Ms Amy Carey:

I am the CEO of Solas Project, a youth work organisation in Dublin’s inner city. Along with many in the youth work sector, we welcome the transfer of youth affairs to the Department of Education and Youth. We believe this is an appropriate fit and a positive move for youth work.

Solas Project supports young people between the ages of five to 26. Last year, we worked with over 900 young people across a range of programmes and interventions. We work in communities that have faced significant disadvantage, and we support young people to overcome the societal inequalities they face and to create a brighter vision for their future. We believe that alongside formal education, youth work is a is a vital component of young people's holistic development, ensuring that they have the supports and opportunities needed to be able to reach their full potential.

Working in a community that has been underserved for generations and in which needs are high, our team is spending considerable time supporting young people in circumstances where other systems and statutory provisions are failing them. I know from colleagues across the sector that youth workers are filling significant gaps where young people are falling between the cracks in the context of inadequate services. For example, over the past few months, alongside the delivery of the programmes we are funded for, our youth workers have: sourced food for families experiencing food poverty; supported families in homelessness and in applying for housing; brought young people to school in the morning to make sure they get there; sat in on an expulsion meeting with a young person and principal as the only adult support available to them; supported young people contemplating suicide who were unable to access any suitable mental health services; provided wraparound supports to vulnerable families with child protection risks; accompanied young people and their families to both the Family Court and Criminal Court; and supported families experiencing domestic violence in navigating complex systems. This work is not recognised, and in many cases not valued, by our funding streams, but as youth workers we are invested in young people’s lives and as the people that they trust, we step in to advocate for them where statutory services are repeatedly letting them down.

We believe that the implementation of the first objective of the strategy, which refers to youth work being more visible and better aligned with other services, would go a long way to improving things for young people. We welcome the recent increase in the capital budget for youth work this year which falls in line with actions 10 and 13 of the strategy. The consultation process for the strategy found that one of the biggest issues for young people across the country is the lack of places for them to spend time.

Being based in the Liberties, an area experiencing significant gentrification, we face extreme challenges with premises, with a complete lack of suitable youth work space in the area. We currently work out of inadequate privately rented and costly premises. There is plenty of development taking place in our area but hotels and student accommodation are consistently prioritised over young people. We recently had a situation where large groups of young people were gathering outside a fast food restaurant in a residential area late into the night. At the request of local residents, our youth workers spent time on the street connecting with the young people. They invited them to leave the street and come to our space. However, they were too successful, and our space ended up being too small for the number of young people who came. Teenagers need to gather with their peers, and when we offer them no alternatives, they will do that on street corners. Then they are deemed as antisocial for acting no differently from their peers in other parts of the country who can spend time in their suitable housing, GAA clubs, or community halls, all of which are not available in our community.

At local forums, resourcing youth work is repeatedly recognised by gardaí, politicians and residents as the best antidote to antisocial behaviour. We are committed to our community and want to be able to provide all the supports needed for young people to flourish. However, without adequate resources we are limited in what we can achieve.

Schools are not expected to operate without school buildings, teachers are not expected to work without classrooms, and we are asking that youth services not be expected to operate without suitable youth work spaces.

We are calling for three things, namely for youth work to be recognised for the multiple ways it steps in to support young people when other services fail them, for the delivery of capital investment in youth work, including the urgent need for dedicated youth work premises for the young people of the south west inner city, and for youth work to be valued and adequately resourced.