Postings from the front line

Good piece in the Observer by Barbara Ellen about the fact that the young people she knows are more mature, organised, calm, have more self-belief and are generally more 'together' than she ever was.  It all goes along with my generation Y theory that my generation is secretly, deeply and shamefully jealous of them.  Entering the world of work in the middle of a recession is obviously a disaster, but in terms of opportunities offered through the web, ease of travel and the gradual breaking down of barriers between school and work I think generation Y is in a pretty good position.

Oh good grief.  Government-backed charity Beatbullying picked chart-topping band N-Dubz as its ambassadors only to have to withdraw its commendation of them after Dappy texted a woman who had been critical of him on Chris Moyles' show with, if you could make sense of the ungrammatical text-speak, what could possibly be construed as a death threat.  Why do charities feel they can employ "edgy" people and then become shocked when they act edgily?  Also as the woman who rang in enraged Dappy by describing him very accurately "as a little boy in a silly hat" or something similar I shouldn't imagine she believed him capable of a long-distance assassination.  The media have of course done their usual job on this, and within the same coverage have made Dappy look like a self-important infant and Al Capone. 

Interesting letter in the New Yorker about young people, the children of first generation immigrants, feeling disenfranchised from the country in which they live because they “only see the disparity between their community’s impoverished isolation and the cosmopolitan wealth of their host nation.  The low paying jobs that their parents embraced become for them a stigma.”  The writer, Jeff Weiss, uses Muslim young people in the Netherlands as an example.  He says that “unlike their parents, they have no ready options to emigrate elsewhere in pursuit of a better life.”  Our mission should be to help these young people find that “better life” here.

I think I have heard the best apprenticeship story ever.  16 year old Emily Hart joined a hairdressing salon in Knightsbridge, spent the next four years travelling the world with her boss, hair guru Errol Douglas MBE, (himself the product of an apprenticeship) working long hours for seven days a week and doing TV shoots, fashion shows and celebrities' appearances, and has just won Young Hairdresser of the Year at the age of 21.  She said it was hard work but "the experience I gained was priceless".  She compared what she had learnt and what it had cost her with the cost of going to college, and said there was no competition.  "I tell everyone I know who's going to college to do hairdressing not to bother but to do an apprenticeship instead", she said.     It is Apprenticeship Week from 1st-5th February 2010 and the government has committed to one in five young people being able to take up apprenticeships rather than one in fifteen as it stands at the moment.  While Emily and Errol are fantastic adverts for the apprenticeship system, it would be nice to feel that young people have a choice between the two based on aptitude ather than economic necessity.   

I'm listening...."   A school-based counselling service called Place2Be is working with children who would customarily be diagnosed with ADHD and medicated accordingly.  Just giving them a calm, quiet place to talk and get supportive advice  has had impressive results on young people who were on the verge of being excluded.  Any child can post a note into the special Place2Talk lettterbox and request a fifteen minute appointment at lunchtime to talk about anything they want.  I am thinking of introducing one in our offices.....   Just as the  key to success with therapy is for the therapist to be consistent, for young people with turbulent home lives the regular in-school presence of counsellors is an accustomed opportunity for them to rely on support.  When young people bond with a teacher, that teacher's departure from the school can be devastating.  Having neutral staff there as a consistent listening support is a fantastic idea.   

Another day, another opportunity to get cross about teachers.  "Why should they be allowed to close the schools when I have to go to work?"  "I can't get my child to school because the roads are too slippery and the news said we shouldn't leave the house", "They''ve only closed the school for Ofsted reports so their attendance records don't look bad", "Why can't they play in a snowy playground?  We did and it didn't do us any harm" ad infinitum.  The facts are that if teachers can't get to school, the school cannot open and can we all remember that the last time this happened was 30 YEARS AGO?  It's not like it happens every winter.   We ought to be grateful that we are having a proper winter.  By the time our grandchildren go to school London will be a seaside town and I bet we even try and blame that somehow on the education system....

I am going to begin compiling a bit of a misery-making list of “Subtle media attacks on young people”.  We have the summer “Your exams don’t count as they’re getting easier every year” headline, the word “hoodie” used to describe anyone under the age of 21, and now we have “slacktivisim”, the rather snarky word used to describe anyone who signs internet petitions or who protests online.  Sue Perkins first identified it on Radio 4’s News Quiz, saying that activism now consisted of putting “RT @iraq” or whatever on your Twitter account and then pressing send.  The word slacktivism implies that young people are taking the easy route to protesting.  Twitter and Facebook campaigns have been phenomenally successful.  I think they are pragmatically using all the tools at their disposal to make their voices heard.  Veterans of Aldermaston and Greenham Common might be snooty about it but one look at the youth of the protestors at Copenhagen shows that their dedication to causes is as strong as ever.  I vote we change slacktivism to “Pro-Activism”.  Anyone  fancy starting a Twitter campaign? 

Lovely story about a seven year old, threatened with a return to the Congo from his UK school because his parents had split up and his mother’s visa had expired.  His schoolmates signed petitions and raised awareness of his case and he has now been granted leave to stay.  One amazing thing about multi-cultural Britain is that children are exposed to the workings of politics at such a young age, and have the confidence to fight for what they believe is right.   Children see things with amazing clarity, and to them “the right thing to do” is obvious and unassailable.  Naivety can move mountains, and thank God for that. 

 

Well, who’d have thought.  Apparently, alcohol isn’t good for children!  Goodness.  Next they’ll be saying that playing in traffic isn’t advisable.  It’s political correctness gone mad, I tell you.

Cheers.  Happy New Year.

I had been asked to give a speech at the Commonwealth Carol Service.   I had my speech, I had practised and timed it, I had sent the précis to the organisers, I had my best togs on, and I was due to get on the train at 5.30.  At 4.30pm I lost my voice.  I sounded like Tom Waites’ huskier elder brother.  I rang my PR lady who said “Stop talking for God’s sake!  Whisky.   And honey.  And throat spray.  And stop talking!”  Thankfully I was miked up, so my whispering tones were just about audible across the church.    In all my preparations for delivering the perfect speech, the one element I had not anticipated was not having a voice at all with which to deliver it.  Levi Roots, Mike Perham the round the world sailor and our own Barbara Soetan also made speeches which were very good, and very audible.  It was a very Christmassy, positive and heartwarming event.

 

Two fairly horrible pieces in the Observer on Sunday. One on violence by young women, which took the recent story of the two young women who allegedly drove another girl to jump from a high window, and one on the fact that NSPCC research has shown that one in four girls have been attacked or pressured to have sex by a boyfriend. The two stories resulted in the saddest article link I have ever seen though - the headline on page 26 was 'One in Four Girls face Attack by Boyfriend' and the link at the end of that feature said 'On other pages - what drives girls to violence'. Hmm, I wonder.....

I caught a BBC Radio documentary on prominent families in British history, like the Carringtons and the Cecils; those who now either shape our future as MPs or Lords or who own great swathes of Britain. It was interesting to hear how many of the sons of these powerful families had mentors, friends of their father generally. These mentors encouraged the young men, offered them accommodation in foreign countries, introduced them to their networks and found them employment. This prompted three thoughts for me; that when a son grows up without a father he also grows up without all the benefits of knowing a group of men of his father's age with all their wisdom and practical experience, that mentoring has been with us forever, and that as usual it is the people who need it least who get the most help.

Operation Trident, the Met police unit that deals with violent crime in London’s black communities is bringing its teaching to primary schools.  It already runs workshops for 13-14 year olds in schools, but teachers are saying that pupils need to be reached earlier.  Trident will run age appropriate classes for ten and eleven year olds on gangs, drug dealing and violence.   There will no doubt be the usual outcry over children being presented with such realities at such a young age, but I think it’s a great idea.  A young man we worked with last year told us that he had been given his gang name by his elder brother’s friends.  He was five. 

 

 

The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation is working in partnership with the Saatchi Gallery to produce a national art project called The Elephant in the Room.  Children in schools across the UK have decorated elephants (they're really beautiful) which display anti-bullying messages.    The children are peer mentors at their schools and are helping to combat bullying by being the eyes and ears of the playground.  They wear sashes so they are identifiable as mentors.  There's nowhere more terrifying than a playground for children that are being bullied, and using children themselves to monitor and support bullied children is such an intelligent solution.  Go and see the exhibition - it's on until Saturday. 

The recent Guardian piece was a lovely optimistic read, by the Guardian journalist who interviewed the teenage boys local to her.   The young people interviewed showed a remarkable level-headedness, a positivity and at the same time a clear-eyed assessment of their situation which sat totally at odds with the hysterical violent air-head reputation they frequently labour under in the press, both tabloid and broadsheet.  Playground bullying was much more of an issue for all of them than street violence.  Just like the dignified answer from one teenager to being asked what his hoodie represented ("warm ears") their version of the figures that are bandied about on how many young people carry weapons were reassuring, as was their assertion that "if you know someone that likes trouble, you just keep away from them."     It made me wonder why we make the continual assumption that our young people are going to make the wrong choice, and that we must protect them from that.  Those that choose to ignore our advice and make that wrong choice, we abandon.  Our lack of faith in them, as always, says way more about us than them.