26/11/2018
David Cameron will always be remembered as the UK Prime Minister who gave the country the opportunity to express their opinion about the nation's ongoing EU membership, and then resigned when the result went against him. It is slightly unfair to criticise him for coming out and stating that he wasn't the right person to lead the country through the process of leaving the EU, as he was clearly always against such a move. Had he stayed and taken on the responsibility of negotiating our exit with European leaders, he would have no doubt been heavily criticised for not engaging in the task with sufficient gusto and bravery, regardless of what he actually achieved.
He had, early in his premiership, championed the 'big society'; his take on pushing for greater community involvement by ordinary citizens. I did actually write to him at the time, expressing the view that he should have acknowledged the fabulous community service already delivered by service groups, such as Round Table, Rotary and the Lions, and exemplary individuals; without response.
What Cameron did do, was introduce National Citizen Service (NCS).
NCS offers three week programmes where teenagers leaving school and entering colleges or apprenticeships work in teams on projects connected to skills and the community. I only became aware of NCS through my children's school, in my daughter's final year.
My daughter signed up for the programme and experienced what it had to offer in July 2018. The first two weeks were residential, with participants returning home for the weekends. The first week was mainly focussed on team-building and initial skills development, whereas the second week saw the teenagers taking on more responsibility and engaging in more tasks, as well as planning for their third week activities.
In the third week the teenagers, working in groups, chose a project to work on.
My daughter's group decided to spend time with the elderly residents in a nursing home in Andover. Some of her group did not stop at the end of that week and continued to visit during the summer holidays, which was greatly appreciated by staff and residents at the nursing home.
This was also spotted by ITV Meridian News, who had visited the nursing home to film a piece about the pressures of revision and exams on 2018's secondary school leavers.
Having seen these young adults giving up their personal time to continue doing something in their community, ITV Meridian News decided to re-visit the nursing home to film a specific story on the NCS programme and the impact felt by the residents.
And yet, I notice that there have been calls for NCS to be scrapped.
A BBC article from the 2nd August 2018 states that councils want funding currently used for NCS to be diverted to more localised and ongoing services. Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, said that while the NCS was a "good programme", the government needed to "provide targeted support to a much wider group of young people".
Whilst it is sad that a large number of youth clubs have closed and it would be great for increased funding for children's services more widely, the benefits of the NCS scheme are too great to be discarded.
At a local level, there are actually many different clubs that teenagers can become involved in. They can join the Scouts, Guides, Explorers, Army Cadet Force, Sea Cadets, Air Cadets, or complete a Duke of Edinburgh Award. They can join sports clubs (tennis, cricket, football, rugby, archery, table tennis, badminton...) or do after school clubs and activities.
The problem is that too many of our youth have no real interest in joining such groups, preferring to either hang out with friends or shut themselves away with social media or game consoles.
The big benefit of NCS is the structure and the promotion of the scheme through our schools. In our case, children and parents were invited to attend a presentation at the school and provided with information. This was an interesting event and it was good to see that our children were eager to do something; pretty much straight after finishing their exams.
Having seen how much fun the teenagers have had, the new friendships made and, perhaps more significantly, the improvement in skills and confidence, I really hope that NCS survives and continues to provide opportunities for growth.
Comments