Call for youth workers numbers to more than double

"I don't think you've realised how much you've helped me", Lily, 14, told her youth worker Holly McMahon

The National Youth Agency has said there should be two youth workers and four youth support workers for every secondary school catchment area.

In the wider South West, including Bristol, the group said this would mean increasing the current number by about 125% at a cost of £70m.

Paul Scott, a youth worker in Paignton said: "There is a lack of youth workers. There’s a lack of youth spaces for young people to be in."

The government said it planned to address a shortage of services by rolling out its Young Futures programme to "identify young people most at risk of being drawn into crime and create a network of youth hubs... to make Britain safer for the next generation".

Mr Scott said: "I think the biggest problem facing youth workers and youth projects is funding and being able to actually offer the services that are needed.

"For a while, youth work has been massively underfunded."

Youth worker Paul Scott said the sector was massively underfunded

Lily, 14, is one of about 30 young people who regularly attends a youth club in Paignton.

"I don’t think you've realised how much you’ve helped me," she told youth worker Holly McMahon.

"To be honest, I probably think I'd be on the streets and doing stuff that I shouldn't do at my age, and doing stuff that I shouldn't do at all really," she said.

Liv, 15, said "You will love us no matter what. Whatever we do or whatever we've said, you're still going to be there for us."

'No options at all'

The National Youth Agency, which is the professional body for youth work, said it estimated that £812m was needed "to build a sufficient level of high quality... youth provision... across England."

Labour's manifesto promised a £95m investment in Young Futures Hubs, with youth workers, mental health support workers, and careers advisers on hand to support young people’s mental health and avoid them being drawn into crime.

The agency's research found there was currently an estimated 1,767 qualified youth workers and youth support workers in the region and that the total number needed was 3,996, meaning there was a shortfall of 2,229 or 126% on current numbers.

Director of youth work at the National Youth Agency, Abbee McLatchie, said the shortage of youth workers was felt "more acutely" in rural areas

"Over the past 13 years, we've seen a huge cut to youth work across the whole country," said Abbee McLatchie, the agency's director of youth work agency.

She said: "We see huge disparities and inequality of access.

"This is often acutely felt particularly by younger people in rural and coastal communities... who might already live in a community that doesn't have access to good transport and things to do."

A survey of young people commissioned by the agency earlier this year found the South West had a higher than average number of young people saying they had no access to youth work - 14% said there were no options at all, compared to the national average of 9%.

Ms McLatchie said that, as well as investment in more youth workers, the National Youth Agency would like to see the new government giving more support to voluntary sector organisations, which were the "backbone of the workforce for young people" but were "really struggling in the cost-of-living crisis".

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it was working with the agency and local authorities to "build the skills and capacity of the existing workforce and attract new people into youth work".