Youth clubs in Shetland unable to open amid recruitment crisis

A pilot project trialling a space for young people at the Islesburgh Community Centre in Lerwick on Friday afternoons and evenings has failed to get off the ground due to unsuccessful recruitment.

And on a wider level the breadth of vacancies in youth work has seen a number of youth clubs unable to open this year.

The situation was spelled out by Shetland Islands Council’s youth and employability service team leader Martin Summers at a meeting of Lerwick Community Council on Tuesday night.

He issued a plea to the public for anyone interested to consider youth worker roles.

The topic was raised at Tuesday’s meeting during a discussion over concern about antisocial behaviour in the Bressay ferry waiting room in Lerwick.

One element of this topic has been a concern around a lack of spaces for young people to go to.

Summers said the council’s Hub building on Commercial Road is open on Monday and Wednesday evenings for young people to visit, while the OPEN charity has a youth cafe in Lerwick on Thursdays.

There is a plan to undertake a pilot of a dedicated youth space in Islesburgh on Friday afternoons and evenings, but two part-time youth worker posts have yet to be filled despite two rounds of recruitment.

He said the project is “on the table and ready to be delivered – we just don’t have members of the public coming forward to be able to fill those vacancies”.

The team leader said the hope is to undertake a third round of recruitment.

Summers also said service staff would struggle to do any more given the pressures on existing resources.

Out of the 23 youth clubs, 12 are not operating this financial year due to a lack of volunteers or staff – and there are 22 vacancies across the youth work network.

One solution has involved trying to engage with senior students at the Brae and Anderson schools on a project called “first steps to youth work”, which is an accredited course with a guaranteed interview.

Summers said the youth work team have also lost long-serving staff over the years, while he added there has been a shift particularly coming out of the Covid pandemic around what people are looking to do in work and volunteering.