If the overall intelligence of a field of professional work was determined by how well the workers of the profession understood what their qualification actually was in, then youth workers would almost certainly be the thickest profession going. So it's probably a fairly accurate way of judging the intelligence of a profession. The point is though, that if you're a youth worker and you're in training or finished training then you're probably JNC qualified. Except you're not sure if you're qualified by the JNC, for the JNC, with a JNC, in a JNC, or upon a JNC. Also you're not quite sure what JNC stands for, and even if you do not know what it stands for, you haven't a clue who or what they are. So, for reference for everyone who cares, this is what the JNC is.
JNC stands for Joint Negotiating Committee for Youth and Community Workers (JNCYCW doesn't sound so hot). It's a body that was set-up for two purposes; firstly to negotiate conditions of employment for youth workers (which includes things like pay, hours and holiday) and secondly to recognise qualifications that the NYA (National Youth Agency) validate1.
And it turns out that actually the Joint Negotiating Committee is quite a powerful group. They don't just negotiate these things and hope that authorities will follow through on them. From the annual report from 20052.
(ii) The Committee shall have within its scope:
(a) Persons employed by local authorities in England and Wales as youth and
community workers.
(b) Persons employed as youth and community workers by voluntary
organisations in receipt of a grant from local or central government or the
Welsh Assembly Government.
And also regarding the report itself (not just the committee)3:
[1.1] (b) Although this Report does not apply directly to youth and community workers employed by voluntary organisations outside the scope of [those that receive money from government funds], the Committee recommends that this Report should nevertheless be applied by all voluntary organisations employing youth and community workers.
Essentially, they set the conditions that government, government funded agencies (even only in part ones) and ideally every youth work employer should abide by. They also alone say which courses can officially count as youth work courses.
One exciting fact about the JNC; the JNC is composed of two different sides (hence the Joint Negotiating in the JNC), one side made up of employers (people from the government and national councils for voluntary youth services) and the other made up of staff (people from the Community and Youth Workers' Union, Unison and the two teachers associations). This may not initially sound exciting but I imagine meetings are a bit like the bits in Spooks where they liaise with the CIA, except there are less terrorists involved. Both sides are technically on the same side and fighting for good, but in actual fact, they each have their own agendas and want to win. So I imagine they snipe at each other (but probably not actually snipe, that'd be cool though), shoot each other down (but probably not actually shoot each...) and generally take potshots (...) at each other. Or alternatively the just sit in a conference room and consume too much tea and biscuits and all the digestives go first and sort things out. Whatever.
So, the JNC does two things, conditions and qualifications, both of which need to be explored more later as well as whether you (if you work for a church of a Christian charity) should care about them(four part series!). But to spoil the punch-line and answer the initial question with regards to qualifications, technically, the JNC recognises that you're qualified. Which I think is jolly decent of them.
1 NYA, What Does JNC stand for [accessed Friday 16th Feb 2007].
2 p.7, JNC, Report of the Joint Negotiating Committee for Youth and Community Workers [accessed Friday 16th Feb 2007].
3 p.11, ibid.
See also the JNC article on Wikipedia which I'll try to update later today.
You have two options in expressing yourself publicly on this site. If you have a new fangled blog type website (like this one) you can write what you want to say on your own site and link to this entry. I'll register that you've written something about it and provide a link to it below (this is called a trackback). If you don't have a website or just don't want to waste its time with me then you can add a good old fashioned comment. Fill in the blanks and press go to make your opinion heard among handfuls!
A few lines need to be said here. I'm currently a youth worker, therefore I have to watch how I interact with young people. Therefore if you're a young person whom I know through work you need to ask your parents permission to comment on this. That sucks I know, but it gives you something other than voting and drinking to look forward to when you hit eighteen.
All the views expressed here are opinions of whoever wrote them. They also are copyrighted to you under law. However, because you're nice by commenting on this you agree to have your views licensed under whatever creative commons licence this website is.
Spam will be deleted and anyone caught doing it will be black-listed.
If you click 'remember personal information' your details will be stored in a cookie on your computer and you'll never see this message again. Hooray!
These html tags are cool: b, i, u, s, del, ins, em, strong, sup, sub, a href and blockquote. You can get away with some images.
This is a website by Mark Walley. If you want to find out more or get in touch, that'd be nice.
Getting around this website can be a tad confusing. If you're looking to explore the better stuff of what I've written then this navigation should help you. If you're after a specific post then searching or looking through the archives chronologically may help.
This site tries its best to be accessible for everyone. Atom, and RSS feeds are available. All content licensed through a creative commons licence. I may have stolen ideas off you when you weren't looking, but it was almost certainly an accident. As with all claims of originality and ownership Psalm 24 v1 applies.