On 3rd Nov Barnardos released the results of a piece of work they had undertaken asking members of the general population how they viewed young people :
49% saw young people as ‘angry, violent and abusive’
This same group of pollsters see children as ‘feral’, ‘behaving like animals’.
[URL : http://www.barnardos.org.uk/news_and_events/media_centre/press_releases.htm?ref=74051]
Presumably these are not the same children, presumed to be around 175,000 who are the carer of a parent living with a long term illness disability....
Or maybe they are the 1 in 3 children and young people who grow up in poverty, or exposed to domestic violence , or live with parents who are substance dependent.....
Either way, many Britains have neither respect nor compassion for the reality of many children and young people’s lives. It is ‘a scandal’ that these views are so commonplace. It is why the 1 million aged between 16-24 years who are unemployed are held responsible for an economic situation, and government policy which is not of their making.
And where is the fanfare for the young people who marched 400 miles from Jarrow to Tottenham to highlight the situation of the jobless youth in England? They marched for five weeks to raise the profile of unemployment in contemporary Britain, a situation which could be ameliorated by different economic decisions and a change in the legislation supporting small business to recruit school-leavers.
This country’s disregard for young people's well-being , both now and in the future is a national scandal.
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Yours
Jane Roberts
