Managing managerialism – how the 21st Century manager can truly thrive.

Managers embrace the current funding landscape by finding a compromise that allows them to still meet the needs of young people without selling out their values. Managers should be ‘principled pragmatists’, in pursuit of success but cautious to unravel the pedagogy of the profession clearly misunderstood by many commissioners. Rather than seeing targets as limitations, they offer the chance to be creative and refocus work into something truly meaningful. Case studies and narrative enquiries capturing lived experiences can often be the way to a funder’s heart and wallet. By promoting praxis, young people can be involved in the ethical questions around funding projects, in order to avoid teaching young people how to ‘play the system’ and enable them to tackle directly the structural systems of oppression. The socio-political forces continue to both constrain and empower practice, the survival of the profession rests on the shoulders of managers who are able to prove their worth with a foresight for strategy and a passion for people over power. Managers must shed the business-led archetype, acknowledge competitors as potential partners, meet needs less sporadically and use the tools of marketisation to achieve autonomy. By creating services that boast social capital in practitioner expertise, outstanding impactful work can be achieved Youth work is recognised as a distinct pedagogical approach to work with young people, the 21st century manager must be a campaigner where value-driven professionals leading multi-disciplinary teams can co-create change in our communities in spite of commissioners, funders and government.

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