Category Archives: Employment

The cuts: the worst is yet to come

An authoritative analysis in today’s Society Guardian of the deepest spending cuts in a generation, which start from Friday. The special issue inludes some sector by sector breakdowns of savings and job losses, including pieces I contributed to the in-depth coverage.

The cuts – an alternative

For those who’ve not already seen it, this powerful film presents an alternative to the government’s devastating cuts agenda. It features community groups and anti-cuts campaigners along with Bill Nighy, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Zac Goldsmith MP. Worth watching ahead of this weekend’s demo in London against the cuts.

It Cuts Both Ways…The Alternatives from Oonagh Cousins on Vimeo.

“Each day you spend leaves you with one less, spend them wisely”

By Jewish Care co-authors Sinead Rippington...
..and Nana Wereko-Brobby
“Each day you spend leaves you with one less, spend them wisely.”
Solle Frankel, aged 100

It’s sound advice from Solle yet, as young people, we rarely take the time to stop and listen to the older generation. A survey undertaken late last year by the charity Jewish Care revealed that only a third of Londoners thought that people over the age of 70 were important to society. The charity, which provides health and social care services to hundreds of older people every week, responded in November 2010 with its bold awareness campaign Pearls of Wisdom. The campaign asks the vital question: what can we learn from our elders?

The charity asked fourteen clients to share some valuable bits of advice, drawn from their long and varied lives. The effect was a powerful, unique and at times funny collection of life lessons, ranging from warming affirmations about love – “Get a goodnight kiss, every night” Jerry Cooper, 87 – to astute observations about money – “Don’t buy the things that you can’t afford.. pay your debts”, Jean Nadler, 90.

The fact that older people can be witty, insightful and interesting should go without saying. Yet statistics show that only around half of those aged under 35 have spent quality time with anybody over the age of 70 in the last six months indicating a real reluctance to connect with a social group considered “past it”.

So what’s the thinking behind this? It’s not exactly that we don’t care, but so many of us unthinkingly buy into an established social stereotype: older people are grey, boring and a burden on society. Thankfully, several attempts have made recently to dispel this image. The BBC’s latest hit, When Teenage Meets Old Age, and the recently launched Campaign to End Loneliness, follow a similar track to Pearls. The Campaign to End Loneliness, a collaboration between four different organisations- WRVS, Age UK Oxfordshire, Independent Age and Counsel and Care- wants the ‘Big Society’ to volunteer it’s time to do more for older people. The campaign, which began last month, has highlighted the seriousness of a reality where an average of 10% of our senior citizens feel either “severely lonely” or “always lonely”. Visitors to the campaign’s website are invited to offer their time to an older person or share their tips on how to combat loneliness. It’s not clear yet what the impact has been but the campaign’s report into the UK’s “epidemic of loneliness” is a much needed call to action.

Add to this the success of the website We Are What We Do, an example of original, digital action. We Are What We Do, a not-for-profit company founded by community worker David Robinson, were horrified to discover that two-thirds of Britons now believe that young and older people live in separate worlds. In response, the organisation asked younger people to pledge to make the world a brighter place by undertaking a number of small activities with their seniors. From learning older people’s tried and tested recipes to teaching your granny how to text, the website aims to highlight the myriad ways you can bond across the generations. As a result, nearly 10,000 people have signed up online and the community continues to grow.

At a time when Britain’s population is ageing rapidly and the media seems intent on playing up inter-generational conflict (the supposed battle between the beleagured baby boomers and the spoilt students, as the newspapers like to put it, these new campaigns offer a fresh perspective. It’s also a message that young people are receptive to. As Eitan Amias, a 17-year-old volunteer at one of Jewish Care’s Reubens House residential home in Finchley explains, intergenerational interaction benefits everyone involved: “when visiting the home I feel that I’m not just helping the residents but also myself, as I tend to take that positive energy with me to last the rest of the week”

But for many young people volunteering to spend time with the older generation can offer more than just a glowing feeling of pride. It’s also a valuable way to learn new skills, an increasingly important concern as youth unemployment reaches crisis point.

Indeed, volunteering can be crucial in securing that elusive first job after graduation, as Jamie Field, Jewish Care’s youth and community development officer, discovered. Jamie started working for Jewish Care as a volunteer, aged 15, but the experience he gained through charity work helped him land his current, paid role at the organisation after university.

However, Jamie believes “it’s important to make volunteering cool. It has to be relevant… you could write a newsletter, make a movie or use your skills to help someone use a computer’; young people need to be challenged and inspired and charities can’t be complacent, even in the midst of a recession when young people have more time on their hands to help. Jamie emphasises that young volunteers can use their charity experience not just to get jobs, but also to assist them with their Duke of Edinburgh Awards or to provide additional material for their UCAS forms. So, perhaps it really is time to take Solle’s advice and start spending our time a little more wisely.

Shattering UK gangland stereotypes

A powerful image of a black teenager, eyes downcast and his bare arm criss-crossed with knife scars, is among the striking images in a photographic exhibition about the UK’s gangland culture.

The photograph of ex-gang member Jean Claude Dagrou, who was scarred during a fight between rival south London gangs in his late teens, is part of Another Lost Child, which opened at the Photofusion Gallery in Brixton, south London, earlier this month. Read about it in Saba Salman’s Society Guardian piece today.

A neet partnership

The Miller Road project, Banbury, where disparate agencies are tackling youth housing as well as training. Pic: John Alexander

Aiming to crack two of the public sector’s greatest challenges – homelessness and the Neet issue – is daunting enough. Doing so with a multi-agency partnership spanning the sectors of local government, charity, education and housing makes the task even more ambitious. Read more about the scheme in Banbury in my Guardian Public article today.

Young people and a load of bull

Kayla Whiting lives in Hackney, a former administrator for media social enterprise Poached Creative, she project managed the short community film Life’s A Bitch which got local young people involved in media and raised awareness about Staffordshire Bull Terriers. Here, she explains how and why she did it.

Young filmmaker Kayla Whiting and her staffies

I did the film because … I wanted to defend the breed of dog and get people in the community to think before they stereotyped the dog and also give the young people an opportunity to learn valuable media skills.

My aim was…to produce a piece of footage that would change people perception on Staffordshire Bull Terriers.

The hardest thing was…keeping the young people engaged with the project and taking responsibility of all the paper work.

The most rewarding thing was…knowing all the young people enjoyed the experience and learnt new skills; which helped them back into training.

I funded it by…applying for funding from funding body Mediabox with the help of Poached Creative and youth-led media group Mediorite.

My tips for others wanting to do the same are…to keep the work as practical as possible. Make sure you create a strong bond with your team.

The biggest problem for communities today is…young people not being able to get jobs and progress in fields they would like.

If I could have a word in David Cameron’s ear I’d… tell him to make politics more understandable and engaging.

My inspiration is… being a young person myself. Being able to help other young people and help them to work towards their dreams as I am.

In 10 years time I want to be…a millionaire!

Like animals? Fancy working in an abattoir?

Enter, if you will, the parallel universe of the traditional local authority careers advisor, where nothing bears much relation to a young person’s dreams or talents.

In this spooky alternative reality, I have followed the 1985 suggestion of my school-based careers advisor, ditched my “unrealistic” dream of becoming a journalist and am now a teacher.

Mr Saba Salman, meanwhile, didn’t become a documentary filmmaker but stuck to the advice of his careers advisor and became – ta daa! – a careers advisor! And among my friends I count an abattoir worker (she wanted to be a vet but the computer said ‘no’), a prison officer (she’s actually a showbiz journalist) and a lawyer (she said she was shy but liked languages and writing – she’s now a European social policy consultant).

This parallel universe is, of course, based on events some two decades ago, but it’s incredible that so many people still recall the terrible advice they had – and it’s coloured their image of the entire profession.

My nice but singularly insipid adviser informed me that journalism was “a bit difficult” to get into and refused to organise work experience at my local paper on the grounds that I’d be turned away from such a competitive profession. Credit to her that instead of finishing me off completely by yelling “HEY LOSER! YOU’RE ONLY 13 AND YOU’VE YOUR WHOLE LIFE AHEAD OF YOU BUT – BEHOLD – I CRAP ON YOUR DREAMS!”, she comforted me with the affirmation that I was “a good all rounder” who would be suited to teaching.

Now I take my hat off to teachers; I know some inspiring ones working in challenging schools, and it was my brilliant English teacher who supported my interest in writing. But I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do – and teaching wasn’t it.

Mr Saba Salman had a similar experience. After explaining that he liked reading, writing and photography, he was inexplicably told to work in careers advice. Meanwhile my pet-friendly friend punched her likes (people, animals) into a computer programme during her advice session and was told to work in a slaughter house…and so the stories go on.

Was there a massive yet unreported national shortage of teachers, careers advisors, prison officers and abattoir staff in the mid-80s? Were well-meaning careers advisors attempting to rebalance the economy? Or was the service just plain rubbish?

I ignored the patronsing old boot who misadvised me, concluding that it was she who was difficult, not my chosen career. But how many of my peers took the advice along with an unsuitable career path after someone rode roughshod over their dreams?

The careers advice has changed since I was at school. Known as Connexions, what it does well is to target the young and vulnerable with information on careers and personal issues. But its shortfalls were documented in a report from the CfBT Educational Trust last year and Connexions offices face massive job losses as a result of public spending cuts.

So it was with interest that I noted the recent news that the government is to take careers advice responsibility away from councils and launch its first all-age careers service building on Next Step and Connexions. The all-age service launches in 2012 and aims to offer seamless and universal careers advice.

Connexions will disappear. Councils will still advise vulnerable young people, but with what funding and under what auspices is unknown- and that might impact on the disadvantaged.

However, the Department of Innovation, Business and Skills acknowledges that careers guidance is at the heart of increasing social mobility. The pledge that schools will be under a legal duty to secure independent, impartial careers guidance for students is interesting, as is the option for a kite mark for the best career guidance and a register of providers meeting the highest standards.

The new service should include a strong online presence as young people are increasingly looking to the internet for advice. The online youth support charity YouthNet, for example, runs a rich, web-based careers advice resource The Site with a valuable ‘ask the experts’ option.

And the service could help older workers. Research published today by the Employers Forum on Age (EFA) and Cranfield School of Management describes the stagnation in the careers of many over 50s. With the fixed retirement age being abolished in 2011, and the state pension age rising for both men and women to 66 in 2020, many people might look for a career change later in their life.

Of course unless the job market picks up, the recipients of this world-class careers advice won’t actually have anywhere to actually launch their careers – but let’s not quibble about that for now.

And finally, Mrs West Sussex County Council Careers Advisor c1985, it is to you I dedicate this blogpost (a form of journalism no less). Because it is with no thanks to you that I am here today. Cheers.