Mr. Tony Silcock:

Covid was very hard. We are all part of the voluntary sector, the third sector. I did not get one day off during Covid. I did not work from home one day. We were constantly determining the needs of young people and how to meet them. Many of us here transformed all our centre-based and face-to-face work in seven days, transferring it to Zoom. I am referring not only to working with young people but also to the new policies and safeguards and everything that goes along with these. Young people are coming back. That is for sure. We have had to redevelop, redesign, co-design and change how we operate. Thankfully, we are moving out of Covid although it is still circulating. However, many opportunities arise from it. From my perspective, I got to meet more parents, speak to more young people and engage with more teachers. They got to engage with us and learned to value what we do.

One of the key things going through my head is that youth work is informal education, not formal education, and is therefore about voluntary participation. Young people choose to be with us. They do not get that choice in going to school. They choose to be with us in their hundreds and want to be with us. There is value in what we do, and they get a sense of belonging and ownership. Covid brought a myriad of challenges, including social isolation, anxiety, stress, mental health issues, depression, access issues, and alcohol and drug abuse. These all landed with us and we had to provide support services. Therefore, there are helpful things and not-so-helpful things. In general, the voluntary sector, the third sector, is exhausted along with the health service. We are definitely exhausted and just coming out of that. I know I am exhausted. No two days were the same in that you constantly had to think, design, redesign and put programmes out.

If that did not work because you had 45 young people on a Zoom call and 20 were engaging, how are you going adapt and engage the other 20 to 25 people? There was constant engagement.