Life during lockdown
Stage: ClosedThe pandemic hit the UK in February 2020.The first UK national lockdown started in March and lasted for over 3 months. We asked Londoners how they were coping, to help inform City Hall’s response to COVID-19.
Closed
9736 Londoners have responded | 27/03/2020 - 09/06/2020
Discussions
Impact of COVID-19 on youth services
The Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) was launched in 2018 and is tasked with taking a fundamentally different approach to violence reduction – one where we all work together with communities to help reduce violence including introducing young people to positive opportunities and diverting them away from crime.
The lockdown has forced many of London’s invaluable youth practitioners to adapt to working without face-to-face contact and without access to communal spaces like youth clubs. Many young people’s services have closed and, despite new emergency funds, some may never open again.
Here is some of what City Hall is doing to support youth organisations and their communities:
- Signposting funding available through the London Community Response Fund.
- Consulting with charities, community and wider voluntary sector organisations about common themes and challenges, and using their feedback to provide a joint response for London.
- Developing a response to violence, vulnerabilities and exploitation for children and young people together with our local authority partners, both in the immediate and longer term.
- Responding to concerns about young people who may live in households where they experience domestic violence and abuse, whether directly or indirectly.
- Lobbying Government to suspend NRPF (no recourse to public funds) conditions.
Have you been affected by the closure of youth services during COVID-19?
What more can City Hall do to help London’s youth services? What more can others do? What can Londoners do as a community?
What would you like to see in place to support youth services in the future?
Have your say in our discussion below.
The discussion ran from 02 June 2020 - 02 September 2020
Closed
Want to join our next discussion?
New here? Join Talk London, City Hall's online community where you can have your say on London's biggest issues.
Join Talk LondonAlready have an account?
Log into your accountAnonymous - account deleted
Community Member 4 years agoI work as a play worker within East London (for ages 8-13) and have seen over the past ten years and have witnessed the disproportionate impact closing youth centres can have on the mental and physical wellbeing of young people. For many of...
Show full commentI work as a play worker within East London (for ages 8-13) and have seen over the past ten years and have witnessed the disproportionate impact closing youth centres can have on the mental and physical wellbeing of young people. For many of the children who attend our sessions, the food we provide (usually just toast with butter spread) represents one of their three daily meals. They won't eat unless we are providing food for them. The mental toll we have witnessed (i.e. being seperated from friends) largely impacts the already diminishing social circles young people have in impoverished areas (as many of their friends are forcibly rehoused). Youth clubs, particularly our own, act as a community hub regardless of government/private support. The hope is that we can maintain our services once lockdown has ended, furthermore we hope that as particular areas in East London are increasingly gentrified, that the tax returns can be reinvested into the communities. Without doing so, we as lower-brakcet tax payers will continue to assume that the Gov and indeed the MoL is upholing a rich/poor dichotomy within our society, something that we hope Sadiq Khan will continue to unhinge.
Show less of comment