London's recovery starts with you

I believe it is essential that measures are taken to redress imbalances , a need for special internships and other routes - some incentives or call to accountability for headhunters and firms who are not diverse that will create equality of opportunity for those such as Londonwsmc below. . 

I also believe there is a need for Meaningful Courses/ programmes/"ways back in" /job programme who have fallen into criminal activity so that they can change their lives and prove it. These used to exist and need to be brought back.

I also believe there is a need for detached youth work programmes which are a tried and tested way of addressing anti-social behaviour in communities.

There's been a lot of good discussion from what I can see so I won't rehash. What I will comment on as a grad is that 18-25yrs olds are barely ever publicly acknowledged in recovery/policy plans. Perhaps because they're considered adults but I still consider the group to be "young people". Many only realize the consequences of not having had mentors/networking/connections only after university when we enter the job market. You think because you all graduated from the same class you'd have more or less the same opportunities but it is dead wrong. A degree, even if it's from a so called Russel Group, is still not an equaliser. E.G. I speak 3 languages, I have an upper class degree in IR & Politics from an RG uni (because this is what my personal research led me to aim for), I was on 3 committees, but I will never be able to compete with someone who has an uncle/aunt/godparent/family friend in X Agency, X Law Firm, X NGO, X local MP's Office etc. Don't try to tell me this is just "how things are" because it is not the case for those who can afford to not have to compete.

Application feedback indicates that on average I am competing with 500 other grads, to get to the 1st of usually 3 rounds of applications for a minium wage job (£6-£9) or better yet, "voluntary" unpaid internships, which only upper/middle class grads can afford to do, leaving them better off in the long run. And then they get the job for 5 years or so and they often move back to their family towns (outside London) to live the rest of their life in comfort having gained those skills. If you want to help young Londoners who want to stay to make their home a better place, make unpaid internships ILLEGAL. You need to look at geographical segregation, migration patterns and enforce contextual/blind application processes for professional sector jobs. 

I agree with all these measures.
 

The most exciting measures I believe come with understanding how a city can be flexible and that existing routes can be recharted. Roads are not permanent so we could restructure polluting thoroughfares; "green" them and create new green spines that streak London.

Alongside these spines would be wide, well paved cycle routes, and could join with existing routes and canal infrastructure. This is important for young people so they can access the city for free and travel safely on bikes and scooters (E or kick) whilst improving their wellbeing and fitness.
 

Furthermore, this would create projects for landscape architects and landscape constructors, which would be beneficial for creating jobs and improving skills if young people took part in delivering this proposal.

I fully support these proposals especially that of a personal mentor for young people. It’s so important that they feel there’s at least one person who cares about them. They will naturally then try to meet the expectations of that person.

This is particularly important for looked after children, as one of the respondents already mentioned.

I also agree that green spaces are really important for preserving mental health as are creative activities. Young people should be trained to do environmentally friendly, green jobs that are needed from now onwards.

I would have thought that the most important issue is preventing/avoiding exclusion from mainstream education. Rather than coming up with expensive plans to ameliorate the situation after exclusion. It means those controlling education need to be committed to providing excellent inclusive education - not like the teaching unions putting up every reason why not to teach. I know some really great teachers who view their job as vocational. Sadly this is not the norm. Once a child has become "uneducatable" the die is already set.

"- Promoting the profession and importance of youth practitioners and activities across all of London  
- Mapping out existing youth provision across London and filling the gaps, to offer a range of activities that focus on positive mental and physical health"

I was watching BBC and Japanese Gardens came up. I believe one of the most important things for mental health is to connect and be with nature. London has the most beautiful park spaces with organised Parks Police, Park keepers, volunteer gardeners for the community gardens. English gardens are world known for being beautiful with roses and spances of green grass. Yet you rarely see young gardeners around. 

Horticulture should be offered as a subject or at least a hobby for the youth population. We all know nature is calming. 

This would also kill two birds with one stone, making London greener and the air cleaner of the youth were interested in growing green spaces at home, in the garden, in communities, and also work with Parks in London. 

Also educating the youth on learning how to grow things means being able to link things like the food chain, how things grow from seed, and eventually one day hopefully boost the future economy of Agriculture for UK.

There are literally so many activities to do outdoors in nature, even foraging and looking out for hidden sources of food. 

"Working with young people to find out what kind of mentoring they need. This could focus on social skills (such as confidence and aspiration), as well as educational and employment skills"

I think there's two things you can do here:

1) Make this a London-wide activity for schools, clubs, youth centres. Make them part of the solution and let them contribute. It could be empowering and also help them take ownership. 

2) Educate parents, professionals, teachers, to equip them with the information on how to coach, mentor, or support their child/student/mentee emotionally and on an advisory level. These "tools" can be provided online or via school/doctors office/community board/volunteer day. 

"- Focusing on tailored support for those young people who have a harder start to life"

Part of the problem is that many established British people would have the network and parents network to find a professional mentor or even a family mentor or a family friend who can mentor someone who's starting out on a new job and career. 

For those less fortunate and not having educated parents who are well networked.

I think if you can identify these groups, with less access to professional mentors, usually in more vulnerable boroughs and councils estates, low-income households, or refugees (descents of), young girls (boosting the female working population), and at school. You will probably plant the seed early and they will have a strong role model to look up to and guide them from the transition from school to entry-level work. 

It makes a big difference. From someone who grew up with parents who ran away from war and just owned a restaurant, I had my aunt to help me with university choices, suggested reading professional books, salary negotiation, seeking a formal mentor at work, career moves, navigating politics at work, etc.

Having a good mentor at the young age of 16-17 or at the beginning of working lives would provide so much value, because it would set them up for life. 

As part of the need to green our economy there should be an enormous focus on training for young people in industries and skills that will be in high-demand as our civilisations pivot away from fossil fuels. This could be everything from extra training in environmental sciences to the various trades/crafts needed to green our housing stock or build/maintain wind turbines...there's no point in training young people for jobs that won't exist in 20 years.

There is currently nothing for young adults to do. 

I really feel the society in London is not built for 11-17 year olds. There are playgrounds for children and there are bars for people 18+, but nothing for anyone in between. There are 4/5 community and youth centers in my area which are all closed, pushing them away from the rest for society and putting them in vulnerable positions leading to the situation we are currently facing. Only increasing police numbers does not work. It's also not the job of the police to look after the youth. 

Major support and investment needs to be put in place to give young adults a safe place to be themselves. Simply somewhere that is warm and dry and reliable (is open as soon as school finishes, on the weekends, and on school holidays). Actively going and recruiting people from within the community to help run these places, particularly community elders would help make young people feel a part of society again. There is a lot of evidence from the community that people want to help make a difference, but don't have the means to do so

I don't think it needs to be free, but a not for profit organisation business model can be implemented with fees. So that whatever the youth pay in they see where that money goes. I think £1 for a week's membership would work well. This give the belief that they are part of something bigger than them selves. It also installs a mindset that I've now paid my £1 for the week I had better go back so I don't waste my money. 

To summarise: 

Invest in youth clubs and activities, make sure they are available and accessable

Make them feel a part of the community again

Membership where what they pay directly benefits them short and long term

There is a lot of crime in youth in London. More so than where I am from in Australia. 

We have a big emphasis on sport and family life in Aus and I think the UK has a massive opportunity to work more on this as football, rugby, tennis, are all born from the UK. 

If you are a policy maker, look up a local sporting club in your area, 

1) are the inclusive and affordable?

2) do they offer a subsidy for youth people 13-18, 19-23, etc? 

3) are they diverse?

4) is your "area" an area where there are youth out of school/work?

I remember living in Finsbury Park and although there's a strong Arsenal and Tottenham youth FC club there was still a lot of crime?! 

Not relevant here but a church had a deposit bin for knives for the council houses closeby. While I don't think there would be a lot of knives going in, I think it symbolises that the youth can always make a fresh start and ditch the knive and the life that they can choose is good. 

Me personally, to provide young people with safe environment where they can be safe, happy and enjoy. Activities must be present in the there area and too a good standard. In the area I live in (north west London/ Brent) a fairly new youth centre opened up and after visiting it  once, never knew how popular it was. In the centre, has a range of different activities from: basketball, rock climbing, football, cooking, dancing and more. Also, having children from as young as 10 usually going in the morning and senior ranging to 20 going more in the evening. 

With the youth centre being so popular and a reasonable price of £5 per year an 50p per entry, people would love it. Although, problem about this is that there are not many youth centres like this opened around London. People are willing to travel far distance to go to unitas due to how it can entertain them and a place young people feel happy and are safe. Opening more youth centres of high quality would be beneficial for young people in providing them with opportunities and skills through activities that could be used in the future to help young people such as how to communicate with other people.

I think mental health workshops / programmes run by people in local communities with experience with additional needs or people with diverse experiences. I also believe maintaining the London free travel zip card is paramount to creating a safe environment for young people in London. Having a syllabus where life skills is successfully taught and becomes learned behaviour, so everyone has a basic understanding of how to handle adult life. This can hopefully encourage young people to have almost a more equal playing field from all walks of life. Additionally, methods involving attending to those with additional needs during a pandemic need to be explored e.g. providing online pastoral support / how to adapt to minimise risk of falling into a slump after having engagement issues. Also, as someone with care experience, I think it should be a bare minimum standard that anyone in care under the age of 18 has a mental health assessment regarding ADHD, autism, dyslexia etc as after the age of 18 these services cost. More often than not people don't get tested after 18 because they can't afford to get tested themselves or don't know who to ask. The last NHS statistics regarding mental health for care experienced young people were done in 2002, but for the "general public" (actual wording from NHS website) stats were updated in 2017. In the 2002 care experienced stats, they found 45% of looked after children had a mental health issue. Think about what those stats would be now 18 whole years later. This is important to identify before 18 as it can affect someone later in life and can also allow them to certain benefits they are entitled to, be it a bursary or additional exam time to name a few benefits. 

What I think is necessary for young people at this time of recovery is some form of reassurance that the future of young people is safe. Also, young people need to feel like there is some form of direct focus upon them so they feel less hard done by when it comes to new policies. One key issue that needs to be addressed for this to happen is inequality. Especially when considering the recent BLM movement, it is clear that young people are frustrated by the deep systemic roots of racism across the country. New policy should aim to counter any form of former or current inequality by providing for those from disadvantaged backgrounds; targeting public funding on areas that need it the most; and providing jobs, training and services for those who need it. What the young people want is emphasis on them. If the emphasis is clearly set on young people, and young people can easily recognise this, success will become more likely.

More need to be done for young people excluded from mainstream school. First of all to remove powers of headteacher to send children out of school for six months because they forgot their PE kit or because a student knocked and run and was accused of bulling. This is not a proportionate punishment. This is not the solution, prevention is key. More targeted workshops about bulling , different types of workshops like motivation, leadership, or other skills. Emotional problems are not identified and treated accordingly and on time. Poverty is ruining the lives of many young people leaving them  without opportunities to study. There are not enough places in colleges and universities so the number of people accepted has to be decided by the government. Only the most advantaged have opportunity to progress to university.

I think this is really important, particularly the education and employment sections. As a young person, the future feels incredibly uncertain right now in terms of education and employment. I take my A-Levels next year and it seems like there may be implications for my cohort which will make it harder for us to get into university. A lot of people in my year are really scared about taking their exams, seeing as we've missed out on so much school time, so I think education programmes must be a really important part of the future. This is especially true for students who are more vulnerable, such as those who lived in homes without the right technology to access online lessons. I also know that most of my friends who were working part time lost their jobs, and I think that young people are going to be badly affected by the job cuts, as the little amount of jobs there are will be more likely to hire older people, with more experience and higher levels of education. I think any offers in this area should be free, to make them as accessible as possible to those who really need the support.

Do you want to improve the futures of the youth? Then stop saddling them with burdens each time there is a crisis. Perhaps the government might consider the youth when it decides on policies like CoVid Lockdown or closing schools or shutting the economy. That costs plenty today but it costs the youth even more in the future.

If you really care about the youth, then stop implementing policies that rob them of their futures.