Arbroath CAFE Project
The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S1M-3860, in the name of Mr Andrew Welsh, on the Arbroath Community Alcohol Free Environment—CAFE—project.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament applauds the pioneering work of the Arbroath CAFE Project which provides an invaluable service for young people in the area; notes that a safe, community alcohol-free environment was established where young people could socialise and engage in a wide range of activities, providing a positive alternative to "life on the street"; recognises the success of the project which has received national and international recognition and is being used as a model for projects elsewhere in the country and further afield; congratulates the project on its involvement with the British Council's global Dreams and Teams project and on its plans to launch a pilot scheme, "Street Football for All" to take place throughout Angus with a view to becoming a national project, and wishes the CAFE Project every success with both these initiatives and in continuing to provide opportunities for young people and the wider community.
My purposes in initiating this debate on the Arbroath CAFE project are to praise its achievements and to encourage others to see the potential that is offered by this innovative and exciting community project. I welcome members and leaders of the Arbroath CAFE project who are present in the Scottish Parliament visitors gallery today.
The Arbroath CAFE project was established in 1996 following an open seminar on juvenile delinquency and concerns about how unemployment, social deprivation, poor housing, crime, alcohol and substance misuse were affecting the health, development and mental well-being of young people. There was a clear need in Angus for a positive alternative to life on the street, and for the creation of a place where young people could socialise and engage in a wide range of activities in a safe environment.
Within six months, the project had raised sufficient funds to lease, convert and renovate a former church and open its doors as an alcohol-free community environment. Now an established charity, it is open five days and six nights a week and provides a one-stop shop for leisure, culture, health, education and employment services, as well as outdoor activities for people under 25 years of age in Arbroath and Angus. The youth drop-in facility has more than 12,000 attendees a year and is open to everyone, including young people who have been before the children's hearings system or courts and those who are in residential care.
The CAFE project is founded on inclusiveness for all, equal opportunities, active citizenship and on resources to meet community need. Tony Andrews, when he was director of the British Council in Germany, described the CAFE project as
"extraordinary, innovative and inspiring in the way in which it reconnects young people with the mainstream—a model for working with disadvantaged young people".
The Angus CAFE project is both national and international in outlook. Over the past year, CAFE has been working with the British Council in Germany on its 15-nation dreams and teams programme, which aims to use sport—in particular football—to counter negative perceptions of other nations and to promote active citizenship among young people. Fact-finding exchanges have taken place between youth groups in Germany and the CAFE project, and young people from Arbroath took part in an international football tournament in Potsdam, Germany in August 2002.
A tripartite tournament, organised by the CAFE project is planned for 2003 in Angus and will involve teams from Scotland, Germany and Lithuania. At the invitation of the British Council in Germany, the CAFE project has taken on the responsibility of spreading the dreams and teams concept throughout Scotland.
Recognising the potential for dealing with social problems closer to home, the CAFE project is developing a national project—street football for all—that promotes sport, health, social inclusion, active citizenship, tolerance and, as a consequence, employability. Street football for all has been successful in Columbia, where it was developed as football for peace, and in Germany, where it was called street football for tolerance.
The CAFE project currently awaits the arrival of a portable pitch and trailer from Germany. With financial support from Scottish Enterprise Tayside and the safe Angus for everyone—SAFE—initiative, and with the help of volunteers, community police officers and community education workers, the pitch will be available for use by young people seven days a week. With a quickly assembled and easily transportable pitch, the game is self-contained and can be played on any surface. The pitch can be used for other sports, such as netball, unihoc, basketball, short tennis, badminton and touch rugby. It offers wheelchair access as well. This is truly availability for all.
The rules ensure that males and females can take part, and they also encourage socially acceptable behaviour between young people in their communities and other countries. There is no referee, only an adviser. Claims for penalties are resolved through negotiation and goals are awarded or deducted at the end of the match for good or bad sportsmanship. For example, goals are deducted for swearing, fouling, arguing and not applauding an opponent's goal. If those rules were applied to the Scottish Premier League, they would necessitate either much-improved conduct or a cricket scoreboard. After evaluation, funding will be sought to expand the project throughout Scotland if it is deemed worth while.
I emphasise to the minister and Parliament that the CAFE project is truly a local community project; 23-year-old Paul Hardie, who is with us in the gallery, started as a participant and is now chairman. He devotes 30 hours per week to the CAFE project in addition to his normal working week. The project's directors include an Arbroath solicitor, a bank manager, a businesswoman, a chartered accountant, a police constable and even the local sheriff, Norrie Stein, who has been a major driving force and inspiration behind the success of the initiative, which involves a range of local volunteers giving freely of their time and talents for their community.
The project is a living partnership that uses practical joined-up working. It shares premises with the Prince's Trust, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme, the positive action lifestyles—PALS—project, Angus under-21s health, Volunteer Centre Angus and other organisations, which cluster round the core project and involve literacy, numeracy and leisure-time activities. They have received funding from local, national and international sources.
All that and the nearby Oasis project are not there because Arbroath has more problems than other towns, but because it has discovered more solutions. I hope that those solutions will inspire and encourage other individuals and organisations into working together to provide their young people with positive motivation and resources for the overall good and well-being of our society and its young people.
I congratulate everyone who is involved in the CAFE project, wish them all success in future and commend their work to the national Parliament.
I congratulate Andrew Welsh sincerely on securing the debate. I share his enthusiasm for the Arbroath CAFE. It is precisely the kind of project that needs to be replicated throughout Scotland. There are many other, similar projects, such as the Corner in Dundee, which is now internationally renowned, and Off the Record in Stirling—although they may have a different emphasis.
Such projects have a huge role to play. As Mr Welsh and I both sit on the Audit Committee, which in its past few meetings has considered how effectively to tackle youth offending, we know the situation as it is at the moment. The Executive spends 60 per cent on process and only 40 per cent on disposals. I, for one, would like that balance to be reversed. I cannot speak for Mr Welsh, but I have a feeling that he may have sympathy for that view.
Many of us want the Executive to invest far more in projects of the type that we are discussing. It may come down to local authorities. We heard at question time today about the difficulties of long-term funding in the voluntary sector in particular. We heard about the difficulty of getting local authorities, the national health service—as in today's oral question—or others, round the table to make the necessary finance available.
The Executive calls for three-year funding in "The Scottish Compact: The principles underpinning the relationship between Government and the voluntary sector in Scotland", which I strongly support. However, it is easy for the Executive to call for that, because it provides directly only 6 per cent of voluntary sector funding. Most comes through local authorities and other bodies. We want longer-term funding—for at least three years—to be made available for projects such as the CAFE project.
As convener of the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on drug misuse, I have a particular passion for such projects. They play a central role in involving young people and giving them constructive and positive alternatives to drug and alcohol misuse.
Another project, which is in my region, is Clued Up in Kirkcaldy. It does an invaluable job. those who run it are brought into schools by teachers when they have identified kids with a drug or alcohol problem. It helps those kids and has a drop-in centre in the town. The centre is just a couple of big and extremely sparsely furnished rooms, yet it is a hub of activity, particularly of after-hours activity, for schoolchildren. It gives them positive activities to take part in, rather than the destructive ones that come through drug or alcohol misuse.
I strongly support the Arbroath CAFE project and pay tribute to it. Its renown has spread way beyond Arbroath and the boundaries of Angus; it has even reached Mid Scotland and Fife and beyond. We are sometimes accused of not having been radical or imaginative enough in our first session, but I hope that, when the Lib-Lab coalition returns to power in the new Parliament, we can proceed with more imaginative projects like the CAFE project, the Corner in Dundee and Off the Record in Stirling, which are having an impact internationally. The head of the Corner has gone abroad to countries as far away as Malaysia and elsewhere in the far east to advise people on setting up similar projects there. We need more here at home.
After a long, hard day at the legislative coalface, it is nice to come to a subject on which we can find some consensus—and we can perhaps take a little enjoyment from it. It is a delight to be able to talk about the Arbroath CAFE project today; I congratulate Andrew Welsh on securing a debate in which we can discuss its achievements.
Since the CAFE project was established as a charity in 1996, it has been able to respond to and identify some of the needs of young people in the Arbroath area and has provided them with a real alternative to just hanging about on the street, which seems to be the preferred activity of many young people in other areas. The core facility at the drop-in centre offers leisure, culture, health, education and employment services. It also runs outdoor activities for young people aged between 12 and 25 who are at risk from exclusion, alcohol and substance misuse, and delinquency.
The dreams and teams project, which is mentioned in the motion, has allowed the CAFE project to become involved in something quite expansive. The CAFE project's involvement with the British Council in Germany has helped it become far more outward looking than was the case previously.
The street football for all scheme is an interesting concept, and I understand it better now that it has been explained by Andrew Welsh. As he went through the rules of street football for all, Andrew gave me one or two ideas about how we might sort arguments such as those that we heard here this afternoon. If we had introduced those rules on a moderate level here, they might have prevented some of the more outspoken comments that were made today.
I wish to highlight a number of key points about the CAFE project that I think can be learned from in other areas. Part of the success of the project to date comes from the fact that it does not have a top-down attitude towards its own management. Rather, it actively encourages the youngsters themselves to help manage the project. I pay tribute to the young people who have become involved in the project to that extent.
The project engages with and has the support of the whole community in the Arbroath area. It originated from the Arbroath and district crime prevention panel's open seminar on juvenile delinquency in July 1996, and has since attracted—and retained—the involvement of Tayside police, the Arbroath schools, Angus College, local businessmen, Angus Council, Scottish Enterprise Tayside and local health bodies. The involvement of such a cross-section of the community has been key to the project's continued success.
Although the debate focuses on the CAFE project, I take this opportunity to highlight the excellent work of a number of other youth projects in Angus, some of which I have visited. Andrew Welsh mentioned Oasis and PALS, which are also in Arbroath. I will add the success of Young Montrose and the work done there by Val Cooper. There is also the Zone in Carnoustie, which I understand is now up and running again, although it is still in search of volunteers.
I pay tribute to all those involved in the CAFE project, especially the many local volunteers who give up so much of their time to ensure that it runs smoothly and successfully. I wish the project every success in the future and have no doubt that it will continue to provide Arbroath and the surrounding area with a service that they are very lucky to have—a flagship service that I hope will be developed in many other areas of Scotland. I support Andrew Welsh in calling on the Parliament to recognise the success of the project.
I add my congratulations to Andrew Welsh on securing this debate and compliment him on his thoughtful speech, to which I listened with great interest.
Andrew Welsh's speech struck a chord with me because of my involvement with the Tain youth cafe, in my home town, which is run on similar lines to the Arbroath CAFE. The project is about getting young people off the streets and making them feel that they have a role. That approach has proved successful in the Highlands, as well as in Arbroath. I hope that the model can be replicated elsewhere, as I have seen how it works. It is very much to the good not just of the young, but of us all.
Alex Johnstone said that the approach of the Arbroath CAFE is not top down, but bottom up. That is a colossal strength. When I took Jim Wallace to the Tain youth cafe in the summer, we were both taken aback by the sharpness of the questions that we were asked and the young people's ability to take us on. They would not be put off by a glib answer from J Stone and continued to probe further. They felt empowered by the fact that they had their own premises, which were their territory.
I want to make two points that follow on from that experience. First, in my time as a councillor on Highland Council, we established a Highland youth parliament. That approach has been replicated in many other parts of Scotland. Although the object of such initiatives is laudable, often they are led by a combination of local authorities and, perhaps, the NHS. Sometimes there is a danger that they will be top down, rather than bottom up. The Highland youth parliament decided that it wanted to debate the legalisation of cannabis. Members can imagine the sucking in of teeth that that caused among representatives of the NHS and the local authority, which had paid for the body to be set up. However, the incident demonstrated that, if we set up a youth parliament, we must be willing to let young people have their own voice.
Secondly, how many community councils do we know that include a couple of 16 or 17-year-olds among their members, to express the opinions of young people? There are some, but not many. Often, when problems relating to young people are flagged up—at all levels of democracy—I hear people say that they must speak to the head teacher rather than to the young people themselves. That issue is linked to the points that Andrew Welsh made today. We have a golden opportunity for the future.
When we get things right and empower young people so that they feel they are involved—building on youth cafes by setting up youth parliaments, encouraging young people's participation in community councils and who knows what else—their awareness of politics is increased. I do not want to debate whether people should be given the vote at 16, but too often we see youngsters who feel disfranchised and are not involved in the political process. The turnout at elections among the youngest voters is appalling. The great advantage of projects such as the Arbroath CAFE is that they offer a way of reversing the decline in voter turnout. How we tackle that problem is a test not just for the Executive, but for us all. The project that Andrew Welsh has described is a firm foundation on which to build. I commend it to the Parliament.
I add my congratulations to those that have been offered to Andrew Welsh and to the young people of the CAFE project—not only for the work that they do, but because they are probably unique in having two motions relating to them lodged in the Scottish Parliament in the space of two months. I lodged my motion following a presentation that the project made in November last year to the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on children and young people. In fact, that was not the first contact that the cross-party group had had with them, as we used the CAFE project premises for a very successful consultation event that we carried out with young people in Angus.
My motion in November was specifically about street football for all, which, as Andrew said, is now a national project. It seeks to promote sport, health and active citizenship through football. It has brought together young people from Scotland, Germany and about 15 other countries. In doing that, it also hopes to increase understanding and tolerance.
The cross-party group was also very taken by the imaginative rules of street football. Teams are of six, with no more than four on the pitch at one time. We applauded the fact that each team must include a girl. Penalties are taken from under one's own goalposts into an empty net and games can be no shorter than four minutes and no longer than 10. Most important, goals are deducted for unfriendly behaviour. It was clear throughout that the really important thing is that people have a lot of fun.
The presentation to the cross-party group was at a meeting on physical activity for young people. Indeed, we had Mary Allison and John Beattie from the physical activity task force at that same cross-party group meeting. They outlined how very difficult it is to get young people involved in sport or physically active at all. When they heard about it, they commended the street football initiative, not least because the young people said that it was estimated that approximately 4,200 young could be involved in and benefit from the project.
The young people noted the time scales that the physical activity task force has set to improve the situation in Scotland. Some of the time scales are quite extended—up to five or 10 years, in some cases. They confidently predicted that, with the right motivation and drive, they would be able to have a meaningful impact on participation in sport within one year. That is something that the minister might like to note.
Like other members, I simply want to wish those involved every success with their excellent initiative. It meaningfully embodies equality and social inclusion, and I wish them all the best for the wider work of the CAFE Project.
Well done to Andrew Welsh and even better done to the CAFE project. Like Irene McGugan, I was enthused by the presentation to the cross-party group.
We can learn some lessons from the initiative. There are a lot of good individual projects throughout Scotland, which other members have mentioned. There are certainly plenty in central Scotland, such as the Edinburgh City Youth Cafe, which is just round the corner from the Parliament. There are a lot of good examples, but there are not enough of them. As a country, we just do not develop. We need perhaps five times as many youth facilities as we have at the moment and they need to be more evenly spread.
It is a great strength of the CAFE project that there is heavy youth involvement in the management. That is very important. Those involved have hit on imaginative things, such as the football project, which I think has tremendous potential. What we have to crack, and what the minister has to crack, is a way of developing things from the bottom. I entirely agree with other members that we do not want to parachute in. There is no point in dropping a nice new football thingamy on a group that is sound asleep and does not really want it. We have to enthuse people to go for this project, or for other projects, and we must give them financial support.
We have a tricky problem with national policy and getting Government money into local bodies. We have to encourage the local authorities to do that, and some do it much better than others. In addition to what local government does, we must have a direct line to existing youth facilities and to allow us to encourage more facilities.
We could have a million of these football stadia for the cost of one jail—I have not done the sums, but I imagine that that must be right. We do not need a million, but we need a lot more than we have. I hope that the minister will have a programme ready, so that when it is demonstrated in a few months' time that the programme works, we can offer the facility to lots of other people, provided that they have a viable local group to take it on.
We also have to develop more groups, get more young people involved and get more adult volunteers. It is unfortunate that the present climate deters a lot of people from volunteering. I do not mean the cold outside, but the blame culture and the need to have insurance cover and to fill in thousands of forms before people can help. We have to protect our young people—that is fair enough—but we have to do it in such a way that we do not discourage adults from helping young people. In my experience, we can get adults to help with children of primary school age, but it is difficult to get adults to help with teenagers, because they are afraid of them. We have to crack that.
A lot of lessons can be learned. I hope that the minister can think how we can best deal with the issues. If 0.01 per cent of the relevant budgets of health, sport and police were put into this sort of work, it would revolutionise Scotland. We have to take that approach. Prevention is better than cure. We have to provide something positive for young people to do and credit should be given to the CAFE project for doing that.
I, too, congratulate Andrew Welsh on securing the debate on his motion. I got to know him well when we were both members of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and I know of his great pride in being the representative of Angus and the interest that he takes in the welfare of his constituents in Arbroath. We can talk about success in a positive way in that context.
As Alex Johnstone pointed out, the Community Alcohol Free Environment project—to give CAFE its full name—was established as a charity in July 1996, following an open meeting of the Arbroath and district crime prevention panel seminar on juvenile delinquency. We can all agree on the value of the CAFE project in promoting personal development and health and in providing employment, education and training services. It also provides an alternative to life on the streets, where young people at risk from exclusion, alcohol and substance misuse and delinquency can socialise and participate in a wide range of activities in a safe environment.
I understand that it is open six nights a week and caters regularly for 250 young people. A wide range of activities is offered, including internet access, pool, table tennis, air hockey and darts, and there are electronic games consoles and a television. In addition, outdoor activities and trips are organised, including skiing, mountain biking, gorge walking, youth club visits, five-a-side football and the football project to which Andrew Welsh referred. While he was talking about the project, I was thinking that such initiatives might also deal with Donald Gorrie's point about no sectarianism—perhaps Alex Ferguson could learn from them not to repeat what happened last weekend.
The Executive is totally committed to tackling drugs misuse and we recognise its impact on young people, families and the wider community. In addition to other expenditure, we have invested in the future of young people by making funds available through the drugs element of the changing children's services fund. The Scottish Executive's plan for action on alcohol problems offers a chance to reduce significantly the harm caused by alcohol in Scotland and recognises the importance of education and prevention in tackling alcohol misuse. The strategy acknowledges specifically the work of the CAFE project as an example of how the Executive's policy has been given practical effect.
I agree with Keith Raffan that our young people should have access to well-supported venues where they can meet in a safe environment and where they are encouraged to participate in constructive social activities. Those activities do not necessarily have to be fully organised and focused. Just having a place to meet friends helps young people to strengthen their networks and gives them a greater degree of involvement with their communities. It is important to recognise the importance of community involvement beginning at a young age. We want to inculcate the habit of getting involved in community activity in all our young people. That is one of the commitments that they can make to their future and to that of the community.
As has been highlighted, more structured activities also bring great benefits. Involving young people in decision making and organising events helps them to develop life skills. As well as acquiring practical skills, such as analysis, communication and team working, they develop increased confidence in their abilities.
Jamie Stone pointed out the importance of the Highland youth parliament. When the Scottish youth parliament launches its manifesto next week, the First Minister and Cathy Jamieson will be in attendance. This year, we funded the Scottish youth parliament to the tune of £82,000. We will continue to fund that activity, even though the youth parliament does not agree with every dot and comma of Scottish Executive policy. It is important that people have the opportunity to talk for themselves and to present their views.
The Arbroath project has benefited from work that is being developed through the dialogue youth pilots and the Young Scot initiative. The Executive has provided £1.9 million for the development of three pilots in Angus, Argyll and Bute and Glasgow. The pilots have established a groundbreaking framework for the provision of services to young people, who are now making important decisions on how they want public services to be delivered.
As part of that development, a network of access portals has been created that gives access to the council broadband network. Local voluntary youth work providers, such as the CAFE project, have been given access to that network. Part of the Executive's funding has covered the cost of installing the communications equipment that offers high-speed, low-cost broadband access. I am sorry that Kenny MacAskill is not here to hear about that broadband access.
All the partners agree that the pilots have been a major success. More important, the young people who have been involved in their development and use have voted them an overwhelming success.
Donald Gorrie mentioned the roll-out of the initiative. The Executive will provide a further £5.4 million to roll it out in other local authority areas. I am sure that members would agree that supporting such an exciting and successful innovation is a first-class use of our money.
In considering how we can take a more co-ordinated approach to youth work, we must develop a better understanding of how each of the sectors that are involved can work together and of how those relationships can be enhanced to ensure that the best possible service is delivered throughout Scotland.
Last April, we announced that YouthLink Scotland, which already represented and supported voluntary youth organisations, had taken on a greatly expanded role. YouthLink is doing two key pieces of work in support of a more co-ordinated approach.
First, the role that YouthLink can play in helping co-ordinated working between the statutory and voluntary sectors, between central and local government and between departments therein is being developed. That will enable historic barriers to be overcome. Secondly, we have asked YouthLink to carry out a mapping exercise of youth work provision throughout Scotland, which will cover the voluntary and statutory sectors. That will help to identify any gaps between supply and demand, record examples of good practice and flag up areas of duplication. Once the exercise has been completed, we will be in a much better position to know what action is needed, where it is needed and what might be the most effective way to deliver results.
Those are important developments in the delivery of services to young people and in our efforts to engage young people more actively in our, and their, society.
The motion has been lodged to celebrate the achievements of the CAFE project in Arbroath. I am happy to celebrate those achievements. As Irene McGugan pointed out, the lodging of two motions for debate is testament to those achievements. Every speaker has commended the work that has been done. I congratulate everyone who has been involved in those achievements, which I hope lay the foundation for much more good work in years to come.
Meeting closed at 16:54.