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Excluded Young People Strategy Action Team

PART II: EXCLUDED YOUTH: WHAT WORKS? - A REVIEW OF PRACTICE IN TACKLING YOUTH EXCLUSION

Dr. Nuala B. Gormley

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND REPORT OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 This report was commissioned by the Scottish Office Central Research Unit, in order to inform the deliberations of the Action Team on Excluded Young People, as they develop recommendations to the Scottish Social Inclusion Network (SSIN). The broad remit of the Action Team is to consider:

46 what more can be done in relation to excluded young people, with a particular emphasis on 16-21 year olds; the particular exclusion faced by young people not in education, employment or training; the experience of care-leavers; young homeless people; young drug misusers; young disabled people; plugging gaps in service provision; developing preventative approaches" Social Inclusion Strategy

1.2 The report is intended to give an overview of the issues which affect the most vulnerable and excluded of Scotland's young people, and the policies and practices which are in place to tackle these dimensions of their social exclusion. It is not presented as a definitive literature review, although it draws on the relevant literature to some extent; rather, it aims to bring the issues discussed in the literature forward to an assessment of practice, and to draw together the main themes and messages from 'what works"^1.

1.3 There is immediately some difficulty in ascertaining 'what works' with excluded young people, since it is definitively an evaluative exercise. As is already being addressed in another of the SSIN's Action teams, there is a recognised need for some evaluative frameworks in Scotland's social policy areas, and the current absence of monitoring and evaluation frameworks which offer a cohesive means of measuring 'what works' is highlighted by this report. As Montgomery (1998) and Brown (1994) have highlighted already, the quantity of evaluative material contained in project reports is not adequate for evaluation purposes. While individual initiatives and projects may have evaluations, these do not 'fit into' an overall evaluative strategy. Such evaluations tend to be idiosyncratic, and often (quite rightly) reflect the culture of the individual project. However, evaluations of a range of, or all projects taking place with a certain interest group are not collated with any strategic purpose nationally. Occasionally, certain research projects are commissioned to evaluate groups of projects, and comparisons and recommendations are made on this basis, but these research projects are neither co-ordinated nor comprehensive. Therefore there is clearly a need for the design and implementation of an evaluation framework in respect of existing and proposed policies and projects which aim to address the problems faced by young people who are socially excluded.

1.4 Furthermore, 'social exclusion' is by definition wide ranging, and the problems, policies and practices relevant to addressing it are cross-cutting and multi layered. To take even one 'slice' of the socially excluded spectrum, such as 'excluded young people' is nonetheless to retain the broad range of issues which combine in various ways to create and promote exclusion for this 'slice' of people. To view a 'Scottish' perspective of the problems facing young people adds another dimension to considering 'what works' here in Scotland.

1.5 To access evaluations of projects which operate either with certain groups of young people (e.g. rent boys), or with the 'young end' of certain issues (e.g. homelessness), or with certain groups in particular places (e.g. ethnic minority young, people in Fife) in every configuration of exclusion for young people across Scotland is a task beyond the remit and scale of this report². Since evaluations of Scotland's projects with rent boys, homeless young people or young ethnic minority people in Fife are not co-ordinated in a manner to elucidate 'what works' in a clear and comprehensive manner, this report therefore draws on a variety of sources which address the range of issues alongside projects which aim to tackle these issues. The aim is therefore to give an overview of the range and intensity of problems for certain young people in Scotland, and to ascertain what is common and distinctive in the measures that seem to work best in meeting these young people's needs. The author recommends that this report be considered alongside several related Scottish Office reports which offer more substantial coverage of particular issues in this report:

EXCLUSION AND YOUNG PEOPLE

1.6 Central to the explosion of literature pertaining to the concept of 'social exclusion' are considerations of how to prevent or contain this phenomenon in the future. Therefore with both preventative and interventionist intent, attention has been focused on the younger cohorts of society; children and young people. A strong body of literature and research has established that 'early intervention' is crucial to preventing social exclusion, and that measures put in place in the earliest years of a person's life can have long term 'inclusive' benefits. It is an underlying premise of this report that the implementation of intervention strategies in the pre-teen years is of fundamental value and importance to any approach that 'works', but recognises that the absence of these measures, and the impact of negative high-risk factors often leaves many of Scotland's young people in a marginalised position before they reach their teenage years.

1.7 According . to the Children (Scotland) Act (1995), the 16t' birthday is the age which defines a young person's transition out of childhood, but there are numerous anomalies in the legislation surrounding definition of childhood which serve to reinforce the danger of applying standard definitions to young people undergoing transitions in their lives. In terms of the criminal Justice system, the education system and the Children's Hearing System, and with regard to gay rights and prostitution, different 'legal' age definitions apply. In the issues discussed in this report, there tend to be certain 'labels' attached to young people in relation to different circumstances. While the term 'teenager' is considered patronising in terms of working with young people, it is the commonly used title given to young parents or young women who are pregnant. When considering young people who are involved in prostitution, the term 'Prostitute' is deemed inappropriate as most advocates in this field feel that this is an issue of abuse, and so refer to 'children' in this situation. Throughout the report 1 have mainly used the term 'young people' to refer to the group of people aged between 13 and 24, although when drawing on literature and evaluations 1 also use the terms commonly employed in these particular contexts.

Young people in Scotland in 1999

1.8 The past twenty years have seen very significant changes in the futures faced by young people in Scotland. The society they face is one of 'risk', 'transition' and potentially 'exclusion'.

1.9 Furlong and Cartmel (1997) discuss 'Young People and Social Change' from a number of aspects and set out the ground shifts that have taken place in UK society against the statistical evidence of how these have impacted upon young people. In their opening chapter they discuss the 'Risk Society', and describe that ".while traditional sources of inequality continue to ensure the reproduction of advantage and disadvantage among the younger generation, various social changes have meant that the social cleavages have become obscure. Moreover, young people increasingly perceive themselves as living in a society characterised by risk and insecurity which they expect to have to negotiate at an individual level" (1997: 10).

1.10 Young people's relationships with family and friends have changed, their experiences of education and the labour markets have altered dramatically, while their leisure and lifestyle choices have developed in ways that reflect the post industrial consumer culture that they are immersed in. Crucially, the transitions towards independent living have been extended, and the restructuring of the labour market (with the increased demand for educated and specialised workers alongside flexible specialisation in the workplace) and the impact of certain social policies have meant that young people remain dependent upon their families for longer periods. Academic theories abound about these recent changes in society (Beck 1992, Baudrilliard 1988, Lyotard 1984), and whether they constitute a change in modernity or a new epoch altogether.

1.11 Of these, Beck's `Risk Society' helps us imagine the futures faced by today's young people most effectively, and Giddens (1990,199 1) has developed this theory to stress how the changes of the past twenty to thirty years have led to a heightened sense of risk, and a greater individualisation of experiences among young people. While both maintain that the inequalities of class and gender have remained constants in the midst of social change, insecurity now marks all transitions from childhood to adulthood. Young people therefore have to negotiate a set of risks which their parents have little experience of. Risk taking has always been a feature of young lives, and the longer transitions facing modem young people have led to a greater vulnerability to risk (including those that stem from criminal activity), and some of the risk-taking activities of the protracted transition periods carry health and crime risks.

1.12 The increasing importance of further education and educational attainment, the virtual disappearance of traditional collectivised transitions into employment, the increasing difficulty in making successful domestic and housing transitions and the increased importance of consumer and lifestyle all combine to increase the likelihood of social exclusion. The paths to inclusion then become even more difficult to negotiate for those young people already on the margins of an 'educated', 'working', 'law-abiding' society. Recently commissioned work for the ESRC, 'Reconceptualising transitions: individualisation, risk and marginalisation' (being undertaken by Dr. A Furlong and colleagues at the University of Glasgow) will use data from the West Of Scotland Twenty-07 Study and a series of in-depth interviews to examine the complexity of extended and overlapping transitions. In particular, the researchers aim to investigate further the relationship between vulnerability and marginalisation, and the differential influence of risk on young people's life routes³.

Who are most at risk of exclusion ?

1.13 Frank Coffield (in Wilkinson 1995) noted that it is society's school leavers that have borne the brunt of the dramatic economic restructuring that has marked the past thirty years. Across western societies, the rate of youth unemployment runs at twice or three times the adult rate, and as the French express it, these have become 'les amortisseurs' (shock absorbers) of the economic crisis.

1.14 Further, the emergence of a significant minority of young people (estimated to be between 5 and 10% of their age group) who are neither in education nor in training nor in employment became an issue of concern during the 1980s and into the 1990s. At the ages of 16 and 17, they appear to have dropped out of society altogether and seldom appear in official statistics. These are the 'Status Zero' young people who are outside the main structures of support and policy provision, and who represent a marginalised section of the population risking social exclusion⁴. Local analyses indicate that young people drift in and out of 'Status Zero' (Istance et al 1994, 1996), and that the numbers involved are generally greater 'on the ground' than the official statistics based on young people who are awaiting a 'guaranteed' place on Youth Training.

1.15 Fieldwork has charted the 'painful and damaging tangle of pathologies' experienced by these marginalised and unqualified young people ; domestic turmoil and violence, insecure accommodation, homelessness, truancy from school, inappropriate curricula and academic failure and the slide into criminality, drug abuse and the 'informal economy of fiddle jobs' (Coffield in Wilkinson 1995:vii). Whether these young people constitute an 'underclass' or not is widely debated (MacDonald 1997), but they are certainly among those most at risk of social exclusion.

1.16 In addition, there are the group of young people who have led 'troubled lives' and have histories of being in residential care, of being runaways, of being abused. Although they are very much visible in many social audits, they often 'disappear aged 16 or 17 into chaotic lives or risk and disadvantage.

Excluded young people: what works?

1.17 Throughout this report, the author concentrates upon the most marginalised young people and the projects that attempt to meet their acute needs. Mainstream provision generally 'works' for the majority of young people, but it needs to be accompanied by specialist and often interventionist initiatives to 'reach` those young people who are. by definition, the 'hardest to reach`.

1.18 The report does not attempt to offer a comprehensive assessment or evaluation of the range of service provision, projects, interventions and initiatives that are currently in place or about to be implemented in Scotland that are targeted at excluded young people. Where examples of projects are highlighted, they are included by the author either because they have been recommended as an example of an approach that 'seems to work for a certain group at a certain time in a certain place', or because, in some cases they are singular examples of any attempt to recognise and approach a particular problem. Most have been cited as examples of 'good practice' in reports and as responses to invitations to submit examples of 'good practice', but in the absence of any comprehensive evaluative framework, the author can only offer them in this limited context.

1.19 The report begins with a discussion of the main philosophies and mechanisms which are in place to work with young people. Principally these have been the various aspects of 'youth work' within a traditional context of community education. The variety of means and methods of reaching young people are discussed at the beginning of the report to familiarise the reader with these approaches when they are mentioned throughout the remainder of the report, which is structured as a discussion of the issues which may mount to exclude a young person from mainstream society.

1.20 Chapter three begins by discussing the principal environments which nurture and nourish inclusion; the family and the community. For each of these, the characteristics of 'what works' are discussed, alongside the implications of dysfunctional family and community environments. In the latter, the report then goes on to address how prejudice and inequality can be tackled to prevent the exclusion of young people in certain groups, and how the social exclusion of young disabled, black and ethnic minority and gay Scots can be avoided.

1.21 Chapter four looks beyond the home and the community towards the main transitional phases in a young persons life, where change is certain; in education, in work and in leisure and lifestyle choices. In each of these transitions, the report focuses on the points where young people tend to migrate from the successful negotiation of choices and risks towards inclusion, to a chaotic pattern of exclusionary choices and circumstances. Therefore in schools, we consider the impact of truancy, bullying and exclusion. In work, we look at attempts to engage 'Status zero' young people in employment opportunities. In leisure and lifestyle, we consider transitions that young people face in relation to sex, drugs and their mental health; areas that attract most attention from the rest of society.

1.22 Chapter five turns our attention to the circumstances that characterise the lives of Scotland's most excluded young people. This chapter discusses what happens when the elements of chapters three and four have not 'worked', and when young people are in situations which threaten to lead to long-term social exclusion. We look at the criminal justice system and the ways in which Scottish projects have attempted to divert persistent juvenile offenders from their criminal activities. Then we consider teenage pregnancy and parenthood, before looking at the situation facing Scotland's children and young people involved in prostitution. Finally, we look at how young Scots experience homelessness. This chapter perhaps draws attention most effectively to the reality that it is often the same young person who experiences all of the situations discussed here, and who has not been able to negotiate the choices and risks of home, family, community, education, work, drugs, sex and wellbeing. This emphasises that although the circumstances in chapter five illustrate most vividly how extreme social exclusion is experienced by some young Scots, the foundational elements of inclusion discussed in the earlier chapters are essential to both prevention and intervention.

1.23 Returning to the inherent difficulty of 'evaluating' without any evaluative framework to draw upon, the report's final chapter summarises the observations and conclusions discussed throughout the report. In each chapter, the 'what works?' sections briefly encapsulate the main themes, approaches and ideas that have emerged as seminally successful in addressing the raft of problems discussed throughout the report. These are discussed in a concluding context of 'what works?' in chapter six.

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