goodly works”.  Compulsory volunteering is a total misnomer.

There’s loads of reasons why I hold that view.

Firstly it will force an unnecessary formalisation of community service. Alongside the (disgracefully) large number of young carers in this country, there are many other young people who help others in their community by running errands, visiting, looking-out-for or taking them on trips. It’s unlikely that these activities will count towards compulsory community service, and if they do they will have to be formally assessed, agreed and recorded in a way that destroys both the relationship the young people had with the person they were helping and the reason they were helping them out.

It removes any form of social entrepreneurship: how are you going to be able to prove your community service if you have set up your own activity. Setting up an online support site, tidying up somewhere close to your house or running a street football league: these are all legitimate community activities that a young person could do without any involvement of an official organisation to oversee their contribution. Why should a young person be told that these are not acceptable activities but joining an organisation is? And if these are acceptable, how are you going to ensure that people are actually doing these activities and not just saying they are? How are you going to ensure the scheme recognises social entreprenuers but isn’t used by those wanting to duck out of getting involved?

My concern is that this creates a dangerous connection between the government and the third sector. Just as no-one is forced to give to charity, there is something wrong with government forcing people to volunteer.

Secondly, what is the scope for deciding what and what isn’t community service? Is being involved in your school council? Is being involved in a political party community service? Is playing in a community orchestra, football team or performing street dance community service? If it isn’t, is tutoring or mentoring others in those activities community service? (and if so does your training count in those hours?).

Thirdly, only this week a story broke that many teachers think that the efforts to increase literacy have led to children losing the enjoyment of reading for pleasure. I think the same will be true of compulsory community service.

Many young people volunteer to improve their CV or to develop a skill, but many more volunteer because they want to make a positive contribution. They don’t want to undertake volunteering to tick boxes or simply get a record of their achievements. This was one of the failings of Millennium Volunteers, repeated with V and going to be far worse where there is a mandatory requirement to do this. From a personal perspective, one of the reasons I didn’t want to do my MV was that it seemed to be more about achieving a set number of hours than the value you added to a project.

Indeed, Volunteering England wrote something similar last month (about using volunteering as a way of assessing people applying for permanent UK residence):

Active citizenship activities should be meaningful and enjoyable to present a good image of community participation in the UK and not imply that volunteering is purely a means to an end. If activities do not serve a community need or if the verification arrangements are too simplified, the process could become a “tick-box exercise” and provide the applicant with little benefit.

Finally, why is it just young people? What message are we trying to convey if we say that only those under 19 should be mandated to be involved in community service whereas everyone else only needs to choose to?

And I as every youth organisation will tell you until they are blue in the face; the lack of the young people isn’t the problem: it’s the youth leaders needed to support them. I volunteered for many years as a youth leader, but I don’t think I would have done so had I had to work with young people who didn’t want to be there apart from whatever threat the government will use to get them to complete their community service.

Yes, I definitely want more young people to volunteer and be involved in their community. But I don’t think it’s through forcing them to complete a certain number of hours or tick a particular set of boxes, any more than using volunteering as a stick to reduce student tuition fees etc.

Young people need to be engaged citizens, active in their community, not because they are forced to but because they want to. It would be so much better if Gordon Brown and David Cameron both changed their pledges from making every young person undertake community service to making a society where every young people wants to undertake community service.

And if you do want to volunteer, try here.

Images courtesy of Paul Allison. Used under licence.

I spent a large chunk of Thursday in the ridiculously titled  Accelerated Solutions Experience at Cap Gemini, talking about the future of Crimestoppers.

Having grown up watching those public appeals on daytime ITV (best example I could find is at 3:23 here) I, like many people, was aware of the name but knew little about the organisation. Indeed, until recently I couldn’t have told you if it were a government agency, a part of the police or something totally independent. Apparently I’m not alone in this lack of knowledge.

Crimestoppers is, as I’ve since discovered, an independent charity that initially was set up to solve one murder: that of PC Keith Blakelock who was killed during the riots on Broadwater Farm estate in 1985. People had information about the killer, but for a variety of reasons didn’t want to approach the police direct.  The organisation had one simple mission: collect information anonymously, and then pass it on to the police.

But since then, nearly 90,000 people have been arrested and/or charged as a result of Crimestoppers information, and on average 17 people are arrested every day thanks to information provided by Crimestoppers. One in five murders in London is solved thanks to Crimestoppers.  All impressive stats.

The day was actually about strategic planning for Crimestoppers London, although given the significance of the capital it involved people from the national office as well as the local volunteer board. And like many similar organisations, one of the key concerns was getting the Crimestoppers message to younger people who didn’t necessarily know about the organisation, and can’t be targeted in the more traditional ways that charities feel comfortable with. I was there as a representative of YouthNet, to try and bring some of our expertise from that field.

I’m not quite sure how much I helped beyond throwing a few ideas and comments in, but from a personal point of view it was fascinating seeing an organisation at the very early stages of youth engagement try and grasp what it was about. It made me realise how far down the path (not surprisingly) YouthNet is, as is Headliners.  Even the charity I volunteered for, St John Ambulance, whilst not a model of best practice has the feel of an organisation comfortable with the notion of young people making strategic decisions.

And what I think I benefitted most from the day was that it reinforced the notion that young people, like everyone else, respond to things that they feel are genuine. Making a MySpace page, creating a Facebook page, adding yourself to Twitter: these things mean nothing if you don’t embrace the culture where these things live. Of the things I remember saying on Thursday, one of them was that “online and offline don’t exist in separate entities” and I think that patently true. There’s no point in having a fancy-pants online operation if those values aren’t reflected in your offline offer as well.

My only other contribution of note was, when asked to describe what I wanted the organisation to look back in 2012 and say “this is how we did it”, is that it defies convention. (I initially suggested ‘breaks the rules’, but that’s probably not a good message from Crimestoppers!). Doing things differently is a sign of an organisation confident about what it stands for, and gets ‘cut-through’ in a saturated enviornment.

As an example of an organisation prepared to do something differently, I told them to search for Mystery Package on YouTube. Because I think it is possibly the best video of 2008 (even if it is a bit long), I’ve added it here:

Image courtesy of jamaltraveller. Used under licence.