03/06/2026
🚨 URGENT: ONCE AGAIN, OUR YOUNG PEOPLE WILL PAY THE PRICE 🚨
Right now, across our communities, interface violence and hate incidents are surging.
As starkly highlighted by The Irish Times in their recent report on youth interventions in Northern Ireland (published 2 June 2026), the direct link between starving community programmes of funding and the rise in violence is undeniable. When frontline youth workers are removed, prevented or not resourced, the risk to our young people and our communities skyrockets.
The youth sector has done the work. We have prepared, we have submitted the applications, and we are ready to deliver. By all rights, TBUC camps should be starting right now, and planned summer interventions should have been ready to stand up.
Instead, at the exact moment our young people need professional scaffolding the most, everything is stalled. We understand there are wider financial challenges, but in the absence of an agreed budget, there absolutely must be the political appetite and leadership to secure these vital funding streams.
The Education Authority and EA Youth Service continues to ask for approval to spend, But the Executive Office (TEO) has not been able to commit to the 26/27 TBUC and Planned Intervention budget and yet again, our young people are being forced to pay the price for bureaucratic gridlock.
What happens when we pull the safety net away?
❌ Young people are criminalised: Without diversionary youth work and cross-community camps, vulnerable kids are pushed into the path of the criminal justice system. We are penalising them for a systemic statutory failure.
❌ Families are left isolated: Parents are forced to manage the fallout of heightened community tensions and the terror of the justice system without a baseline of support.
❌ Communities are destabilised: Decades of delicate, relationship-based peace-building are jeopardised. The vacuum left by youth workers is quickly filled by negative influences and those who wish to exploit our youth.
The cost of processing a single young person through the courts exponentially outweighs the cost of preventative, community-based youth work. We cannot be expected to keep fighting fires without the resources to build futures.
This endless cycle of uncertainty is exactly why the full implementation of the Youth Work Charter is non-negotiable. We need the Charter fully adopted to guarantee that youth services are recognised as a statutory necessity, not an optional extra to be shelved when politics stall. Enshrining the Charter will legally protect these vital budgets, ensuring that life-saving interventions are permanently in place, properly resourced, and never again held hostage by administrative delays.
We are calling on The Executive Office to find the political appetite, immediately commit to the 26/27 TBUC and Planned Intervention budget, and endorse the principles of the Youth Work Charter. We are operating on borrowed time. Do not let our young people pay the price.
📢 Please SHARE this post to demand immediate action before the summer flashpoint period escalates.
