The Government is right to back Youth Hubs. Now it must ensure they last

This is refreshingly good news at a time when too many young people are being failed.

However, as someone on the frontline of the fight to reverse the last decade and a half of funding cuts for youth facilities, we must ensure these new spaces deliver what young people need.

New research has found that two million young people across the UK (40%) have no access to a safe space outside their home and school. Crucially, the issue is worse for NEET young people who are 50% more likely to lack access to a youth space than their employed peers.

When young people don’t have access to these spaces, we risk missing the warning signs that they are struggling. Take our KFC Youth Foundation Youth Hub in Middlesbrough for example. Young people come through the door wanting to play football, see their friends, try a new activity or get something healthy to eat. But while they are having fun, something powerful is happening too. They are forming relationships with trusted adults, building confidence, developing new skills and pursuing training or employment opportunities. Young people are also connected to more specialist support, based on their unique set of needs, rather than expecting them to navigate challenging situations alone.

Seeing firsthand how profoundly positive youth clubs can be, it’s difficult to comprehend just how many young people miss out. When these spaces cease to exist, there are enormous consequences.

Half of the young people who had experienced a youth club closure said that, after the space shut its doors, they spent more time alone in their bedrooms. One in five ended up spending more time with people they knew were a negative influence, while more than a quarter saying, they found it harder to stay engaged with education or work.

Amid the ongoing NEETs crisis, I am encouraged to see the Government recognising that the holistic support offered by Youth Hubs can have such a profound difference to young people’s outcomes and their ability to secure, and stay in, work.

We want to be able to offer more tailored support and more Youth Hubs in the future, so that more young people can fulfil their potential. But these specialist spaces need to be backed and funded, be that by businesses, government or through generous donations.

Young people deserve access to opportunity, both in their life and to get into work. But we cannot expect them to seize those opportunities without guidance to get there. We need to meet young people where they are, bring services together around them and make support easier to access. Youth Hubs do exactly that, and yesterday’s announcement is a welcome step towards making sure more young people have access to them.

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Louise Norris is manager of the KFC Youth Foundation. The Room to Be Me campaign builds on the KFC Youth Foundation’s 11 years of providing wraparound support for young people from all walks of life, including delivering more than £10 million in grants to community youth projects across the UK&I and KFC’s pre-employability programme Hatch, which helps young people outside traditional employment and education take their first steps into work.

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