Alternative Education

Are you a freelancer who specialises in Alternative Education? Would you like to write for Youthwork Workshops?

We are looking for writers to champion the benefits of your specialism to children, young people and community work participants. Why should someone choose Alternative Education as opposed to a Practical Skills Workshop or a day at Alton Towers?

We need 200-300 words on Alternative Education in general. We will credit you and your organisation  but please do not sell your own services in this space -  please do that in your Directory Entry.

Please send your words to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and it could appear hear and be read by thousands of youth, community and play work professionals.

Youth Work has always been about informal education, however, over the past few years "mainstream" education seems to be looking at Youth Work to solve the Britain's ills. Whether it is working with  NEET's, ASBO kids, teenage pregnancy or alcohol abusers - more and more structured programmes are taking the place of generic youth work. To some this is a bad thing, however I am fully behind any efforts to use youth and community workers to educate those young people whose educational needs are not being met by mainstream education establishments.

Like so many colleagues I came into youth work because I wanted to make a difference and give something back. I was a little disappointed when I found that for some colleagues youth work was no more than babysitting - with pool and table tennis! So I jumped at the chance of working with a bunch of young people who were excluded from school. I took a group of six young people - all labelled as "unteachable" by their school and worked with them for three months. They gained their first ever qualifications, they did work experience (for the first time) and they all got into college. Five years on, they are all still engaged in positive things (two of them even do part time youth work). They regularly thank me for diverting them from a life of crime, drugs and violence. 

For me, Alternative Education is a perfect way to bring about a more equal society. I work with the most socially excuded young people, who have experienced very chaotic lives. The reason I came to youth work. The skills I have as a youth worker mean that the young people respond to me far better than they would many school teachers. 

I wish that the national curriculum did cater for evey child and youth workers did not need to do alternative education - the fact is that youth workers are teaching thousands of British pupils every week and doing a better job than schools in many cases. The most savvy youth workers are catching on to the fact that they can charge good money to schools and LEA's which can then be spent on more staff and resources to subsidise generic youth work. If you are not doing alternative education - you should be.

Agree with the above? sound off in the forum here