'Losing youth centres would be huge blow'

Chief executive of The Brogdale CIC Group, Rebecca O’Neill, says council cuts to youth centres will only escalate costs of other services.

Transcript

00:00 So we do loads and loads and loads of work

00:02 across the whole of the district of Swale.

00:05 And we've been doing this

00:06 and we've built those wonderful relationships.

00:08 There's wonderful relationships with young people,

00:10 with their families, and we're trusted.

00:12 Take away those youth workers who go in,

00:16 who do that day-to-day work in the youth clubs

00:18 and the detached work that we do,

00:21 are out on the street, chatting to young people,

00:23 looking at how we can support them.

00:26 What's gonna happen is they're gonna have nowhere to go

00:28 that's a focused place for them to go,

00:30 that's a safe space for them to chat and to talk and to be.

00:33 They've got nowhere to hang out with their mates.

00:35 And I would imagine they're gonna look

00:37 for other places to hang out.

00:39 And I would imagine that's gonna cause

00:40 other people concerns and worries.

00:42 Parents are saying, "Oh, but we used to go

00:45 to that youth club when we were children.

00:48 How can they take that away?"

00:49 The value we got from that.

00:51 And we feel safe letting our young persons go to here

00:54 when we're concerned about them being out and about

00:56 on the street and who they might meet and what might happen.

00:58 We feel safe with them going to that space,

01:00 to take that space away.

01:02 Where are they gonna go?

01:03 What are they gonna do?

01:04 What's gonna happen to them?

01:05 And the fact that it's affordable

01:07 and some of the families that we've spoken to,

01:10 it's this place where they can go

01:11 and their young person can come in

01:12 and they can have their tea time meal with us.

01:15 They can have a bit of food with us

01:17 and they can hang out and play games.

01:18 But it's also somewhere in a cost of living crisis

01:21 where they can come and they can get their needs met

01:23 in other areas too, because perhaps the family

01:26 finding it difficult to provide some of those services.