The Audit Commission has begun a piece of research here

into the use of local positive activities to discourage young people from getting involved in anti-social behaviour. Through fieldwork the study will assess the ways in which local authorities and their partners co-ordinate, deliver and commission positive activities to reduce anti-social behaviour, and will also talk to the young people involved in those activities about their experiences.

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NCVYS became the first voluntary organisation to pledge adherence to five key principles that will result in a breakdown of barriers for young people who traditionally do not participate in services for reasons associated with their faith. The principles are part of Factor in faith, a practical guide for voluntary youth organisations to make their services more accessible to young people from all communities regardless of their faith, race or culture launched by NCVYS at its annual conference on 7 November. For more info go here

Dave loved bling; in fact he wore it from head to toe. A diamond ear stud, a chunky silver neck chain, an identity bracelet. He even had a custom made pair of cufflinks engraved with his initials. He had bling for all occasions and to co-ordinate with all outfits.

One day Dave was on his way to the local record store when he saw something glittering out the corner of his eye. There in the shop window glinted the biggest, glitziest piece of bling Dave had ever seen. It was a large sovereign ring with the most enormous diamond. It was fantastic, as was the price tag! It was way too expensive for Dave to buy on his meagre wages. He looked with longing at the ring but it was no good; he just couldn’t afford it.

Later that night Dave sat in his room. He had been thinking about that ring all day. Every conversation he had he ended up talking about it, he day dreamed about it. He even drove passed the shop on his way home from work even though it was dark and the security shutters were down.

He looked at the boxes of bling neatly lined up on the table in front of him. He opened them one by one, picking up and looking at each prized piece of jewellery, an idea slowly forming in his mind.

The next day Dave took his boxes of bling and went to the jewellers where he had seen the ring. He asked if he could try it on, it looked amazing, it sparkled and glinted and he knew everyone would be right jealous if he had that ring on his finger. Carefully Dave placed his boxes of bling on the counter, opening each one to show the jeweller his collection. The jeweller agreed that Dave could swap the ring for all his treasured bling and having shaken hands to seal the deal, Dave left the shop a very happy man.

When the mayor gave out the ASBO’s the young people thought he had great bling, which reminded me of the story.

Many thanks for your comments to Richard Passmore via facebook. I was encouraged by your response to the ASBO’d certificate.

I have to say that your comments/reflections re ASBO’s had occured to me in the development of the idea and i did consciously go ahead with the certificate ‘as is’ for a few reasons.

Firstly I wanted to get reaction – to create the debate and make people think – those who are like yourself and understand that we are not necessarily saying ASBO’s don’t work (even though the jury is out in terms of some of the research – see my comments below) are likely to forgive us and think of the greater good – those who don’t understand are likely to engage in debate with us and at that point we can share our perspective and underline the concern about stigmatising young people (see Richard’s comment). I think advertisers are using this ploy all the time – satire does seem to work well.

Secondly I wanted to capitalize on the ‘dark’ idea that some would see ASBO as a ‘badge of honour’ by turning it into a ‘light’ idea – eg we want to honour young people by naming them as Alright Sensational Beautiful Original – I think they will get it and it is unlikely that it will undermine the ‘ASBO campaign’ – we will monitor reaction to check as you make a good point and we don’t want to seriously undermine authentic protection for anyone

Thirdly – I want to keep the overall debate about the usefulness of personally humiliating people with ASBO’s alive – if we genuinely believe that many of the social ills that young people engage in are a outcome of nurture rather than nature – why don’t we chose to publically humilate our systems as well as individuals? (perhaps this is another idea for FYT!!) My personal view (not an FYT position) is that the power that the police and legal systems had in ‘injunctions’ was enough to deal with protecting people and that the ASBO is more rooted in naming and shaming individuals – as it follows a political pattern that has been evolving in education and many human services (league tables etc) over the last 10 years – it seems to me to be most unhelpful to tag a label on individuals who are already believing the wrong things about themselves. I think there are many other more positive ways that the government could choose to use to make families and communities safer and feel more supported – without resorting to the use of personal and systemic humiliation.

Do hope this helps – your comment are very helpful thanks and you have made me wonder if we should say some of this publically – however I do want to keep debate going!

shalom – dave wiles (CEO – Frontier youth Trust)

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