What hope for Young people?

Recently I met with 2 lads aged 19 and 22, both care leavers, both had been in prison on short sentences (6 months), both unemployed and both were homeless. Sadly, there was little we could do to offer hope to them, everything was against them; in their opinion there was no one able to help them out of the very deep hole that they found themselves in. As a housing manager and also a housing advice worker it is so frustrating knowing that we were unable to help them.

Add to this the latest overall unemployment figures showed an increase of 44K but when you look slightly closer there was a rise of 66K in the age group 16-24 which I think actually means that the 24+ age group had a slight improvement (?). Next consider that there are fewer 16-24 year olds in education than there has been for the last five years. Hold on a second!, this cannot be right, these totals should not both fall at the same time!! If numbers of young people working drops, the education figure should be rising! These figures tell me that more young people are dropping out completely and this spells significant trouble for our society. There must be more of an incentive to get work and education, the coalition is promising some investment in this area which, judging by the stats, may be too little, too late for many. Perhaps young people are right and there is no hope left so why bother with education.

So where is the hope? I have 4 children, I have to trust that the combination of the best parenting we can muster plus helping my children work hard at education and living good lives will help them overcome the challenges that they will face to enter the job market. But I have thought lots about those two young lads and wondered if they are just the start of many that will find themselves at the Jericho Road Project door asking for help. With the Youth service disappearing before our eyes, who will take up the slack? I do feel like the Church where I work plus many others, will be faced with the challenge of stepping up in areas that we have not previously considered, perhaps even Young Offenders!