\n<\/p>\n
Youth clubs and after-school activities in England will receive a funding injection of \u00a388m as ministers try to get more children away from smartphones and computer screens.<\/p>\n
The package, which Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday, is intended to give pupils access to sport, outdoor activities, art, music, debating and volunteering.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said there was a \u201cworrying trend\u201d of young people finding themselves \u201cisolated at home and disconnected from their communities\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the funds were designed to offer young people \u201ca better alternative\u201d and the opportunity to \u201cdevelop the confidence and life skills that no algorithm can teach\u201d.<\/p>\n
Of the \u00a388m package, \u00a322.5m is new money to fund extracurricular activities in up to 400 schools over three years.<\/p>\n
The remaining \u00a365.5m was announced in the spending review in June. It will be spent on improving youth club infrastructure, including new gym equipment and climbing walls, in areas with high levels of child poverty and support youth work in areas with high rates of antisocial behaviour.<\/p>\n
The funds will also support local authorities to provide high-quality out-of-school activities and create thousands of places in youth organisations such as the Scouts, the Guides and the Volunteer Police Cadets.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The number of youth centres run by local authorities in England almost halved between 2012 and 2023, with council spending on youth work decreasing by 75% and the number of youth workers falling by about 4,500.<\/p>\n In the spring UK Youth, the country\u2019s biggest youth-work charity, called on the government to urgently increase funding and said Labour had so far spent less than the Conservatives on youth work in England.<\/p>\n Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, last month told cabinet colleagues that deprivation, immigration and rising time spent online were having a \u201cprofound impact on society\u201d.<\/p>\n At a cabinet meeting, she said the government must confront people\u2019s \u201creal concerns\u201d to rebuild trust.<\/p>\n In March, Starmer praised the hit Netflix drama Adolescence and invited its makers to Downing Street to discuss the influence of toxic online material. He told the BBC that the series shone a light \u201con misogyny, on online content, and this sense of children, particularly boys, getting drawn into this world\u201d.<\/p>\n Ministers are preparing to publish a national youth strategy in the autumn. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said: \u201cStrong local youth services are the bedrock of thriving communities that give our young people safe spaces to learn, grow and reach their potential.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Youth clubs and after-school activities in England will receive a funding injection of \u00a388m as ministers try to get more children away from smartphones and computer screens. The package, which Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday, is intended to give pupils access to sport, outdoor activities, art, music, debating and volunteering. The prime minister said there<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[4563,166,3334,488,116,364,3342,801,3904],"class_list":{"0":"post-14248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-aims","9":"tag-children","10":"tag-clubs","11":"tag-english","12":"tag-funding","13":"tag-people","14":"tag-smartphones","15":"tag-young","16":"tag-youth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}