Why Youth Work Matters
On 22nd November 2023, I gave the keynote speech at Youth Work Matters, an event with the London Violence Reduction Unit celebrating the role of youth work in society. Here's what I said
Good morning,
It’s great to be here and reconnect with so many familiar faces.
I’ve been reflecting a lot recently, because earlier this month marked six years since the most challenging day of my career.
2nd November 2017.
I’ll never forget it.
Serious youth violence across London and the United Kingdom was soaring.
Media headlines about ‘knife crime’ were a constant.
At the time, I’d been a youth worker in south London for three years.
I spent a lot of this time learning how to reassure teenage boys that I wasn’t an undercover police officer.
As I recount in my book, Cut Short, I started off in the field as a volunteer mentor to a 12-year-old boy called Jhemar Jonas when I was a student.
We used to meet every fortnight to talk about life and music.
When Jhemar got stopped-and-searched, and one of the officers shoved him up against a wall by the scruff of his neck, we debriefed why it happened, how it made him feel and how he could respond if it happened again.
When he got sent out of a lesson for fighting, we spoke about why he was angry.
I would set him homework to write raps about different themes, so he would turn up to our meetings with lyrics about church, family and growing up south-of-the-river.
Our sessions were filled with philosophical debates and hysterical laughter in equal measure.
On the last Monday of October 2017, Jhemar bounded excitedly into our session.
He announced that he would be seeing his older brother, Michael, the following weekend.
They had not seen each other in over a year.
So I knew this meant the world to him.
But their meeting would never happen, because that Thursday, Michael became the 42nd British teenager to be stabbed to death in 2017.
Jhemar’s life completely changed.
My responsibility towards him changed, too.
It was only last month, after years of delays, that the people responsible for Michael’s murder were convicted and sent to prison.
His family will never get over what happened, but now they can at least gain some closure from justice being served.
The more distance that Jhemar gets from that time, the more he expresses gratitude that he had supportive adults around him, people who he felt comfortable talking to about his feelings when Michael’s life was taken.
Many young people do not have this privilege.
Youth work can provide it.
By channelling his pain into activism and music, Jhemar has since been able to protect and uplift himself.
When he speaks to young people in his community, he has a Trump card of advice.
A super-power.
“If I can turn such a negative situation into something positive, no matter how bad it gets,” he says, “so can you.”
I’m pleased and proud to say that Jhemar is now 21-years-old and a thriving youth worker himself.
I’m sure that many people in this room will have met or worked with him before.
Over the last year, he and the other two young heroes who helped me to write the story of Cut Short, Carl and Demetri, have all been involved in London VRU programmes, as young people and youth workers.
Jhemar is one of ten members of the VRU’s Young People’s Acton Group (YPAG), which I hear received over 1000 applications last year.
If anyone is going to solve violence, it is them.
They give me hope.
Oakhill Secure Training Centre in Milton Keynes is the only institution in the country which incarcerates children as young as 12.
Feltham Young Offenders is near to where I grew up, in the Heathrow borderlands of greater west London.
In both institutions, for two hours at a time, I would be locked in a room with up to six young people, aided by the support of a staff member.
The aim was to leverage UK rap and drill music as an English teacher might leverage literature: to dissect it, challenge it and show it critical respect as art.
We listened to lyrics and watched videos to spark ethical debates about friendship, home and social media safety.
The young men who took part were encouraged to write their feelings, experiences and motivations down on paper.
We recorded a podcast about the consequences of actions, a theme chosen by them.
On the final day at Feltham, the plan was to let participants to record their lyrics.
By that point I got the impression they’d had enough of my discussion workshops.
But after a successful morning session, we reentered the prison in the afternoon to discover that education was cancelled due to violence and understaffing.
I thought about how disappointed the four guys in the group would be to discover that we’d failed to show up to the session they were looking forward to most.
So we walked through the labyrinth of windy outdoor walkways to their wing.
The producer I was with assembled a microphone in the corner room, where a Michael Jordan poster about overcoming failure was blue-tacked to the wall.
Notes from the creative writing workshop I’d taught there two weeks before were still scribbled on the white board.
We had limited time, so each artist had only two attempts at laying down their verses.
They recorded lyrics about missing an uncle’s funeral due to being in prison.
About the guilt of setting a bad example for their younger siblings.
About how the roads had hardened their mind.
But they also laughed, teased and complimented one another.
At the end of the day, as we said our goodbyes, they were so much lighter than when we’d arrived in the morning.
I’ve recalled this story because I can think of no purer example of youth work’s power.
Why it is so essential.
Why it should be protected.
No matter how dour the circumstances, even if it’s just for a moment, it can grant young people freedom.
Freedom to make better choices.
Freedom to feel like they matter.
Freedom to heal.
It is freedom that I often come back to when I think about how far Jhemar has come.
He’s free to pursue his dreams.
Through his influence as a mentor and output as a recording artist, I have no doubt that he will unlock freedom for others in his community.
As the new year approaches, I hope that, despite everything going on in the world right now, all of us gathered here today can continue to champion the powers of youth work, in London and beyond.
Thank you for listening.
All City aims to archive and inspire social change through storytelling.
I teach a monthly course, Writing for Social Impact, at City, University of London, where I explain how to do this in an accessible, collaborative and uplifting way.
It’s a safe space ran across two mornings for writers of all abilities to learn about how to tell stories and make meaningful change with their pen.
If you are between 18-25 years-old and from an underrepresented background and/or facing financial difficulty, there is one free scholarship space available on every course.
The next available course runs across Friday 15th and Saturday 16th December.
You can find out more and book your place here.