Ms Mary Cunningham:

I will begin and my colleagues can chip in. That is an excellent question, and I do not think we have the answer to it yet. One of the things the NYCI is doing is facilitating a conversation with our member organisations to explore what we are calling some of the guiding lights that youth work will want to protect in its practice and the values that it holds as that agenda around DEIS and DEIS+ emerges. I know there is a particular concern about, for example, falling school attendance and, potentially, it might be seen that youth work could plug that gap. Given that youth work is about working where the young person is at, and about being young person-led, what youth work would want to do is to go much further back with that young person. We would want to know what the problems are, what the challenge is and what is not working, rather than saying we need to get the young person to school. Certainly, the sector is at an early stage in that conversation.

The Deputy is right that there was close to a directive for youth work not to engage with schools on the basis that if schools wanted youth work, let them pay for it. That is why we have talked about a whole-of-government approach and a holistic approach to meeting the needs of young people. Given that youth organisations are about meeting the needs of young people, quite a lot of work continues to go on in terms of supporting young people to stay in school. That might be making sure they are fed, clean and ready to go to school, and that they have a place to do homework or the opportunity to have something to eat and talk to somebody about what has happened in school that day. I would like us to be able to capture some of that as well, but that work was almost kind of underground.