Young people need a platform not a makeover

These are strange times when The Prince's Trust announces a new PR campaign to 'makeover' the nation's youth.

Day in, day out we read about our teenagers stabbing one another and scaring the adults. These stories are not of course made up but what must it feel like to be a young person today, to know that people in the street might be intimidated by you, because your sweatshirt has a hood and you haven't yet worked out that a smile and a bit of eye contact can go a long way.

Clearly the media has a job to do in reporting the news, reflecting and commenting on our world. But surely, when the young people we read about, over and over again - the hoodie-wearing thugs who hang out in gangs - bear little resemblance to the young people we know, the media can present alternative views of teenagers.

The Reclaim project in Manchester is doing its best to show some brilliant work by young Black teenage boys who are aspiring to become leaders in their communities. And they've had some great media coverage that has sparked a debate about the representation of young people in the media. But it's not enough of a defence against images that have become shorthand for all things bad.

Good luck to The Prince's Trust. I hope their National Youth Week in November doesn't stop there and that it becomes the moment when, as a country, we started to change our views about young people. But I'm doubtful.

Maybe hoodies are just the new quiffs, skinheads, or safety pins and the need to demonise young people is no different today than it ever was. Forget young people wearing hoodies. What about this picture of boys from the Reclaim project at their 'graduation'?

It's not that it makes a nice change for young people to be doing great things, it just makes a nice change to see it.