Centre for Child and Youth Research, Brunel University
CHANGING FORTUNES FOR CHILDREN?
a LOOK AT POLICY AND PRACTICE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER THE CURRENT COALITION GOVERNMENT
Friday, 24thFebruary 2012
10.30am – 4.30pm
LC004, Brunel University Lecture Centre
Chair: Professor Nicola Madge, Centre for Child and Youth Research, Brunel University
10.30 – 10.50Refreshments
10.50 – 11.00Welcome to the seminar!
11.00 – 11.45How are young people faring in the Big Society?
Kathy Evans, Deputy Chief Executive of Children England
The ‘Big Society’ was introduced, with some flurry, as a central plank of the coalition government ethos and represents David Cameron’s aspiration to shift power, responsibility and decision making from the state to individuals, neighbourhoods or ‘the lowest possible tier of government’. This presentation offers a view from the voluntary sector on what the ’Big Society’ means to its youngest members. Currently there are very few areas in which children or young people feature specifically in the government’s plans, opportunities for involving them appear to have been missed, and many pre-existing youth involvement mechanisms have recently been cut. How can this paradoxical situation be reversed?
11.45 – 12.30 One step forward, one step back? Coalition policy on young people in conflict with the law
Dr Jonathan Ilan, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Kent
Youth justice policy in England and Wales is in a state of uncertainty and transition. As the Coalition Government formulates new legislation, the prospect of a move away from an emphasis on risk assessment, constraining performance indicators and high rates of incarceration has been greeted with cautious optimism by some. It is not clear, however, how much of this planned reform will materialise given the 2011 riots, service-threatening austerity, conflicting political imperatives between senior Ministers as well as a press and public that are frequently seen as calling for tougher punishments. This paper reflects on the current condition of youth justice and speculates on potential future developments.
12.30 – 13.15LUNCH
13.15 – 14.00Children poverty and the media: lessons for the coalition government?
Malcolm Dean, former Social Policy Editor of the Guardian
Child poverty is very much still on the political agenda. The coalition government has pledged to maintain the previous government’s goal of ending child poverty by 2020 and published its national strategy in April 2011. However George Osborne's Autumn Statement cancelled a previously pledged increase in child tax credit which Treasury papers suggest will increase child poverty in 2012. In an earlier report, the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies also forecast a growth in child poverty. Can a media campaign help to correct these reverses? This presentation looks at how the media reports poverty and the pressures that it can apply on governments.
14.00 – 14.45The social construction of young people within coalition education policy
Professor Rachel Brooks, School of Sport and Education, Brunel University
The Coalition government has committed itself to tackling what it sees as ‘the sexualisation of childhood’. This has included the development of the ‘Parentport’ website and the introduction of new parental controls on internet pornography - both launched with much publicised personal support from the Prime Minister. This presentationcontrasts the academic critique of the meaning of childhood in general, and girlhood in particular, implicit in initiatives such as these with the lack of any comparable analysis in other areas of coalition policy such as education policy. What do coalition policies reveal about the government’s understandings and constructions of youth?
14.45 – 15.00TEA AND BISCUITS
15.00 – 15.45 What do young people themselves think?
What are the most important issues facing young people now, and how do they think the coalition government is responding to them? Young Members of Parliament have been invited to contribute to a session that puts young people’s voices centre stage.
15.45 – 16.30Other contributions, further discussion and final comments
This will include short presentations from Katherine Byford, postgraduate student at Brunel University, and Mark Kerr, postgraduate student at the University of Kent.
16.30END OF SEMINAR