A bluffer's guide to surviving a restructure
Tom Wylie
Monday, September 28, 2009
The saying "you cannot step into the same river twice" is an apposite one for youth work. Young people are constan-tly changing and therefore effective practice demands reshaped programmes, improved venues, and even new timings.
Youth organisations have proved adept at adjusting their approaches to the changing needs and aspirations of the young. Those that don't change either decline or disappear.
Having to adapt to new circumstances often produces structural change in voluntary organisations and in local authorities alike. Various voluntary bodies have reshaped what they offer to the young. For example, National Children's Homes last year rebranded as Action for Children to show that it provides more than residential care.
The current restructuring of children and young people's services in local authorities is producing major changes and much turmoil. The beguiling case for better integration of services for the young may be used to mask cuts in youth work.
Those in management who are in favour of change often use two main devices. First, they select a chorus of sycophants who curry favour by echoing the words of the great leader. Second, they deploy a stream of jargon, which George Orwell described as "Newspeak" in his novel 1984. Jargon such as "radical workforce transformation" and "outsourcing" is designed to obscure what is really going on.
One tip for youth workers who want to demonstrate to their boss that they're ready to embrace change is to take yourself into a decent bookshop and skim - but don't buy - the current management bestseller. You will pick up more than enough fashionable phrases to bluff your way past the boss and the inevitable management consultant overseeing the organisation's shake-up. Your obvious familiarity with the language of "radical transformation" will see you safely to the other side of the latest restructuring.
But be of good cheer. The truths about effective youth work are rather more enduring than the wooden language of what passes for management but is often bullying. They are: that good youth workers get close to young people; that they engage them in purposeful conversations that challenge them to move forward; and that they are there for them when things go wrong. These principles are the stepping stones for crossing the rivers of change - or at least for not being swept away by them.
