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Schools are only just out and already we have a another youth murder on our hands, sadly there will be more senseless killings of young people on our streets this summer and not even the bad weather will deter this reality.

Across London there are proposed targeted responses to the inevitable summer boredom of some of our young people with teams of police patrolling vulnerable estates and neighbourhoods in designated hot spot areas, but unfortunately this will be perceived as nothing more than a knee jerk response.

Some children from estates in the heart of our urban communities are sleeping in bullet proof vests. Some mothers are doing all they can to take their child out of such environments, whether by coercion or force, and sending them abroad to extended families with literally no means of return in order to save their lives.

With the government announcing a new 10-year youth strategy it is clear that there are plans being developed to restore the pride we once had in youth work and build again a thriving voluntary and statutory youth service that is highly valued, skilled, offers great variety and is well resourced. This will allow the rebalancing of the “unrelentingly negative views held of young people…� in recent times.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Beverley Hughes, the minister for children and young people, announced the building of more youth clubs and open spaces for young people through the use of unclaimed bank assets. Ideas for out-of-school activities and provision of extended schools are beginning to take shape but none of this will be enough to save our young people from the scourge of knife and gun violence this summer.

My favourite style of youth work is what I term issue based detached youth work, which essentially means working with young people from where they are at, which recognises that young people “vote with their feet� and thus the worker and/or team requires the necessary “street credibility�, skill and trust to engage with those young people. Although the police work all hours, which is a necessary requirement for modern day work with young people they are unlikely to be able to provide such a service and style of youth work delivery.

Making youth club attendance a compulsory activity as advocated today by the Institute of Public Policy Research is unlikely to secure the hearts and minds of our young people, let alone the most challenging among them.

Young people need the skills of a worker, usually an adult to enable them to develop the necessary social, cognitive and emotional prerequisites so that they can make informed choices, which ultimately lead to outcomes which are to their betterment and not to their detriment. These skills, I would argue are often found in a detached youth worker who walks the streets, estates and neighbourhoods and operates on the ‘frontline’ without the need for a youth club and without the constraints of set opening and closing times. Detached youth workers engage young people in activities, development and empowerment that they would otherwise not have considered. Young people are given an instant alternative relevant role model, which usually has some significant long term impact.

It is not the only solution but it is arguably one of the most effective interventions that the government could support to tackle the immediate problems of knife and guns, more long term solutions are obviously to be found in child development, education, housing, employment and schools.

We have to wake up to the reality that victims and suspects of knives and gun violence are getting younger and younger, a growing minority of our children are operating like disorganised glorified “urban soldiers� without fear or rational. The cumulative effect on huge numbers of our young people means that they are growing up surrounded by a culture of violence, weapons and fear, which defines the places they go, the routes they take, how they socialise, where they shop, what time they go home and how late they stay out.

This is a huge challenge, but we can still save some lives this summer. Immediate action is required based on creativity, innovation, dynamism and risk and I hope a more holistic summer action plan, beyond just the police is announced soon.

Claudia Webbe
claudia.webbe@gmail.com

Claudia Webbe is Vice-Chairperson of the Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group and a Board Director of Crimestoppers (London)