Young people in Haarlemmermeer are at risk of falling victim to the decision of the council to cut back on outpatient youth work. PvdA councilor Kim Denie (24) warns against this, who hopes to put a stop to the discount. To begin with, by finding enough supporters for her motion during a debate tonight.
The Zwanenburg woman doesn’t understand it: with a campaign, including a YouTube video, the municipality shows that it is aware of the importance of the integrated approach to care, and yet it wants to cut back on youth work on the street and in schools. “We have a duty of care.”
Cuts (reverted)
Earlier, the municipality of Haarlemmermeer announced major cutbacks in the social domain, which later were partially reversed. “The cutbacks on youth work have also been partly reversed,” says Kim, “but not on itinerant youth work – on the street and in schools.”
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“I foresee big problems,” she warns. “Many young people were already behind due to the corona lockdowns” And then she is not only talking about psychological complaints – which young people in Haarlemmermeer suffer from more often than average in the Netherlands, according to the Corona Health Monitor Youth 2021 of the RIVM – but also about basic skills . “I notice that my classmates aged 18, 19 often find it difficult to make contact.”
4,000 hours less
If itinerant youth work soon has to make do with half a million less, that means that (out of a total of 14,000 hours) there will be 4,000 fewer hours of youth workers on the street and in schools. “That is a decrease of thirty percent”, Kim calculates.
Youth nuisance in Haarlemmermeer
Haarlemmermeer goes been suffering from youth nuisance for yearsranging from minor offenses to more serious crimes.
That’s how Tom (64) from Hoofddorp became a few years ago while pinning stabbed to death by a teenagerwith which the discussion about knife ownership and -violence recharged.
Examples of minor offenses are the vandalism with which primary school De Linq in Nieuw-Vennep is involved. Director Karin Koets reported thirty times in the 2021/2022 school year destruction around and at her school.
The municipality also stands out nationally: in corona year 2020, only Amsterdam experienced more youth nuisance than Haarlemmermeer. And mayor Schuurmans recently expressed her expectation that this will be the case in the coming years will not be less.
She knows the target group through and through. Not only because she herself was part of it not so long ago, but also because she has recently spoken to ‘more than a hundred young people’. In addition, dozens of them completed a questionnaire in which Kim asked them about their well-being and request for help, among other things.
“75 percent said they had mental complaints, and 70 percent of them have no confidence that the municipality can help to take them away”, she explains some conclusions with surprise and disbelief in her voice. “The municipality has a duty of care.”
‘Energy drink-drinking young people’
And it is precisely those youth workers who are of great value in this, she says. “I also went out with a youth worker last night.” They encounter a group of ‘youngsters smoking marijuana’, among whom – as it turns out after they have started a conversation – a girl in a dire situation. “She was kicked out of the house last weekend. Then it is nice if there is someone who listens or helps.”
She certainly knows success stories, such as in Hoofddorp and Badhoevedorp, where youth workers have put the necessary young people on the right path. But if the current trend of austerity in facilities continues, Kim does not rule out that Haarlemmermeer will experience ‘Amsterdam antics’, she refers to the youth problems in Amsterdam-West, where she grew up.
“If we cut back, the problem will increase and the care […] only more expensive”
If the council does not want to reverse the cuts in the interest of young people, Denie will call on the mayor and aldermen to do it for their own wallets. “If we cut costs, the problems will increase and the care that must be provided will only become more expensive,” she argued earlier in her motivation to request tonight’s debate.
In tonight’s debate – that right here can be followed live from 7 p.m – Kim hopes to get enough supporters for her motion ‘Don’t put the youth worker aside’. “But even if it doesn’t work out tonight, this battle isn’t over yet.”