I AM greatly concerned about the scandal of the high rate of suicide among the under-25s. In my 60 years in youth work, I saw that the power of listening to, supporting and empowering young people to find their solutions to their problems is a powerful tool for mental health. I was chosen by the youth membership of the biggest youth centre in Scotland to be their manager. Together we built the membership up from 100 to 1,400 in my first year.

Later, I managed the Strathclyde-wide youth empowerment project called, YES, the Youth Enquiry Service, for 15 years. More than 50,000 teenagers came to us for help. They raised issues that were important to them; how to leave a toxic home, how to access a recording studio, how to work abroad, how to work with deaf people, mental health, sexuality, Aids and addictions. The young people published award-winning booklets on alcohol and drugs, and won two UK health education awards. Teenagers designed and ran hundreds of health education workshops for teens, providing drugs information uncensored by adults. That is the power of good youth work.

Sadly, we have all but abandoned supporting teenagers today, with relentless cuts in youth work, leaving it to the private sector to profit from children in expensive sports centres and gyms, night clubs, selling them alcohol, vapes and worse. Teenagers are viewing daily very dangerous information on drugs and sexual health.The mental health of our children and young people is being damaged every day by what they see on their phones, on social media platforms, leading to the horrendous rise in their suicide rate – witness the tragic case of 14-year-old Molly Russell (“Coroner rules social media was a factor in Molly taking her own life?”, The Herald, October 1).

I wrote (Letters, September 23) about the wealth of royalty and how they could spend their money more wisely. If King Charles III or the Prince of Wales were to launch a new initiative on children’s mental health, by finding the best way to listening to them and work with them, I know they will find the right solutions, which we adults have failed to do. We only need to look at Greta Thunberg and Marcus Rashford to see how the power of empowering the young works.

Max Cruickshank, Glasgow.

RENT FREEZE MUST GO THROUGH

WHILE their tenants struggle with the cost of living crisis many of Scotland’s registered social landlords argue that they require a rent increase to continue to provide services and maintain investment ("Warning as rent freeze legislation to be rushed through Holyrood", The Herald, September 30).

This is predicated on an outdated business model which insists on Scotland’s social housing providing a business plan over a 30- year period.

The only point to this historical approach is that the lenders (banks mostly) require evidence that loan repayments can be afforded over their term and that no covenants will be breached. In reality bankers will tell you that, particularly in current circumstances, all their focus is on years one to three, five at most.

Checking publicly available information on the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) website you will see the full scale of reserves held by registered social landlords (RSLs) in Scotland, millions in cash at banks and reaching billions in revenue reserves at year end 31/03/22.

Scotland’s social rented sector can, in economic terms, afford to play its part in helping tenants on the edge by freezing rents for financial year 2023/ 24 (the next available time any change can now be made).

It’s a fallacy to claim that investment by or existence of RSLs is threatened by a one-year rent freeze given the cash balances and revenue reserves held and also it is entirely feasible if we are to remain slavish to the outdated 30-year model to simply raise the rents by an extra one or two per cent in future years as the economic circumstances of our fellow mostly working-class citizens improve.

If you were to go back a number of years a typical RSL would have had circa 80/85 per cent of tenants on full Housing Benefit, and only around 20% in work. Today that has changed and many of us have circa 30/40% in work, but low-paid, often on zero-hour contracts and paying rent themselves in full or at least part.

There is also the impact of Universal Credit with the benefit paid directly to tenants who then face a stark choice: eat/heat/ pay rent?

I am hoping this modest contribution from an experienced front-line housing professional based in one of Scotland’s most deprived communities may assist the Scottish Government in remaining focused on delivering help via a rent freeze in the financial year 2023 to 2024.

Graeme Aitken, Parkhead Housing Association, Glasgow.

LET'S INVEST IN LOCAL RECYCLING

FIGURES published by Sepa last week showed an overall household recycling rate of 42.7% in Scotland. Increasing this disappointing figure is presumably the over-arching aim of the Scottish Government’s bottle and can deposit return scheme.

The scheme is superficially simple. Retailers charge a 20p deposit when an individual buys a drink in a single-use bottle or can and that deposit is returned when the empty container is deposited at a return point. But the practical arrangements and bureaucracy around this make it a convoluted project.

Retailers are required to introduce a surcharge which the Government must recover from the retailers. Consumers must take their empty bottles and cans to a return point. A contractor operates the return points and transports the material for recycling.

The complexity has delayed it and, despite being announced in 2017, the latest date for it to be fully operational is 2024.

This is not a cost-neutral scheme; government meets the set-up and operational costs.

Would it not be much simpler to invest in the recycling schemes operated by local authorities? The extent to which individual households recycle could be recorded using bar codes on bins which are scanned by the refuse collection teams while the weight of individual bins is automatically recorded as the vehicle lifts them for emptying. A cash payment or a discount on council tax linked to the weight of recycling recorded could then be introduced as an incentive to householders to recycle more of their waste

George Rennie, Inverness.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

GRANT McKechnie's taking light relief in matters of punctuation (Letters, September 30) reminds me of the lady who took inspiration from cooking, her family, and her dog.

Omission of the commas would suggest cannibalistic tendencies.

David Miller, Milngavie.