Ms Deborah Watters:

I thank the Senator for her questions. I will try to respond on some of them but I will also go back to a pertinent question asked by Deputy Carroll MacNeill in respect of interfaces, Covid and post Covid. For me, that also feeds into social anxiety. As regards our findings in respect of interfaces, I am based in the Shankill area of Belfast and Ms Nolan is in west Belfast. We share an interface and Strive straddles that. There are still ongoing issues in respect of interfaces. It is not what we had a number of years ago but we are dealing now with complex issues. We cannot really talk about Strive and the youth work model without talking about Brexit, the Northern Ireland protocol, the legacy of Covid and the issue of trans-generational trauma.

I run an organisation that works predominantly within loyalist socially disadvantaged communities. The issue of the Northern Ireland protocol is very pertinent for us at present.

To respond to Senator Currie's question, in some ways, one could say the protocol and the narrative around it have been used partly as a recruiting ground for young people and because it gives organisations another reason to be there, a sense of purpose and a sense to be active, whether that is violently or non-violently within their community. Many of our young people feel that pressure and the pressure of some of the narrative around the protocol. I do not want to be too critical of that because people have the right to protest and to make their voices heard but I would be quite critical of some of the words used that can tend to incite violence. That is very dangerous for our young people. For young people in the Protestant community, there has been that element layered with Covid and a sense of social isolation, decreased levels of mental health and the issue of poverty and the cost of living as well as trans-generational trauma, which is ongoing. Members of this committee will know that because we have not dealt well with our past, it continues to seep into the very fabric of who we are and how we do business in the present. Our young people, irrespective of whether they have been active in the conflict, feel that every day. That is still passed down. We also feel it in government. If our politicians do business in that way, why would our young people not reach out and touch that?

We are working in a very complex environment at present and that is why I think a youth work model is very much needed. Youth workers in Strive are on the ground. We are present. We are at the grassroots and at the interfaces. We work not only with young people who offend and who traditionally come to the attention of the system but also with the socially isolated young people at home. We advise them they need help and assistance and ask them how can we be there for them. That youth work model will be very important as we move forward in dealing with all these complex issues.

The other element to it, which has been very successful for us, is youth work in schools. There are some regions that do not like that but teachers love the fact we can go in and ours is not a top-down, punitive or power-over approach. We bring out the best in young people because we are doing power with them. We work with them in group work settings and assist with some very difficult issues in schools. For me, the Strive model is about joining school, community, families and youth work in a model that deals with all those complex layers.

I would cite one example in response to questions raised by Senator Currie and Deputy Carroll MacNeill. When the recent trouble broke out on the Shankill Road, Ms Nolan's youth workers were out on the street on her side of the wall and our youth workers were on the street on the Shankill Road. We were there alongside the PSNI to help de-escalate the situation and move people along and with the creditability and legitimacy that we can say to some people:

Just cut it out. Go home. Inciting violence is not what our community needs and public disorder only destroys your own community. There are no winners in this.

That is the kind of youth work model we are trying to sell to the committee today, not in a lucrative way but in a way that says we need this to continue because in a post-conflict society we really need this level of partnership working across the interfaces.