Funding boost for Youth Services in Cork city and county!

Increased funding for youth services across Cork has been welcomed by organisations amid warnings about the pressures on youth projects to meet the ongoing complex needs of participants. 

A 4% increase in funding to 32 youth service projects and programmes in Cork will help ensure the continued delivery of targeted programmes to young people aged between 10-24 in large urban and more isolated rural areas. 

Projects in Cork are operated by service providers including Foróige, Cloyne Diocesan Youth Services (CDYS), YMCA and several independent agencies as part of the national UBU Your Place, Your Space funding scheme. Cork Education & Training Board (Cork ETB), which administers funding to youth services on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY), described the funding increase as ‘timely, important and welcome’. 

“Our youth services have been at the coal face of service provision throughout the Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions and have been dealing with the subsequent fallout of issues experienced by young people. They provided opportunities for young people, teens and older adolescents continuously over this period and so to see an increase in funding is a fitting endorsement and validation of their work,” declared Cork ETB Youth Service Development Officer, Mick Finn. 

“Over €3.5m has been awarded to UBU Projects in Cork for 2023 which represents a significant increase on other years and means that projects from Beara to the city to Mitchelstown can continue to provide a high-octane range of activities and programmes to their young people. These include one-to-one and group supports, skills development, summer activities and accredited programmes addressing a wide range of issues including personal development; mental health and wellbeing; bullying; family, peer and school relationships; addiction; and gender identity.

“From our monitoring visits and interactions with project staff and co-ordinators, it is clear that youth workers are coming under added pressures to deal with mental health, wellbeing and developmental issues as presented by young people in their care; given the well-publicised pressures on mainstream HSE services such as CAMHS, it is important that projects don’t have to worry about lack of resources and can continue to provide the crucial interventions so badly needed by so many of their young people.” 

While Cork has the largest number of projects spread over the widest geographical remit in the country, there are areas of the city and county which do not have staffed youth services and have to depend on volunteer clubs (which are also supported by Cork ETB). 

“There are areas such as Ballincollig, Youghal, Kanturk and Bantry that are without UBU services, and we hope that future new projects will be sanctioned by the DCEDIY to include such places. There is a lot of pressure on youth workers to fill gaps that are obvious in the national health system – particularly youth mental health – and while we need to protect and mind the services that are being provided to children and teens in youth projects and clubs, we also need to guard against burnout of those on the front line and those volunteering.”