That of course leads in to the debate on whether or not youth workers should be professionally qualified with degrees! Which makes them more expensive. Which means they have to target their services. Which means you then get into the same problems we see with councils employing PCSO's to do a service the Police are too expensive and too bogged down in paperwork and targets to do. Or is that nursing?

I can understand the desire to improve the quality of a workforce - both volunteer and paid - to ensure the best service for young people. But it seems to be at the cost of being able to provide a global service that can better support voluntary agencies.

As for your other point -> 'I think now we've got to a point where there's little place for volunteers in "youth work". - from my limited exposure that is very much where youth workers are heading. It feels to me very like the issues with vicars and curates in the church of england. As a former parish worker it was clear that you either employed someone to do it all - and let them do it - or employed someone who saw their role more as enabling others to deliver. I don't know that new and developnig workers quite have the ability to do this.

From the sound of it - my hope and vision for the youth wing is very similar to what you were doing in your post. I've only been in post 15 months but we've moved from having just 4 support workers to 8, 2 volunteers to 7, 2 afternoon and 1 evening session to 3 of each plus 2 school time sessions and regular use by sixth formers in break and lunchtimes. What is frustrating is the limited funds and the need to fight for it all the time although I can see the benefits of that too. I would hope eventually to have regular weekend sessions but that is at least a year away yet until funds and people have been recruited.

Hi Mike
If you have a facebook account have a look at this page http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php and follow the link to their sample application. A very simple idea but definitely the seeds of something worthwhile. I'm reading the code now and getting to understand how it works but it seems to fit this purpose perfectly.
Chris

Running a centre is really a job for two full-time people. A centre manager to deal with weekday stuff and a junior worker to run weekend projects, allowing for better oversight of developing workers, coverage during absences and continuity when staff move on. As it stands, how can a youth worker develop weekend working when so much of their support structure and networking has to take place from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday.

In my role as a church youth worker I was set one day during the week as my day 'off'. I planned my week knowing that the only person who could change my day off was me - not my boss - but I knew I worked weekends. Now as a worker at a youth wing the culture is very different. Targetted referrals from the school and afternoon clubs only take place termtime. The expectation is that we open weekdays and young people won't come weekends.

The youth service administration and management tend to hold meetings and training for full-time staff weekdays only. Meetings with other agencies take place weekdays. Sometimes by 5pm on Thursday I have done a full weeks work. That's not to say I don't enjoy doing all this. I do. But why are centres setup with only one fulltime worker to manage part-time, volunteer workers and administration assistants (who work school hours term-time only) - its no surprise they don't work weekends.