A discreet building in Liverpool is a "safe space" for young people amid concerns about knife crime and cuts to youth services.
Local authority spending on youth services has fallen by nearly £1bn in England and Wales since 2010, representing a real term cut of 70%, according to a 2020 YMCA report. Last year, the Local Government Association (LGA) said more than 4,500 youth worker jobs have been cut and 750 youth centres closed in the same time frame.
The areas with the largest cuts saw the biggest rise in knife crime, according to a parliamentary report. Kids as young as seven are carrying knives in Liverpool, the BBC reported earlier this year. The "voluntary relationship" young people enter into with youth workers, one of the few adults they have a relationship with outside school or family, makes them well placed to intervene.
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The green paint of Harthill Youth Centre, in Wavertree, acts as camouflage amid the trees on Wellington Road. In centres like this - which runs a youth club, targeted services, alternative education, and one-to-one music interventions - youth workers have often already built the trust needed to intervene early when kids experience trauma or low confidence, are struggling at school or getting involved in crime.
But its services are full, with only one youth worker running around fixing a leaky tap while donning several hats beyond their official council job in a centre open five nights and seven days a week. A representative of Harthill told the ECHO: "It provides a safe, warm, welcoming environment for young people. There is no other place like that right now and these places are fewer and fewer."
Every Friday night - bar one when the centre closed due to the leak - Harthill hosts a two-hour music programme run by Capeesh CIC. The group, funded by grants, National Lottery cash and the Mayoral Neighbourhoods Food, is a "youth and community development project that seeks to motivate and enable young people, aged 10 to 25, to acquire and grow skills and confidence". Both parents and kids attending described it as a "safe space".
Joanna and Kyrah, friends since primary school, both come every week. Kyrah, 14, who's been playing guitar for five years, said: "We get to socialise. I don't get to see Joanna outside of this that often, so that's good, and I obviously get to improve my instrument skills."
Music echoes through the building as young musicians, aged 18 to 25, share their own skills with younger kids, and Capeesh encourages attendees to try different instruments, regardless of experience or ability The young people take up the offer, negotiating their five minutes on the drums or taking turns on the keyboard. Drummer Joanna, 13, took the opportunity to try guitar for the first time in years.
At the end of every session, the young people gather for a jamming session. Joanna said: "That's my favourite part. Everyone comes in, everyone has different instruments, or if someone plays the same instrument, we'll take it in turns. It's really fun because someone starts playing something, everyone else joins in and then it becomes something really cool."
Dom Bennett, a 23-year-old guitar tutor, said: "Some of these kids, they're like me when I was a teenager. I don't know how extreme I was in terms of self-confidence, but it was low. I didn't like talking to other people. I struggled having friends. But I was never aware of anything like this growing up, something really chilled where you can just have a go and everyone's on the same page."
Capeesh's director Mark Rowley, who's spent 40 years in youth work, said: "First and foremost, we want to see young people have fun and develop their confidence and self-esteem." They do this not just by encouraging them to experiment with new instruments, but by giving them the opportunity to tutor others, and encouraging their ideas, like one who suggested a quiz with "spooky tunes" for Halloween. Kyrah said: "I like thinking that, after school, I'll be coming here."
The Harthill representative said they feel "ecstatic and joyful" when they see kids benefit from the music programme or one-to-one interventions. Often it's something seemingly small, like a non-verbal child making eye contact, which for that young person might be "a giant stride".
They said: "Sometimes what they do with the stuff they've been working on, it's just so powerful. I feel inspired when I see a young person make sense of their own life, in any small way, just by using music or lyrics. I feel very hopeful. Music is the best medicine in the world."
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