A new report exploring how youth work responded to the needs of young people during the Covid-19 pandemic reveals the importance of youth work’s role in closing the attainment gap going forward.
Youth work: Closing the poverty-related attainment gap during the pandemic found that access to youth work within a whole system approach can play a key role in mitigating the longer-term impact of the pandemic in relation to attainment, mental health and wellbeing.
The report identified that disruption to youth work services exacerbated the impact of the pandemic on young people’s learning, achievement and wellbeing.
The youth work sector’s ability to adapt to changing guidelines to create new safe spaces had an overwhelmingly positive influence on young people’s resilience during the pandemic, with 83% of young people reporting that youth work had been important or very important to them over the past year.