Youth work is key to tackling rise in violence - Alex Cole-Hamilton

Willy Barr, manager at the Citadel in Edinburgh, has long fought against cuts to youth work services

Kayden’s murder is sadly not an isolated incident. In March, 15 year old Amen Teklay was fatally stabbed on a Glasgow street. All told, there have been two deaths and 11 injuries from youth knife violence so far in 2025.

It represents the most severe end of a measurable uptick in youth violence in Scotland since the pandemic, with a spotlight being shone on violence in schools and attacks on shopkeepers.

It's easy to despair in the face of statistics like these, but this situation is far from irretrievable. It’s important to remember that young people are exponentially far more likely to be a victim of antisocial behaviour than a perpetrator of it.

The long shadow of lockdown has meant that many of our teenagers spent the most formative years of their lives isolated at home or in their bedrooms. As a result they missed out on opportunities to make friends, and experience new things. Many have suffered with poor mental health.

For some, the instinctive response to reports of violence is to crack down. To give the police increasingly draconian powers to stop, to search and to curtail the activities of predominantly law abiding young people. While I understand where this reaction comes from, it’s the wrong one.

No kid is inherently bad, in many cases those who act up are just in need of some direction and a positive adult role model that is neither a teacher nor a parent. That’s where youth work comes in.

For the best part of 20 years I was a youth worker and for 13 years of that I was working directly with some of the most disengaged young people in the country to try to help them to get their lives on track.

We specialised in taking these teenagers out of their comfort zone. I taught young people how to prepare an entire meal from scratch on a budget and on a single flame camping burner in the howling wind.

I delivered parenting classes to those most at risk of teenage pregnancy using electronic baby dolls and once had to go gorge-walking in February in my trainers having lent my walking boots to a young person who didn't have any.

These were young people who had not been anywhere near a school or a place of employment in years. Society had written them off, but piece by piece we rebuilt their sense of self-worth, while fostering independent living and employability skills.

Since the pandemic however, the SNP government have presided over the quiet death of youth work in this country. Budgets have been squeezed, services have struggled to survive, just when we need them the most.

We must reverse this if we have any hope in reconnecting with those young people most at risk of violence.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, Edinburgh Western MSP and Scottish Lib Dem leader