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Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement debate -
Thursday, 19 May 2022

Engagement with Strive

I welcome Ms Dearbhla Holohan, from Include Youth, the Strive programme co-ordinator, Ms Debbie Watters, director of Northern Ireland alternatives, Ms Mary Nolan, director of Newstart Education Centre, and Mr. Tony Silcock, CEO of Youth Initiatives, to our meeting. They are very welcome. Some people are attending our meeting remotely and will ask the witnesses questions and hopefully praise them too.

I have a note on privilege, which is read before every committee meeting. There are some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses regarding any references the witnesses may make to other people in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses who are physically present or give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. However, witnesses and participants who are to give evidence from a location from outside the parliamentary precincts, which is not the case of the witnesses today, are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts and are advised to take legal advice. That does not apply to the witnesses today. Witnesses are asked to note that only evidence connected with the subject matter is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the person or entity's good name.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement to be physically present to participate in public meetings. People from a different political jurisdiction can attend remotely.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

We thank the committee for the invitation to address it. We are delighted to be able to attend to share the work of our Strive partnership with the committee. I am Dearbhla Holohan, from the lead partner, Include Youth. Deborah Watters is from Northern Ireland Alternatives. Mary Nolan is from Newstart Education Centre. Tony Silcock is from Youth Initiatives. Our fifth partner, Lifford-Clonleigh Resource Centre is not present today, but we will ensure that its valuable contribution is given adequate mention during the course of the afternoon. Ahead of today’s, meeting we provided the committee with background information to the Strive programme, including an independent evaluation with detailed analysis of the types of interventions used and key achievements to date. To summarise, Strive was one of 11 Peace4Youth programmes supported by the special EU programmes body, with match funding from the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.

From our launch in late 2017, to the recent completion of the project in March 2022, a total of 837 young people completed the programme. The overall project value was almost €4 million and 28 staff were employed across Northern Ireland and County Donegal. Many of the areas that we have worked in are underserved by opportunities for young people to participate in youth work activities and some have spent long periods of time without any services. For example, before Strive became operational in the Lifford area, there had been no youth provision there for nine years.

Strive builds the capacity and skills of young people, decreases the risk of them becoming involved in paramilitarism or anti-community activity and it helps address educational underachievement by supporting young people to remain in education. It also addresses key issues relating to mental health, suicide, identity and understanding "the other", thus promoting a shared society and peacebuilding. Strive provides young people with a voice, develops skills and promotes leadership. It helps young people to shape policy decisions and legislation and ensures young people have a say in key debates and platforms. As a youth-led programme, young people who are expert by experience, having come through similar situations, use their experience to lead on design and delivery across the programme sites. They work in partnership with skilled and experienced youth workers to support and encourage programme participants to take the lead in setting the agenda for the programme and to look to the needs of their wider community and how they could help to address them.

In addition to the planned outcomes of the programme, there was a myriad of unexpected outcomes from our work, some of which were provided by the Covid pandemic, which none of us could have foreseen. The way in which our youth workers swiftly mobilised to support our participants with a variety of creative and effective interventions was inspiring, to say the least, and reinforced the necessity and value of the programme to our young people. Consistent feedback from young people has been that they want to engage with Strive over a longer period. To this end, we implore funding bodies to focus on the value of nurturing relationships, reflecting on distance travelled, and to adopt an approach that allow for it to take as long as it takes, without restrictive time constraints.

Delivery under Peace IV demonstrated that the programme works for mixed ability groups through supporting young people with a range of complex needs, learning and physical disabilities and behavioural issues to partake in our inclusive programme. In addition to the leadership opportunities offered through our expert by experience approach, young people from Strive acted as advisory groups for impactful academic research projects. In partnership with a member of our steering group, Dr. Siobhan McAlister, and her colleagues at Queen’s University Belfast, young people examined issues such as the transgenerational impact of the conflict and the nature of violence in our society.

The committee has been provided with both the summary and youth versions of the report entitled It Didn’t End in 1998: Examining the Impacts of Conflict Legacy Across Generations, to which our young people were key contributors.

Strive proved particularly effective when we partnered with schools to target those who were most at risk of disengaging with the education system. We believe the programme has a role to play in tackling educational underachievement and early school leaving. This is detailed on pages 25 and 26 of the external evaluation. We know that young people who stay in education and complete their qualifications have much better outcomes across the board and are less likely to become involved in anti-community activity. We believe this link between the intensive support provided by Strive in maintaining young people in education is something that needs further exploration and there is potential here for a model that could be used more widely in school settings North and South.

Now more than ever, the need exists to nurture sustained relationships at an all-Ireland level in socially disadvantaged communities to ensure real peace-building through the Good Friday Agreement remains a priority. Socially disadvantaged communities are feeling increasingly fragile and marginalised due to the impact of Covid-19, Brexit and debates on the protocol, identity, and border polls, in addition to the current cost-of-living crisis. Many of the issues are the same for those living in rural Border communities as well as those living in urban areas on both sides of the religious and political divide. We want to use this meeting as an opportunity to share with the committee best practice in the context of our youth-led model of peace building. We want to champion the added value of genuine, meaningful and truly collaborative partnership working and highlight the conditions needed for consortiums to thrive. We want to have a discussion on the need for ongoing flexible funding mechanisms that can allow for organisations to work together on a cross-community and cross-Border basis. We welcome the comments and questions of members and look forward to the discussion ahead.

Do any of our other guests wish to contribute at this stage? If they do, that is fine; if they do not, we will go to members for questions and discussion. Our guests should feel free to intervene at any stage. It is a relaxed process.

Senator Currie is having computer issues, so I call Deputy Carroll MacNeill.

I thank our guests for their attendance. I am very glad they are here. What challenges are children with additional needs, particularly autistic children, facing at the moment? What difficulties are being faced by children in any sort of interface areas? In her opening remarks, Ms Holohan referred to additional challenges post Covid. I ask our guests to address the particular issues they may be facing in each of those areas.

Ms Mary Nolan

My organisation is part of the Strive partnership that works within special schools dealing with additional needs, including young people with autism. We focused on that because young people with special needs were being targeted as a result of their vulnerability. They were easily recruited into drug-running paramilitarism and even violence in interface areas. As the young people who go through Newstart Education Centre are aware, it is located very close to the major interfaces, between Springfield Road and Shankill Road. It is one of the major interfaces, and where the trouble erupted the last time.

Ms Holohan may wish to come in on the response to Covid. I will leave that topic for my colleagues.

As regards autism, the challenges we are facing are astronomical because kids are coming through primary school without a diagnosis. When they get to secondary school, they are then fed into special needs schools where they are treated completely differently. If they had been in special needs schools earlier, it would have made a significant difference to them. Their lives are completely in turmoil by the time they get to 13 or 14 years of age.

What level of therapeutic support is available to autistic children there in terms of speech and language or other forms of therapeutic or early intervention supports the children will need?

Ms Mary Nolan

We do not have that sort of therapeutic intervention through Strive. Our programme is more along the lines of social, emotional and nurturing support, along with role modelling. We have expert by experience support involving young people who have already been through the programme and know the difficulties those children are facing. They can be role models and peer mentors for them. Speech and language therapy, however, comes under the authorities.

I was just wondering what level of provision is available. Ms Nolan stated that by the time children get to secondary school, they are in a very difficult situation. I was not sure if that was partly due to an absence of service provision or if it was down to the nature of the schooling or simply the nature of what they were facing. Of course, all autistic children are not the same. I was trying to delve into her statement in that regard.

Ms Mary Nolan

The Deputy is correct that it is a lack of service provision. Those who are most vulnerable and deprived and live generationally under that umbrella are those who cannot access the services. The National Health Service, NHS, does not have provision for it and the Education Authority is not providing it. The responsibility gets passed from Department to Department, such as from health to education. If the young person reaches the age of 16 and has not had any of the service provision or youth support - that is what we are trying to provide - he or she ends up in either the social care system or the justice system.

I thank Ms Nolan. Senator Currie may wish to come in. I do not want to take all her time.

I thank the Deputy. I hope my computer is working now. It did not want me to speak earlier.

I wish to ask our guests about social media because at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee this week there was focus on how social media may play a part in targeting youth in terms of generating anti-social behaviour or being influenced by paramilitaries. What are the views of our guests in that regard?

I left Tyrone when I was a teenager. In the context of the report, I ask our guests to address the trans-generational trauma and the unique challenges that kids are facing.

I am on the board of Social Anxiety Ireland. Social anxiety is the most common anxiety disorder in the world but also the least known because people with social anxiety do not wish to speak about having it. Is that something our guests notice?

I thank our guests for coming in. I will drop down to the committee room at some stage. I was waiting for somebody to come to my office so I could not leave.

Ms Deborah Watters

I thank the Senator for her questions. I will try to respond on some of them but I will also go back to a pertinent question asked by Deputy Carroll MacNeill in respect of interfaces, Covid and post Covid. For me, that also feeds into social anxiety. As regards our findings in respect of interfaces, I am based in the Shankill area of Belfast and Ms Nolan is in west Belfast. We share an interface and Strive straddles that. There are still ongoing issues in respect of interfaces. It is not what we had a number of years ago but we are dealing now with complex issues. We cannot really talk about Strive and the youth work model without talking about Brexit, the Northern Ireland protocol, the legacy of Covid and the issue of trans-generational trauma.

I run an organisation that works predominantly within loyalist socially disadvantaged communities. The issue of the Northern Ireland protocol is very pertinent for us at present.

To respond to Senator Currie's question, in some ways, one could say the protocol and the narrative around it have been used partly as a recruiting ground for young people and because it gives organisations another reason to be there, a sense of purpose and a sense to be active, whether that is violently or non-violently within their community. Many of our young people feel that pressure and the pressure of some of the narrative around the protocol. I do not want to be too critical of that because people have the right to protest and to make their voices heard but I would be quite critical of some of the words used that can tend to incite violence. That is very dangerous for our young people. For young people in the Protestant community, there has been that element layered with Covid and a sense of social isolation, decreased levels of mental health and the issue of poverty and the cost of living as well as trans-generational trauma, which is ongoing. Members of this committee will know that because we have not dealt well with our past, it continues to seep into the very fabric of who we are and how we do business in the present. Our young people, irrespective of whether they have been active in the conflict, feel that every day. That is still passed down. We also feel it in government. If our politicians do business in that way, why would our young people not reach out and touch that?

We are working in a very complex environment at present and that is why I think a youth work model is very much needed. Youth workers in Strive are on the ground. We are present. We are at the grassroots and at the interfaces. We work not only with young people who offend and who traditionally come to the attention of the system but also with the socially isolated young people at home. We advise them they need help and assistance and ask them how can we be there for them. That youth work model will be very important as we move forward in dealing with all these complex issues.

The other element to it, which has been very successful for us, is youth work in schools. There are some regions that do not like that but teachers love the fact we can go in and ours is not a top-down, punitive or power-over approach. We bring out the best in young people because we are doing power with them. We work with them in group work settings and assist with some very difficult issues in schools. For me, the Strive model is about joining school, community, families and youth work in a model that deals with all those complex layers.

I would cite one example in response to questions raised by Senator Currie and Deputy Carroll MacNeill. When the recent trouble broke out on the Shankill Road, Ms Nolan's youth workers were out on the street on her side of the wall and our youth workers were on the street on the Shankill Road. We were there alongside the PSNI to help de-escalate the situation and move people along and with the creditability and legitimacy that we can say to some people:

Just cut it out. Go home. Inciting violence is not what our community needs and public disorder only destroys your own community. There are no winners in this.

That is the kind of youth work model we are trying to sell to the committee today, not in a lucrative way but in a way that says we need this to continue because in a post-conflict society we really need this level of partnership working across the interfaces.

That is a profound response. There is much sense in what Ms Watters said. I used to be a teacher in a school where many of the students had difficult backgrounds. She put her finger on it. She has identified her support for them as individuals and recognised their importance and self-worth.

I read a report published yesterday on productivity at work. Because of the problems and educational deficits among young people in the North, which has the largest number of students in the UK who do not continue in education, with many leaving school very young, there is a major issue in terms of productivity at work, which the report stated comes down to educational disadvantage. Ms Watters put her finger on a extremely important issue.

Ms Deborah Watters

Tied in with that is the fact that if young people are not productive and do not have a sense of a dream and a future, they create a sense of purpose and find somewhere to have a sense of belonging. We would prefer that to be in a positive sense rather than going towards an armed organisation, a criminal gang or a paramilitary organisation.

We have a serious drug problem among young people in the South and I am sure it is also a problem in the North. We plan to visit Belfast soon. I ask that the witnesses might identify if we could meet some young people on both sides of the divide if they think that would be appropriate. We would like to do that as it would be helpful for us and hopefully support what the witnesses want.

I took a few minutes off Senator Currie's time but I am sure she will forgive me.

I do. I thank Ms Watters for what she said. I was in Belfast last summer and met some people who had also tried to de-escalate what was happening in interface areas. They said the youth workers were out on the ground and they spoke about the role they play. I thank the witnesses for that. I would take this opportunity to say, and I am sure everyone will agree with me, that is why we need the Assembly up and running. The work of the witnesses is targeted, sensitive and attuned to what is happening on the ground. I am sure the Fine Gael members present and others will support them.

Sinn Féin has the next 15-minute slot. Deputy Conway Walsh can indicate the other speakers in her party.

I will speak first and we will see how we go. I thank all the witnesses for being before the committee. It is a really interesting discussion. I also thank them for their opening statement and all the materials they sent us. It will take a while to read them all. It was interesting to hear them detail the work that goes on in the interface with young people that is youth-led. A large part of the problem is that we do not hear about the good things that are going on, the good collaboration and good communication. The media bear a big responsibility for that. Ms Watters mentioned the bus that was burned and straight away that was the story that was portrayed. That underestimates the work of the young people and of the witnesses being done on the ground. We must find better ways to ensure that is the message that goes out, that it is a positive one and that there is an acknowledgment of the good work done in the communities by the witnesses and by others where there is real leadership.

I want to get a better feel for what the witnesses are trying to achieve and have achieved. The Strive participants have been described as the agents of change who have been supported to develop meaningful and lasting relationships that ultimately contribute to building more peaceful and prosperous communities. What is the most standout example the witnesses could give me from the programme where that is demonstrated?

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

Our expert by experience model is based on using the expertise young people have, particularly young people who have been through our services and through similar experiences. It is not us as youth workers or managers imposing our idea of what peace-building should be or what the programme should look like.

It is very much coming from the young people's point of view. Those expert-by-experience young people are very close in age to the participants. We have found that trying to provide that sort of vehicle for them to facilitate work with other young people is much more meaningful in terms of the programme content and what they get out of it because they feel it is their programme and there is a real sense of ownership. They can also articulate their feelings about what is going on in the wider world and relate it much more clearly to those expert-by-experience volunteers. It is also something that is aspirational for young people because they want to get through the programme so they can then play that role for other young people. They are not the young people who would usually be asked to be the school prefect or to get into those sorts of roles. They are not used to getting asked to hold these sorts of positions of responsibility. It can be particularly hard to get young males to step forward because it takes a lot for them to stand up and say they have some expertise they can offer their peers.

It is so important to look for those opportunities, especially ones that are not just about us continuing to churn out the same peacebuilding programmes again and again. They may have been great when I was a young person going to them, but the world has changed so much now. Senator Currie's question was about social media, which has changed where young people get their views from so much. It is not all about what they hear at home around the dinner table. It is also what they hear from many unregulated sources. Some of that work can be around talking to young people, not always through structured debate, but through conversations over a cup of tea about what is going on for them now, or that thing they read on Facebook the previous night, and picking apart what it actually means. How do they know it is true? That is how a lot of myths are perpetuated around sectarianism and racism and so on.

In general, we need to look for more and more forums where young people can feel they have a place in their communities. A major part of the programme is around community volunteering. We do not say to young people we have arranged for them all to go to pick litter on Wednesday night, for example. They come to us, say they have had a look in the area and have seen some areas that might need brightening up, or they think they could raise some money for a particular project. They come up with the idea of what they want to do to generate a community project and, as far as possible, go about leading that with support from youth workers. It is all about youth workers as facilitators of the process as opposed to imposing what we think.

It is community development. We have lots of similar projects here. Are there exchanges between North and South? Will the witnesses give some examples of successful exchanges?

Ms Mary Nolan

We have cross-Border exchanges and cross-site exchanges, where people all come together and meet in the middle ground. The closing day at the end of the programme under PEACE IV was held in Tyrone. Young people from Lifford Clonleigh Resource Centre came to Tyrone, as did other young people from Belfast, Downpatrick and the surrounding areas, and we all met in the one place. Sometimes, when we go into halls where young people are from different areas, counties and countries, they all sit in their own cliques. When we went in that day, and it was a massive hall, the amazing thing about it was they were all playing football, dodgeball and badminton and eating burgers together. It was lovely to see agents of change right before our eyes. We watched that on that day. These were young people who were afraid of what was across the Border. They were afraid of what was on the other side of the wall, never mind across a border. We saw that they started out saying, "Prods get all the jobs" and "The Taigs learned in jail", which was trans-generational. We knew that was either being fed down the family line or was coming from what they had read on anonymous sites through social media. It was amazing to see them come through the other end of that and watch the peacebuilding take place before our eyes.

How do we than develop that or ensure it evolves through multi-annual funding so there can be a more strategic approach to it? This is so it is not just a one-off day but programmes of events where people learn about each other, learn from each other and understand each other better. I have seen programmes where we have had loyalist students and students from republican areas here. The dynamic has been very interesting in that I found there was no difference between us, when we talked about mental health and other issues. It was politics in action. It was Mr. Peter Weir who brought groups down here. How do we scale up the work the representatives are doing? What do they need to scale up that work?

Ms Mary Nolan

Funding needs to be fluid for this type and model of youth work. Often, when funding becomes available for youth work or youth models or programmes, it is for a maximum of two to four years. There is then a two-year gap before more money comes along. We have lost the vehicle of change in those two years. Things go back to square one. That Generation We we have worked with go on to make a small difference, but we do not get the process we wanted or envisaged. There needs to be a ten- or 15-year strategy on making this turnaround rather than short breaks. I know that everything has to be reviewed and monitored and all the rest of it, but that can be done parallel to the money coming through. The funding and resources need to be fluid.

Ms Deborah Watters

Yes. As Deputy Conway-Walsh said, it also needs to be sustained. I will be very honest about where loyalism is at present. I definitely think we have gone back ten or 15 years. We have regressed in our relationship with the other community, with policing, with people in the South of Ireland, and in our perception. All of that is through the lens of the Northern Ireland protocol. When the protocol plays out, it does not do so on leafy Malone Road. It plays out in socially disadvantaged communities. Let us be honest, middle class Protestants always travelled to Donegal but not our working-class parents in north Belfast. The one thing parents of the Strivers were looking forward to before Covid was a residential to Donegal because they had never been across the Border. Those are the issues that sustained long-term funding would address. It is not just about the gatekeepers in communities being given the access. It is about making sure that is cascaded down so that ordinary mums and dads, and ordinary young people, really get the opportunity to see the other through a different lens. It is very important.

In particular, I am living and working in communities where there is currently a policy of non-engagement. It is, "Do not engage with the Irish Government. Do not engage with Irish officials. Do not do this. Do not do that." My organisation is a restorative organisation. We stand up in communities and say our ethos is about engaging so we will continue to engage and to open the doors, but there are people who would not like me being here today. That is where we are at and it is why Strive is so important. It is not just about a youth work model. It is still about peacebuilding at its core and relationship building. I believe the loyalist community is back where we were ten or 15 years ago rather than moving forward.

It is very interesting. It is interesting how young people can influence the adults in their household for positive change.

How do the groups measure increased educational attainment and employability? I know much of that work is very difficult to measure because a lot of it qualitative rather than quantitative. How do they measure attainment and people who go on?

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

Employability was not part of this programme but, through PEACEPLUS, that element will be included in the follow-on programme to this one. Our main focus was on positive progression. The vast majority of our young people were in school and our focus was on maintaining them there.

Time and time again, the feedback we got from school leadership was that if it was not for this programme, these young people would have left. That was not the main reason we designed the programme, but we soon started to sit up and notice that it was happening consistently.

We were operating in five areas of Donegal, including in youth and partnership with Lifford-Clonleigh Resource Centre, as well as across the Border. The teachers in Donegal were saying the same thing as those in west Belfast. The parents were saying that it was much easier to get the child out of bed and to school on the morning he or she knew Strive would be around the school that day. The pressure that takes off the family that morning is a big deal, if that is what they are dealing with three or four days per week. Some young people would have attended in school and also in the evening at community sessions. Others were school age but attended entirely outside of school on an entirely community basis. However, where the connection was very much with the school, the feedback from the teachers, the leadership and the classroom assistants, who were fantastic and would have sat in on and taken part in many of the programmes, was that they could see the difference in the young people from when they were in an academic session to when they were in their Strive session. They were different people entirely.

I will ask about apprenticeships because we have been looking at them here. We want to encourage more people into apprenticeships, not least because we have considerable challenges in workforce planning. We are looking at apprenticeship models across the island. Is it feasible for somebody to start an apprenticeship in one area and complete it in another?

Ms Mary Nolan

It depends on the criteria of entry for young people. Many young people are leaving school and not going on to further education. Where Ms Watters' interface is on the Shankill Road, for years, many boys left school and did not go into further education because they had jobs in the shipyard. That was just the way it was. The Protestants got all of the jobs. That is the way kids saw it. There was an entitlement not to go on to further education. Research was done a few years back on the lack of aspiration among young Protestant males. They lacked aspiration because nobody was encouraging them to go anywhere else. It is the same on the other side of the wall when talking about young Catholic men. They are progressing and going on to university. There is aspiration, but there is still a clique of deprived young people who are not going anywhere. They need apprenticeships and skills-based jobs. That can be fluid also. It can start in County Tyrone and end up in County Donegal. An apprentice can move about, but it depends on the criteria for entry because of the difficulties the young people are coming back with.

There are great job opportunities in apprenticeships. We are compiling a report on student mobility. We know that even in terms of education, if people can stay in there own communities or are as connected as possible to them, they are likely to bring about positive change. It has an impact. I look forward to visiting Strive with the committee. It is a very good suggestion by the Chair. I would love to talk to some of the young people about educational opportunities across the island in order that we could work together on the exchanges and learning there.

The young people might or might not feel confident enough to come down here to speak for themselves but, truthfully, we would love to hear what they have to say. Our biggest problem is meeting political loyalism, for want of a different word. There is no engagement. We want to work with everyone, as does Strive. That is really where it is at. If we can bring about that change or Strive can help us to understand the viewpoint in a deeper, more profound way, we would be very happy to participate fully in that as a committee.

I will start by giving those present a very warm welcome. I thank them for their presentation. As far as I am concerned, the work they are doing is very powerful. We as a committee, or Government members within the committee, can do to help their cause and expand their programme, we absolutely need to do. Some of their testimony today has been very strong and clear. Politicians are inclined at times to make comments here and there along the way, as if we know everything that has gone on in Northern Ireland, when actually we do not, for the very reason that we do not engage enough with communities in Northern Ireland. I am not saying that for any one part; I am saying it for us all. That is my strongly held opinion. The point that really came home to roost for me today was that made by Ms Holohan about loyalists having regressed ten or 15 years. That is a very serious statement, but one to which we down south would very much want to listen.

On the back of what the Chairman said about going up to meet the groups in Belfast and them coming down here, I suggest that we go up first on one of our trips to meet people in their own communities and get a better understanding. We too are learning as we move along and as things progress. We need to know more about communities. Many of us come from a nationalist perspective and we certainly need to know its views, but we are very much lacking the loyalist perspective. It behoves us to start to get an understanding of all sides and ensure that all voices are heard, recognised and looked after.

I congratulate Strive on the approach it is taking because too many organisations work on one side or the other. I was struck by Ms Holohan's remark with regard to the religious and political divide. How true is that? That is really where our problems are. If it is a political divide, then we discuss things on a political basis. Religion should have nothing to do with this but, unfortunately, it does. We are wasting our time talking about border polls if we are not doing the work on the ground, because a border poll will not have a basis. Those present have very much brought that home to roost today. They make a very important point.

I very much want to help with contributing towards having the Governments, especially that on this side of the Border, work with Strive to try, if we can, to develop more funding for it and develop it as an organisation. Rather than just the Six Counties, this should be done on an eleven-county basis because those Border counties and areas are as badly affected as anywhere in the Six Counties. We should be dealing with all of this on an eleven-county basis and I would like to see the organisation expanding in that regard on the basis of what it is. It does excellent work.

I remember meeting a lady called Betty Holmes at the Lifford-Clonleigh Resource Centre approximately 20 years ago. She started off Lifestart. She has done great health work since in terms of cancer care and patient care and is an excellent individual. The centre ran a programme called Lifestart which was about giving support to parents with a new child, until the age of six. We all bring kids into this world but we do not have a clue what we are doing and we learn as we go along. I was given fantastic information and support. That centre does fantastic work.

I also know about the work that is being done with the likes of St. Johnston, Newtowncunningham and other areas along the Border. I heard what the witnesses said about the protocol and all these things do not help at all. I agree with the witnesses that transgenerational trauma is what we need to undo and the witnesses are involved in doing that. It is about the next generations; it is not about us. We do not want things to keep repeating.

In light of the 11 counties that I referred to, do the witnesses have plans to expand across that basis? If they do, I ask them to come back to us and give us a breakdown of what those plans are. Do the witnesses engage with the shared island unit or with any of the research it does? If they do not, we would like them to do so because it is vitally important that they do. It is particularly important that they engage with the research that is going on as they can be key players in a lot of the research that other organisations and academics are doing, including the likes of the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. There are 62 pieces of research ongoing on the whole island and the witnesses need to be feeding into that.

Like colleagues, I want to welcome the witnesses and thank them for their powerful contributions. The breadth of their work is impressive and they are dealing with people who are disadvantaged, including young people who are in care or about to go into care, and some migrants as well, particularly people with educational underachievement. It is so disappointing that in this day and age, when there should be such opportunities in education at second level and in going on to further education and training, we still have so many people leaving formal school settings without any particular skills. It is so disappointing because, as we all know, by and large there are good opportunities in our island and elsewhere. We all know that the best way to engage people is to have them gainfully employed for the long term.

It was mentioned that 837 young people have completed the programme since it started a few years ago. When young people complete the programme, is contact maintained with them to see if they have gone into training or employment? I remember being slightly involved with the wider horizons programme some years ago, which was funded by the International Fund for Ireland. In my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan it had great collaboration through the vocational education committees at the time, which are now our education and training boards, through the Youthreach programmes. The Youthreach programme is a second chance for education. We have seen people who did not complete their formal second level education go back and I know many of those individuals who thankfully completed Youthreach programmes and went on to further education. Some of those people have gone on to do primary degrees and get postgraduate qualifications, which shows what can be done if people can be engaged.

The Chair spoke about teaching children who come from homes where education might not have been a priority, which is unfortunate. We cannot emphasise enough the need for people to attain educational qualifications and training. The witnesses might revert to me if they have case studies of some young lady or man whose path in life they have followed subsequent to them using their programmes. I remember seeing encouraging cases from Youthreach programmes. I go to the graduation programmes every year. I always find them uplifting from the point of view of our political work. Some of the guest speakers on the day would be students who had gone through Youthreach. They might have completed their degree programmes and are now teaching or otherwise employed. The role model is important for young people. Graduations from colleges of further education are always uplifting as we see children who we know have come from homes that may have been dysfunctional and who did not get many advantages in life. It does not just impact on the people themselves but also on their families and on the wider communities. It has such a positive impact in a community where there is disadvantage when young people from the local area do well. Do these programmes have any particular links with local employers or statutory agencies? In many instances we do not use the leverage that should be used with companies that could take in young people for training or give them work experience during the time they are doing a particular programme.

Ms Watters has put the mood in the loyalist communities in stark terms. As my colleague Senator Blaney and others have said, it is worrying to see the regression she talks about. Around the time of the election we saw all the emphasis on the protocol, etc. Ms Watters mentioned that they want no truck or policy of engagement with the Irish Government. No community in this country, North or South, has anything to fear from the Government, public service or political system here. It is mutually beneficial for us all and the more progress that can be made in society the more everyone benefits. Over the years successive Governments have made an effort to put investment into communities. I was at the Skainos Square community and resource centre on the day that the former First Minister, Peter Robinson, and the former deputy First Minister, the late Martin McGuinness, performed its official opening. If you look at the funders for that centre, from memory the Department of Foreign Affairs reconciliation fund was one of them. I was in other community and resource centres throughout Belfast and elsewhere where you will see plaques or messages setting out who the funders were, and in many instances it would have been the Department of Foreign Affairs making a contribution.

None of us in this committee can speak for the Government and we do not do so but there is a willingness there to continue to invest in human and physical infrastructure. The investment in the human infrastructure and resource is more important now than ever. Investing in people is so important. We need to get the message out that we want to continue to work. I welcome Ms Watters's comments when she said that policy is out there. It is disappointing that this is the message that is coming down to communities and people working with youth groups. We were often insular in our thinking as a country but we have to be more outgoing. There is generosity out there to engage and assist because the broader picture is that an Ireland at peace and communities in every corner of our country doing well will benefit us all.

On that point, I live in a town called Drogheda and we have the Drogheda United soccer team, which contacted me about the following matter. It wants to have a game of football with a team from the loyalist community in the North on the site of the Battle of the Boyne. That would be a day out for everybody with social mixing, including for young children. There is a lot of goodwill everywhere for that. It is not political and it does not compromise anybody's political views or independence.

Dr. Stephen Farry

Good afternoon to all of our witnesses. I want to pick up on the last point on this all being about people and I want to ask a couple of broad questions. First, I refer to the evolving funding landscape in Northern Ireland.

I refer in particular to the evolution of European funds, be they INTERREG or the PEACE III moneys, and the evolution towards the new shared prosperity funding to replace the EU Structural Funds such as the European Social Fund, and how that affects the ability to invest in young people, and especially in certain communities. Arising from that, are there any wider comments on the more mainstream government funding? I am very conscious that the European Union funding is additional, and a lot of it should be addressed through mainstream budgets. Do the guests have any thoughts on how that can be improved? Do they have any worries with regard to uncertainty around the Northern Ireland budget and the potential for cuts, where they may impact the most, and where they may inadvertently cause unintended consequences, perhaps for those who most need the assistance?

Do the representatives here today have any other comments on the wider policy framework? I am particularly mindful of the need for a proper 14 to 19 strategy to better integrate what happens with young people in school and then in further education, apprenticeships, and on to university, and how this can be joined up a bit better. There is also the report into educational under-achievement, particularly among Protestant boys. Do the representatives have any comments on the report's conclusion and how they could be better implemented into policy? That is a very broad range of issues and questions.

Ms Deborah Watters

Dr. Farry has left the easy ones until the last: but seriously, these are the hard ones. We have already spoken with Dr. Farry about this. Part of the issue around the funding is the fragmented nature and the gap in funding. Because PEACE IV funding has ended, and because PEACE PLUS will not be operational on the ground, this has caused real difficulties for our programme. Ms Holohan spoke about the Strive programme ending. We are here in a period when Strive is no longer operational because of a lack of continuity funding. This is very difficult. It is difficult for communities and it is difficult for us in our space in Northern Ireland because of where we are with a very fragile system around government. Personally, I believe that we need to have a Government in place , an Assembly in place and an Executive in place. We need budgets agreed. We need to move forward.

Often, when there are going to be cuts it is the money going into communities that is cut first. People do not seem to value that funding as much. They do not see the long-term results and the impact of that. There is not as much of an outcry. Often, programmes like ours are not as politically connected as some other programmes. It is, therefore, easy to cut our money. This needs to be looked at. When there are going to be cuts I would say not to cut community first. The funders need to talk to communities and include them in the decision-making. A mechanism must be found, through whatever civic structure, to make sure that young people have a voice in the process and that communities have a voice in the process. The community must be connected with government in the same way we want to connect communities with schools.

On the issue of educational under-attainment among Protestant boys, I am fed up talking about this. It is 25 years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and that situation has barely improved. There is something wrong with that. There is something wrong if we cannot make systemic change, revolutionise our education system, and ensure our poorest young men have opportunities, be they in apprenticeships or third level education. There is something going wrong with how we are doing business. It is not just a "me" problem or an "us" problem. It is a government problem.

Ms Mary Nolan

There is also an issue around snobbery of profession that needs to be looked at. Youth work is seen as the bottom of the scale. Without youth work and the relationship model, nothing else works. Yet, we are the first to go. Community education was completely obliterated out of west Belfast because of a change in title and what level of education community providers could give to the adults to progress. The money just went. The funding was cut and it went to further education colleges. That needs to stop. There is a snobbery within professions. Youth workers need to be treated as equals. Our government needs to look at that because this approach needs to go down through the universities. Youth work should be on par with social work, teachers, lawyers and barristers. Without us changing the lives of some young people, this does not get any better.

There are other groups who would feel like you also. Have you formed a lobbying group? Perhaps we can assist in that, in the context of the shared island as my colleague has suggested, or by supporting this and drawing attention to the inequalities, especially when one is looking at programmes and the matrix is militating against your good work. This committee would be happy to help out in that regard if we can. Perhaps the witnesses will, through the clerk, give the committee a note. We will have a look at this and see if we can help in any way. It is not good enough that the representatives here today would feel that and say it here. It is our job to make sure that we listen to you.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

I will respond to Dr. Farry's question around the EU funding. There is real and genuine concern at the moment around the replacement for the European Social Fund, ESF. With the levelling up agenda and the shared prosperity fund, we can see that the money is not there. There is not a like-for-like replacement. As Ms Nolan has said, community education and the employability programme that had previously been funded by the ESF, and which Dr. Farry will know well from his time as the Minister, are all sitting and not knowing what is going to happen after the end of March 2023. Those programmes would be the follow-on programmes for young people progressing through the likes of ourselves. That is where they would move into a more employability focus. There is no clear path for any of us as to what will happen come April 2023. We will see a lot of organisations closing or severely downsizing, along with the withdrawal of services in the community and particularly for young people and people with disabilities. This will affect people right across Northern Ireland. Again, the lack of an Assembly makes it very difficult for us to challenge this in any way or get answers to any questions. It is a very real concern at the moment. There are applications going in for peace building funds out of that as well.

Dr. Stephen Farry

Sure.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

On the 14 to 19 strategy, given that the programme was successful and was seen as such by colleagues within the Department for the Economy, I was invited to represent Strive on the body that reviewed the entry-level and level 1 training, which was the replacement for the training for success programme. This was for young people aged 16 to 17 years who were leaving school. We were invited onto that panel so we could articulate how Strive works as a model, and what elements of it could be taken into a government-funded training programme, the old workings of which have been delayed due to Covid. I believe that a pilot is currently being funded. I do not know if it goes far enough in utilising a youth work approach, but certainly the value of youth work has been recognised through the Peace4Youth programmes. I would like to see greater flexibility within that space for young people if they are coming out of school aged 16 to 17. Having to go in and do 20 or 25 hours per week does not work for a lot of them. We found that they would not last on some of those types of programmes. As Dr. Farry will be aware, there is a very high drop off rate. Whether these issues have all been remedied through that or not, I am sure we will find out in due course.

Dr. Stephen Farry

I thank Ms Watters, Ms Nolan and Ms Holohan for all of those answers. They are very important statements.

Mr. Silcock has indicated.

Mr. Tony Silcock

I thank the Chairman. It is nice to be here, and it is good to meet Dr. Farry. One of the things that is burning in my heart is who youth workers are and what is the purpose of them. One of the things we do quite well is that we get into the messes of young people's lives. We are one of the first professions to actually do that.

One of the skills of youth workers is going on long-term transitional journeys with young people from their childhood into adulthood. We are the first point of contact for many of the young people, not the social worker, police officer or care worker. They come to us to see whether they can get support, care and unconditional positive regard.

Dr. Farry mentioned schools and the associated division. I would go a little further than he did. While I believe the school system needs to be different and changed, there is still a large number of housing estates in Northern Ireland that are completely Catholic or completely Protestant. I live in the Colin area in west Belfast. The nearest city is Lisburn, to which there is not even a bus although it is closer than Belfast. I would go further that Dr. Farry and say there is a division around housing. The peace walls in Northern Ireland have got bigger since the Good Friday Agreement came into effect, not smaller, thus separating communities even more.

Senator Currie talked about the transgenerational impact. We have young people who do not think the same as their parents. They do not have the fear their parents have of going into another area. They do not have that anxiety or stress. Young people are agents of change. I completely agree with Deputy Conway-Walsh in that regard. The best thing about young people is that they want to change. They do not want to keep living in the past; they want to move forward. They see a brighter future and new vision for the north of Ireland or the whole island of Ireland.

One of the really successful aspects of the programme was that it was co-designed by young people. Nothing was put in place until they rubber-stamped it. Young people need their voices heard but they also need to be listened to. The same applies in respect of our schools, housing estates, bus routes and taxis. Our first port of call is determining what our young people think. Thankfully, they are going to be the generation that will take this on. Therefore, it is vital that we take their voices and opinions on board. However, I would go a little further than Dr. Farry regarding the divided space. I think it is about much more than school. There are many more questions to be asked about that.

Dr. Stephen Farry

Point well made.

I attended a meeting of the North South Youth Forum in Drogheda on Monday. I can share the email about it later. The forum came to our town and there were about 90 young people from post-primary schools in attendance. They spoke to us about their needs. They were working with people in the North. From 24 June to 26 June, they are to have a conference at which they will have a plan. Young people from the North and South will be involved. I do not know whether Mr. Silcock is part of that but I am making him aware of it in case it is in any way helpful. It is more of the same in that it allows young people to articulate their views and plan for the future. It is about giving them a leadership role and making sure they are listened to.

The danger with contributing at this stage of a meeting is that many of the questions are asked already. Therefore, I will resist the temptation to engage in repetition. I will make my first point without blowing smoke because I know none of the guests need or want that. From my experience of having lived in and represented an interface area, I am fully aware of the invaluable work that youth workers do at grassroots level on the front line above and beyond the nine-to-five of their jobs, for want of a better term. From that perspective, they have made the case very well. I have seen the work at first hand and up close.

I want to make two points. Dr. Farry touched on some of the EU-related issues I was going to refer to. We have talked about politics, the political structure and how it relates to young people and youth work. That is critical. A really important strand in the broader societal debate is how the media portrays young people, particularly those who live in or come from interface areas. I do not like the term "interface" because it dehumanises communities. The Shankill Road has a very proud working-class community with a really rich history. The same goes for Springfield and Short Strand. It is little wonder, therefore, that young people feel devalued if they come from those communities. There is also an element of desensitisation because it is quite easy to engage in violence when you do not see a community, families and fellow young people and when all you see is an interface. That is what has happened, and that is what is in the news. What really resonated with me was the point that was made during Deputy Conway-Walsh's slot. The commentary on the burnt bus on the Shankill Road during the last round of troubles at the interface was made in the absence of knowledge of the hours, shifts and hard graft put in. There has to be a point at which the media get to the root of youth work and account for what youth workers bring to our society.

The second point I wanted to make was on the issue of post-Brexit and post-Covid circumstances. While I understand full well the point Ms Watters made about the protocol and the sensitivities in that regard, is there anything emerging from engagement with young people on the loss of their European identity and the entitlements, rights and protections, and even funding streams to develop programmes, that they would have had before Brexit? I raised a few weeks ago the DiscoverEU programme, which concerns the free travel pass given to 60,000-odd 18-year-olds so they could travel for free for a month across Europe. That is no longer accessible to young people in the North. Are we cutting through some of the broader noise? In saying that, I do not want to be unconscious of the legitimate concerns. Are we breaking through to say that while the protocol exists and there are concerns about it, there is a broader issue concerning the impact on rights, entitlements and other things?

How did the delegates feel about engagement during Covid? How do they feel now about the re-engagement with young people? Have they lost many young people as a result of Covid who have not come back? Is there an upsurge in the number who want to avail of youth services because they are emerging from Covid and all the associated mental health problems?

Mr. Tony Silcock

Covid was very hard. We are all part of the voluntary sector, the third sector. I did not get one day off during Covid. I did not work from home one day. We were constantly determining the needs of young people and how to meet them. Many of us here transformed all our centre-based and face-to-face work in seven days, transferring it to Zoom. I am referring not only to working with young people but also to the new policies and safeguards and everything that goes along with these. Young people are coming back. That is for sure. We have had to redevelop, redesign, co-design and change how we operate. Thankfully, we are moving out of Covid although it is still circulating. However, many opportunities arise from it. From my perspective, I got to meet more parents, speak to more young people and engage with more teachers. They got to engage with us and learned to value what we do.

One of the key things going through my head is that youth work is informal education, not formal education, and is therefore about voluntary participation. Young people choose to be with us. They do not get that choice in going to school. They choose to be with us in their hundreds and want to be with us. There is value in what we do, and they get a sense of belonging and ownership. Covid brought a myriad of challenges, including social isolation, anxiety, stress, mental health issues, depression, access issues, and alcohol and drug abuse. These all landed with us and we had to provide support services. Therefore, there are helpful things and not-so-helpful things. In general, the voluntary sector, the third sector, is exhausted along with the health service. We are definitely exhausted and just coming out of that. I know I am exhausted. No two days were the same in that you constantly had to think, design, redesign and put programmes out.

If that did not work because you had 45 young people on a Zoom call and 20 were engaging, how are you going adapt and engage the other 20 to 25 people? There was constant engagement.

Ms Mary Nolan

On the back of what Mr. Silcock is saying, we engaged the ones who disengage from online learning. Our numbers went up. We were not counting those numbers because that was not part of what we were doing. The kids who were not engaging with online learning when they were meant to be at school from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. were being picked up by us too. We did not get a day off and our work doubled. As for recognition, the kids turning up was our recognition. I understand Mr. Silcock's point about how we got the others to participate when there were engaging 20 online. We undertook garden gate visits to get to meet parents. We went on garden gate visits where you were able to stand at the gate and talk to a child who was really struggling in the family home. We were able to go out to the doors and be with them. We were masked-up and gloved-up.

Ms Deborah Watters

I will talk a wee bit about the loss of European identity. My views on that would be very different from those of the young people I work with. I have an 18-year-old who is about to go to university. One of my hopes for him pre-Brexit was that he might be able to study in Europe, so I feel that. I voted to remain. As a Protestant and a unionist living in Northern Ireland, I feel very keenly the loss of my sense of European identity. That is a personal opinion but it is important it is heard because we often hear a single narrative around this and there is not a single narrative around it.

Most of the young people Northern Ireland Alternatives works with never had any aspirations to travel. They live very localised, parochial lives. At times, even getting into the city centre is an issue. Strive has endeavoured to begin conversations about rights by saying to people that this may not be real to them now but it will have implications for them in ten years' time. That is how we begin to talk about a sense of rights. That has not always been palatable within the loyalist community so it is something we are making a deliberate and conscious effort on. Rights are for everyone. Now that Northern Ireland is no longer part of the EU, there is a loss of rights around that. I am part of looking at the implications of that Ireland-wide, even in terms of people-smuggling, trafficking and all those issues. If you are charged with an offence in the South, what does that mean in the North? Those are real issues for our community so it is a valid issue to raise. Can I say that within the loyalist community, the focus on the protocol is so great that there is no negativity around that? The only right they are interested in is the right around the constitutional issue, so there is an onus on us to widen that debate out. When I say "us", I mean leaders within loyalism.

I would never presume to impose a view on the loyalist community. This comes back to and touches upon the point I made around the broader media issue. There are voices there. I am certain there have been young people who have penetrated through some of that in the media and have got a terrible time. Even though all they are doing is being young people, reflecting on life, engaging in thought processes and asking certain questions, they have been harried. The representation of young people and their portrayal in the media is a societal issue North and South, east and west, and around the world. The added dynamic in our own experience means we have a job of work to do. Again, we cannot impose upon the media what its editorial stance should be, and that is not what we want to do. From the perspective of the peace process and a post-conflict society, I agree with Ms Watters inasmuch as there needs to be a space for all of those voices, as broadly and as regularly as possible, so they are not so confined. In particular, if our guests do not mind my saying, it needs to be predominantly the voices of young people. I wanted to make that point as well.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

I will comment on the Brexit issues that were brought up. Before Covid hit, the young people we were working with all along that Border corridor were really concerned about Brexit. It was a hot topic and the anxiety was again passed down through the generations. I grew up very close to the Border in County Donegal. I attended Lifford-Clonleigh Resource Centre as a young person. I recall my experience of what it was like to go to Strabane to go swimming on a Sunday. There was a checkpoint you had to go through just to go to the swimming pool. I recall not really understanding what that was about. Young people have heard stories for years and years about how it affected people's everyday lives. They just did not know what to expect and how bad it was going to be. Then you had all the rhetoric and the different voices in the media to contend with as well. Some young people chose to switch off from it - they thought they could not deal with it because it was just too much. Others were concerned about the practicalities of visiting family members on the other side of the Border. If a family is separated, you might have a parent living on each side of the Border. There are a huge number of practicalities there. Rural transport is awful, as members will know, so it is very hard for the young people we work with in Donegal to get about.

When Covid hit, a lot of the tension about what Brexit would mean from day to day was put on ice. Young people are struggling to try to process everything that has happened recently, including the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine and climate issues. It is a huge amount for anyone to process. That is why spaces like Strive are so important because you can come in and have those conversations and not be afraid to ask any questions you might want to ask about it. There are no stupid questions. People can vent their opinions as well. They can ask what is the protocol and what does it mean. It is a very complex issue that is sort of bandied around in conversation. If you turn on the radio, you cannot go five minutes without hearing it said at the minute. There is a lot of that noise out there.

How to get positive stories of young people into the media has been an ongoing issue for years. Include Youth collaborated on a research project about it years ago. If you were to pick up that piece now, I would say very little has changed. There is goodwill in the media but again you have to respond to your audience and what they want to hear. Sometimes our stories are not going to be what makes it up to the top of the news. Social media has a place and we are very mindful of trying to put positive stories out there about young people on our social media feeds. You will get parents following those and young people who are supportive of the organisation doing likewise, so you are probably preaching to the converted much of the time. We do not want to thrust a young person into the media glare either.

During Covid, our social media was very active. That was one of the ways we used to have a bit of fun with young people and get messages out there as well. In addition to the serious messages about staying at home, washing your hands and all that sort of stuff, there were fun activities to try to lift the mood a wee bit. However, young people were very aware they were being blamed - sort of named and shamed - in the media and on social media as being out at parties and breaking lockdown rules. If you look at who has been fined for that, we know where the blame sits in reality. It did a lot of damage, particularly in the early days.

The media is going to cover what Ms Holohan just said. That is what will be covered.

Ms Mary Nolan

If I can jump in on social media, we use that for some promotion but some young people can really be downtrodden there. The Senator probably remembers, because I do not, the name of a young fellow who was interviewed by Patrick Kielty on loyalism.

Ms Mary Nolan

Joel Keys.

That is who I was referring to but I did not------

Ms Mary Nolan

This young man had an opinion on the protocol and on Brexit and it was a very staunch, loyalist ideology - old-time thinking. When he first started talking everybody jumped on the bandwagon. In loyalist communities he was great and in republican or nationalist communities he was this, that and the other. Then he got to speak to some nationalists and republicans about a shared island.

It really opened his mind and then he spoke with Paddy Kielty. It just goes to show that without the pressures from everybody on top of him and with him being allowed to have space to think and broaden his opinions, which is what we are about, he has a really bright political career ahead of him.

It is an important point. The difficulty with elections in the North, without discussing the outcome, is that people may retreat to their traditional view, looking in and not looking out. There is no attraction in looking to the future with the Assembly right now to open a door or even a window. It is the problem.

I will start by saying I disagree with the Chairman about the outcome of the elections. Clearly I am an outsider from down here looking up. One of the biggest outcomes was the rise of the Alliance Party, which is representative of a rise in the number of people who just want to get on with life, in a way. I will still grieve for the loss of the two Green MLAs, who would also have represented that desire to just get on with things. There was mention of a loss of European identity and Mr. Steven Agnew, a former MLA, signed in by identifying his community as European. He certainly spoke much about that sense of loss.

Senator Ó Donnghaile also referred to the power and importance of youth work. At the time we saw those clashes and difficulties, with the burning bus and all of that, youth work was on the front line and youth workers were literally putting themselves in harm's way to try to make things better for their communities. The news reported lots of young people causing trouble but there were older or not-so-young people behind them, riling them and using them for their own political ends. What comes to mind is one news report where local representatives and youth workers were trying to calm things and they became the target of the attacks. This is just about speaking to the power of youth work and the role that people like the witnesses play.

Building on that, if we are looking at a European social fund cliff for funding in April 2023, there is a responsibility in Dublin and London to ensure that does not come about and we can step in with flexible funding. That funding should get out of people's way and let them do the working they need to do, which we have already spoken about as being quite successful. We cannot control what happens in London but what should we in Dublin be asking for as the budgetary process begins to ramp up over the coming months? What is it we should be campaigning or asking for? If the delegations wish to provide exact numbers at a later date, it would be very helpful.

I have two brief questions. I am interested in hearing more about Include Youth and the one-to-one preventative work it does around child sexual exploitation. I am conscious that I am coming from this from a background in youth work and child protection and this is not the children's committee, on which I also sit. I do not know how much the witnesses want to go into that and maybe we can speak about it afterwards. It is an underdeveloped piece that I would love to know more about. We can save it for afterwards if the witnesses prefer.

As I said, that strikes me as innovative and underdeveloped work down here. If we have time, it would be great to hear about some positive outcomes and achievements that the witnesses have heard about. We should get them on record now as well. Let us hear about the work they do that they are proud of so we can take it away and, as I have said, argue that the funding cliff is closing in and we need to provide a safe landing. We should be able to say that we need to prevent that funding cliff and give reasons. It will help us in that advocacy.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

We were funded through a special EU programmes body, PEACE IV. We hope PEACEPLUS will be launched next month. Ms Nolan spoke earlier about issues we have had with the gap in funding. With the Strive programme we will apply and we hope we will get further funding to expand the programme. Again, the concern is that if we are lucky enough to be successful, we will be looking into 2023. Parallel to that is the European Social Fund money, and that will end at the end of March 2023. That is what I spoke about earlier with Dr. Stephen Farry.

It is a very concerning question across the communities sector. There is not like-for-like funding ready to go and these processes take a long time to develop, as the committee knows. I know representatives of the SEUPB were here a few months ago and there was a lengthy consultation process for PEACEPLUS. The funding process will be quite long as well and there will be a number of calls over the next couple of years. In terms of a replacement programme around European Social Fund for employability, nothing exists as far as we know. We are not entirely sure what is going to come out through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund but certainly it will not be like-for-like funding or anything close to it. Again, we are looking at the same scenario of big gaps in the funding mechanism.

I can briefly touch on the child sexual exploitation matter if anybody wants to follow up on funding afterwards.

We might stick with funding just for a moment. Many of these funding programmes are often designed by somebody very far removed from the front line. An example down here is the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP. Much of the time good work is done in spite of SICAP and not because of it. Are there roadblocks or poor design in these types of funding? If we do not have like-for-like funding akin to the Social Inclusion Fund ready and if it will take far too long to create that, surely the responsibility on Dublin and London is to find other ways to get in money quickly. With community development programmes here, money went straight to community groups without having to go through giant programmes and SICAP. Is there something we can take away, such as deletions or changes? Maybe we do not need like-for-like funding to replace the European Social Fund if it is a big, hulking bureaucratic mess. We could hope for something better.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

Our programme is funded through SEUPB and the funding has really worked for us. The consultation done took on board the needs of the young people and the framework very much suits youth work organisations coming along and being able to put their stamp on it. With this programme we very much had the freedom to do that. We had a very supportive relationship with SEUPB. All the signs point to the same with PEACEPLUS so far and the process has been very good. Our only criticism is the gap and that is not necessarily the fault of SEUPB. There are many hoops to jump through with the European Commission and so on and the Governments on both sides must sign things off as well. I would not be critical in that respect.

We can go back to the lack of an Assembly in Northern Ireland in which these issues can be raised. The buck really stops with Westminster, which is now in control of that funding pot. There are narratives that we are not any worse off for leaving the EU and all the funding will still be there. That is the scary stuff for us and we are asking where it is. We are not seeing it or any clear and well thought out programmes that will build on years of very positive work and engagement with the communities sector around what works for employability. We have the evidence base and a number of organisations have been doing the work for years. There is also plenty of space for others to come through. It is just about the funding mechanism and who will oversee that.

I can also speak to the child sexual exploitation matter. Include Youth runs a specialist programme and we have another programme called Give and Take.

We work very closely with the five health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland. The programme is specifically designed for young people who are in or leaving care. It has an employability focus as opposed to Strive, which very much has a peacebuilding focus. The programme is funded in the main through the European Social Fund but also through the five health trusts, the Big Lottery Fund, Children in Need, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and other funders. It is, therefore, a very big programme.

The work on child sexual exploitation is funded by Children in Need as part of that programme. It is very much about running the Give and Take programme with young people based around their personal development; mentoring; essential skills in English, mathematics and ICT; and employability. It also provides work tasters and work placements but does this on a one-to-one basis to suit the needs of a young person. The reasons is that where a young person is at risk of or involved in sexual exploitation, he or she will need different supports and safeguarding and it will not always be feasible to take part in a group session for reasons and risk factors relating to safeguarding. The programme runs across Northern Ireland. We take referrals directly from social workers and young people will access the programme and be assigned a youth worker who will work very intensively with him or her. If appropriate, the young person may end up joining the group programmes as well. The Deputy would probably be better off having a follow-up conversation with me and my colleagues who work in that area.

I appreciate this is not the Oireachtas Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration so I might take Ms Holohan up on that offer.

Ms Dearbhla Holohan

It is a fantastic programme. It is very clear that there is significant need out there. We are doing training with youth workers across Northern Ireland on how to recognise how somebody is at risk of sexual exploitation. We have been funded by the education authority to do a piece of work. We can now train youth workers up to level 2, which means no matter where they are working, be it in a statutory or voluntary setting, they can recognise the signs. Ms Nolan does an awful lot of work with young people with the same issues. It is a common issue across the community divide.

Ms Mary Nolan

If I started talking about it, we could be here until 6 p.m. It is a massive issue.

I understand that it is not necessarily the right forum but it is an underdeveloped piece of youth work.

Ms Mary Nolan

Strive helps to erect a barrier when it comes to children who are getting involved in child sexual exploitation. When a child is facing a set of risk factors and we can put in place completely different protective factors, it will reduce the risks.

Mr. Tony Silcock

I think the Deputy asked a question about outcomes. There are hard and soft outcomes. I will not say which are better. Our hard outcome is 837 people who went through the programme over a four-year period and £4 million was spent so that is €4,700 per person, which is incredible. The other soft outcomes are around self-confidence, self-esteem, the ability to even to hold conversations and understanding difference and diversity. Regarding Senator Ó Donnghaile's question about role models or examples, we have young people in west Belfast who have never been in east Belfast. That is shocking. It is seven miles away. We have mums and dads who have never been in the city centre so if we want a measurable outcome, it is a young person going across to alternatives or wherever else we are going in east Belfast and meeting and greeting people. It is not only about meeting and greeting people. It is about having positive experiences and thereby removing the fear their mum and dad naturally or generationally instilled in the family home. That fear is being removed. In addition, they are actually participating in their family and challenging and removing the perceptions and some of the ideas their parents have. When they are sitting at the dinner table, they are actually having really good, constructive conversations.

There are lots of different ways to measure those outcomes. It is not just about being in the programme. It is also about how to transition people out of the programme well, so that they do not lose the skills and way of thinking they have been equipped with and still want to engage with the other side or take the bus that goes from west Belfast to east Belfast. There are lots of hard outcomes that are very measurable but it is the soft outcomes that are sometimes more impactful in terms of changing people's lives.

Unfortunately, funding streams often do not account for, consider or measure these soft outcomes but look for hard outcomes-----

Ms Mary Nolan

Lots of external funders will take on board the social and emotional journey of a child or young person. Government needs to start looking at a conversation around what outcomes are. Dr. Sean Gallagher and Dr. Tony Morgan wrote a paper for the University of Ulster called "The Process is the Product: Is There a Need for Measurement in Youth Work?". Our work is our outcome. Every day a child or young person shows up is an outcome. We need a conversation that stops looking at what the hard or soft outcomes are at the end of it and invest in our children.

I acknowledge that I am coming at it from a view down here - a view from Dublin - but we have certainly gone on a journey in community work in Dublin over the past 20 years where we have moved from those emergent and soft outcomes and funding them directly to a much more rigid, hard, outcome-focused approach. It has had that consequence. The person filling in those forms is ticking boxes and putting in numbers that do not properly reflect the actual work that is happening and those very positive emergent outcomes. Again, this is not the Joint Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration so I will save this discussion for another day. Who wrote that paper?

Ms Mary Nolan

Dr. Sean Gallagher and Dr. Tony Morgan wrote the paper for the University of Ulster.

How useful are role models in changing young people's minds be they sports stars, television personalities or somebody in the communities with no labels attached to them? Is there much interaction with people who offer their capacity to bring young people out of themselves and possibly get them to mix with other people they would not normally mix with?

Ms Mary Nolan

We have our own stars among our young people. One young man attended the Olympic Games last year while a young boxer from Tiger's Bay is very active in speaking out about sharing communities. We have our own heroes.

They are the people who count. Teachers and politicians can talk to young people all day but they will not listen to adults. They will listen to a role model.

Ms Michelle Gildernew

I thank all the witnesses for being here today. I am really sorry that I am not there in person. I would have loved to have been there but, unfortunately, I am in London so I am only able to engage this way. It has been a fascinating discussion and a really positive event. The committee has engaged significantly with the witnesses. I would love to visit as well. I would love to talk to some of the young people.

I will start with the point just made by the Chairman. It is really important to have young people who are role models for other young people. I am the mother of children aged 20, 16 and 13. My 20-year-old child's girlfriend works in youth work as well. She is part of a young women's group in Coalisland that does brilliant work. They are passing on the empowerment they were encouraged to have. One piece of work they are doing involves period poverty. They are going into schools and talking to children in primary schools about periods and issues around their bodies. That is far more powerful coming from a youth group than it would be coming from a teacher or others. It is young people talking to slightly younger people about issues they will face. That is really important.

Unfortunately, our youth services have often been the low-hanging fruit and when funding has to be cut, that is one of the areas that seems to go first. It can sometimes be very hard to have youth provision, particularly in rural areas. It is harder to get those hard-to-reach young people outside towns and cities to engage. I listened very carefully to everything that was discussed.

On Brexit and the protocol, Ms Holohan's perception of Donegal, which would be very similar to mine on the Tyrone, Fermanagh, Monaghan border, was fascinating as was the point made by Ms Watter's on the protocol. I certainly felt that there was a great deal of anxiety in the run-up to the Brexit vote. I invited the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, Ms Koulla Yiasouma, down to Dungannon to do an event with young people to try to listen to some of their concerns. It was a brilliant event where the young people and children were very engaged. At that stage we could not answer a great deal of the questions but the commissioner was brilliant in how she spoke to them. I feel that anxiety around Brexit, when the vote happened and when we went into that period afterwards, and their concerns were not taken into consideration and people used, and are using, young people now to wind them up about the protocol when their genuine fears around Brexit were, perhaps, not listened to to the same extent.

I know that we want young people to be engaged with this and we want to hear from them and it is very important that they are given space but, again, on the back of the point that Ms Watters made regarding educational attainment, I would very much like to hear what young people from working-class loyalist communities think about where that difficulty comes from. It is easy, perhaps, to blame the education system but we have to look beyond that.

I have outlined previously to the committee that I recall being on a committee in Stormont and John Simpson, the economist, said that there were children who were no longer suitable for an educational environment within a few miles radius of Stormont. These were children who were five, six and seven years of age. To say a child is no longer suitable for educational attainment is an awful blight on our society and we perhaps need to broaden that discussion into the cultural effects in our communities and to the value that is put on education. That is something I would very much like to engage young people on to see how they feel about it. Brexit is going to impact big time and not just on the funding and the opportunities around Erasmus.

Again, I completely take on board the point of view that many working-class young people did not see themselves as having those opportunities in the first place or could envisage themselves ten years onwards to see what these would be.

This has been a brilliant discussion which I have really enjoyed. I have learned a great deal and I want to thank all present for having come down to talk to us.

I thank Ms Gildernew and I call Senator Blaney.

I thank the Chairman. I also enjoyed this meeting. There is so much more we could explore and discuss. Time has flown by today, so much so that myself and my colleague have spoken a great deal but we only had a minute left. The Chairman moved on and I am unsure if he noticed that we did not receive any response to our questions. Before I go to the two questions, the Chairman raised the issue of rural transport in Donegal. Local Link, is an organisation that is quite flexible. Where there is demand in particular areas, I would be quite open to working with our guest speakers and with Transport for Ireland, if there is a demand in such areas for which a case can be made.

The two questions I had, with the leave and flexibility of the Chairman if he will allow-----

Of course I will, that is fine.

----- are, in particular, on the shared island initiative which is very important.

It is key.

Are these groups engaging, will they engage and can they be linked up with the shared island unit? Perhaps they are already. This is very important.

Moreover, what plans do these groups have to develop because it is important that we as a committee get their plans in order that we can do everything we can to invoke pressure on the Government. This is also important, where there is a tremendous amount of talk about the £300 million in the Department of Finance in Stormont. We should use our pressure as a committee to invoke movement where we can to make life easier for these organisations and, in particular, to develop these services. As I said earlier, these organisations are doing fantastic work and the key to moving forward to deal with these transgenerational issues is through people like our guests.

Hear, hear.

If we want a shared space and a shared Ireland, these organisations are key. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak at the meeting today.

Ms Deborah Watters

My apologies to the Senator that we did not respond to his questions, which I will do now really quickly. I thank him for the affirmation and positive feedback.

We are not engaging with the shared island unit and we would love to have that connection. It would be amazing for us if the committee could make that happen.

On our plans to expand, if the committee can get us the money, we will go anywhere. We would love to.

If Ms Watters's organisation has an overall plan as to where it needs to go, and it can show our committee where those aspirations are, let us then-----

Ms Deborah Watters

We will do that.

Ms Mary Nolan

We could let the committee have our concept note but I believe we will need to revamp it in respect of the additional counties that Ms Watters was talking about. That was outside of the parameters within which we had to make our application. Ultimately, it would have to be an all-island approach. Youth work is completely integral to the development of a young person. I would like that the snobbery be taken out of the profession and the youth work profession to be held up for what it is. It would be an all-island model, then, which we will have designed.

Ms Deborah Watters

I do not wish to be frivolous but I suppose what I am saying is that our paper has been developed with the constraints of funding on it for PEACEPLUS. The legitimate challenge of the committee to us is to dream in a bigger way. We will do that, will go away, will look at what Strive would look like in a bigger context, and will come back to the committee with that. It is great for this committee to push us as well to help us to think outside our box. That is very useful for us and I thank the committee.

That is a very productive and good ending to our meeting. I know that Senator Blaney and everybody else has been impressed, particularly with the clarity and the truth of what our guests have been saying.

I never thought about this issue in terms of losing one’s European identity because it did not happen to us down here. I appreciate our guests saying that and how important it was to them and still is, obviously, to us. If there is anything that we can do by way of aid or by making arrangements with the shared island unit to meet with the groups, I ask that they might give us their paper, and we will go up to visit.

We are happy to do that and it can be done in a nice and quiet way as a genuine visit where we can try to understand and bridge, in the way our guests organisations are doing, the gap between the politicians in the South and young people and to show that we care. We want to know and to share. At this stage in my life, as a grandparent with four young grandchildren, I am looking forward to them playing their part in the future. I am naturally talking about the next generation.

Our guests’ organisations are showing profound, excellent leadership. I thank Ms Holohan, Ms Watters, Ms Nolan and Mr. Silcock very much. It has been a privilege to listen to them and we will follow this meeting up with correspondence, meetings, and so on.

Ms Deborah Watters

On behalf of our group, I wish to thank the committee very much for having us. It has been a privilege for us to be here and to have this conversation. We want to end by genuinely extending the invitation again. We would love to have Ms Gildernew come visit us and to have the whole committee come up North to visit Strive to meet some of the young people. That could be our starter for ten, by way of working together. It has been a pleasure for us and I thank the committee for all the time it has given us.

I thank Ms Watters very much.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.08 p.m. until 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, 26 May 2022.
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