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Encouraging disaffected young people to volunteer for activities that help build communities has always been difficult.

But those behind the growing number of "time banks" argue that giving young people and other participants time credits for the volunteering they do means there is an incentive to get involved and that the activity can build self-esteem among young people as well as bridging generations.

But there are still significant challenges to the development of time banks in schools and communities, such as lack of sustainable funding, the need for external support and the small size of many projects. There has also been confusion over the similar names of Time Banks UK, the national network for time banks, and the separate organisation TimeBank, whichis a media campaign aimed at encouraging volunteering.


Participants in a time bank "deposit" their time in the bank by giving practical help and support to others and are able to "withdraw" their time when they need something done for themselves.

In some of the youth-oriented time banks participants can get a refurbished computer after reaching a certain number of time hours.

Unlike the Lets alternative currency system, in a time bank everyone's time is worth the same and a broker links people up and keeps records. The idea was pioneered in the 1980s in the US, where there are now more than 250 time banks. From the first UK pilot in 1998 there are now more than 50 in operation or seeking funding. By September 2002 some 63,000 hours had been given and received by time bank participants in the UK.

Most are targeted at socially excluded groups and research commissioned by the New Economics Foundation1 suggests that time bank volunteers are far more likely to come from low income households than traditional volunteers.

For example, the Time 2 Trade time bank in Sandwell, West Midlands, is aimed at promoting health and well-being on three deprived housing estates.

The time bank is led by a partnership between the local council and primary care trust and funded by the health action zone. It is building on local estates' tenants and residents associations and aims to have a drop-in centre and management committee on each estate.

The time bank has involved a youth group from the local Baptist church, says time bank co-ordinator Daniel Grainger. The youth group, which is mainly comprised of disaffected young people, has been involved in delivering leaflets for the time bank on the estates and clearing litter.

In return they have received access to computers at a local IT provider, trips to a rock climbing centre and a disco organised by another time bank participant.

Adrian Lowe, youth co-ordinator at the West Bromwich Baptist Church, says that in the initial stages of the time bank the organisation was patchy because part-time volunteers were running it.

"When Daniel was appointed it improved a lot because now we get regular letters telling us how many time credits we've built up, as well as a manual explaining how it all works," he says.

It appeals to the young people, says Lowe, because they can see the trade-off between community activity and personal benefit. But building up the number of participants on the estates will take time.

"It's a good idea but it needs to grow bigger to become effective," says Lowe.

Some time banks involving young people are based in schools. In Tower Hamlets, east London Opt 4 IT covers three secondary schools.

In this project teenagers give one-to-one tutoring to younger pupils in subjects like numeracy and English during lunch hours and after school. When the tutors have gained 30 hours of time credits they are entitled to a refurbished computer. The scheme is now in its second year and involves around 45 young people acting as tutors.

What makes this different to other peer tutoring schemes is that the tutors are pupils who are under-performing at school themselves because of personal problems and often have high truancy rates.

"Just because they are disaffected does not mean they're not bright enough to be tutors," says Chris Jones, director of economic and community regeneration at the Community Education Development Centre, an educational trust which is helping run the project.

She says the tutors receive a boost to their self-esteem and that initial research has suggested the time bank results in lower truancy rates and improved behaviour among those giving time.

The Tower Hamlets scheme is based on a Chicago project but is less ambitious as the Chicago model includes activities that involve parents as well as pupils. Jones says one of the challenges such school-based time banks face is the need to involve school staff.


"Teachers are hard-pressed but their involvement is needed to make it work and it's dependent on the goodwill of staff," she says.

Bridging generations in communities is one of the aims of Stonehouse Fair Shares in rural Gloucestershire, one of several time banks in the county. It is based around a number of sheltered housing schemes for older people in the town of Stonehouse.

Pupils from a local secondary school take part in communal activities to help older residents, such as picking up shopping or planting bulbs, says Julie Baxter, Gloucester City time bank manager.

The young people taking part are non-GCSE pupils, some of whom have behavioural problems. The scheme is part of the school's citizenship curriculum and, in this scheme, the pupils do not receive time credits in return for the work they do.

Baxter says she hopes the pupils' experience will lead some of them to take part in other time banks when they leave school.

"The contact between the generations is very important as many of the older people have a negative view of the young and some of the pupils have very limited contact with older people," says Baxter.

The IPPR research group is launching a scheme of alternative currencies in primary and secondary schools this summer, in which six schools will experiment with Lets and six with time banks.

Joe Hallgarten, a researcher at IPPR, says the time banks will be broader than those piloted in Tower Hamlets and Gloucestershire and that parental involvement will be sought in some schools.

In recent years there has been some rivalry between Lets and time banks, says Hallgarten, adding that the IPPR project will seek to mix elements of the two approaches. "The Lets schemes will employ a broker, which is a time bank idea, and the time banks will have a directory of services offered, which is usually only found in Lets schemes," he says.

While there has been some success in developing time banks that involve younger people it is still early days and there are obstacles to be overcome before the concept can truly take off.

Gill Seyfang, co-author of a report on time banks published by radical think tank the New Economics Foundation, identifies a number of major hurdles facing time banks.¹ These include ensuring that schemes reflect the local context because she says that there is no one-size-fits-all model.

Another key issue is recognising that time bank participants often have large support needs and so the staffing and other infrastructure must be properly resourced.

A culture change is also often required, as it can be difficult getting people to ask for services, Seyfang found, and it can be hard getting people to understand the difference between time banking and traditional volunteering.

Despite these challenges, NEF believes that a "tipping point" could be reached sometime in the next decade that would put time banks in a significant number of health centres, schools and housing estates, totalling perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 time banks across the country.

¹ Gill Seyfang, Karen Smith, The Time of our Lives, New Economics Foundation, 2002

See websites www.neweconomics.org and www.ippr.org.uk/research/files/team23/project32/schooLets_outline.pdf