Response to interpellation 2025/26:74 on national strategy for youth meeting places and youth centers
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the national strategy for youth meeting places and youth centers. 1 KD argues that the government prioritizes young people's right to meaningful leisure time and that the leisure card is a concrete measure that provides support directly to the individual 1 2. KD believes that it is up to the municipalities to decide on open youth centers and that the state should provide targeted support to children in economic hardship 1 3. KD emphasizes that open activities fulfill an important function for those who are not involved in organized sports or clubs 4. 5 S considers youth centers to be important meeting places that counteract social exclusion and are socio-economically profitable 5. 6 S argues that municipalities are forced to reduce activities due to the government's misprioritization 6. 7 S considers the leisure card to be a small drop compared to the costs of organized club life 7. 8 9 S argues that the government should take responsibility for the underfunding and that the state should provide resources to expert agencies to support the municipalities 8 9.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)
Madam Speaker! Mats Wiking has asked me if I intend to take the initiative for a national strategy for youth meeting places and youth centers. Mats Wiking has also asked me how I and the government intend to ensure equal access to safe leisure environments throughout the country and how the state can support municipalities and civil society in developing youth centers and influence for young people.
I would like to begin by thanking Mats Wiking, who is asking important questions about young people's access to a safe leisure time. The government's goal for youth policy is that all young people shall have good living conditions, the power to shape their lives and influence over social development, and the government has established that young people's right to a meaningful leisure time is a special priority within youth policy.
It is important to clarify that the open leisure activities for young people that the question refers to should not be confused with the after-school center (fritidshemmet), which is an activity regulated in the Education Act and the curriculum and is part of the municipalities' mandate to provide education. There is no obligation for the municipalities to provide open leisure activities for young people in the form of, for example, youth centers, youth houses, or other meeting places; rather, it is up to the municipalities themselves to decide on and adapt them according to the municipality's own conditions and the residents' needs.
There are several good examples of open leisure activities for young people, not least for those groups of young people who, for various reasons, refrain from or do not participate in organized leisure activities to the same extent as others. For these target groups, the compensatory activities of open leisure activities are of great importance. But there are also examples of activities with staff shortages, insufficient resources, and lack of follow-up, which enables actors to use the youth centers for the recruitment of young people into criminal networks. The Government is following that development closely.
Even though it is up to the municipalities themselves to design the open leisure activities for young people, there is access to support at the national level. The Agency for Youth and Civil Society, MUCF, carries out several important and in-demand initiatives in the area.
The authority has, for example, developed extensive support materials aimed at staff and those active in open-time activities for young people, in order to develop quality and ensure more equal access to a meaningful leisure time throughout the country. This includes training in the so-called Charter, which is a common European steering document for activity development within open-time activities for young people.
The authority has also been tasked by the government to produce and disseminate knowledge material on honor-related violence and oppression, as well as violence prevention work for professionals within youth leisure activities.
MUCF also represents the leisure sector in the national cooperation group aimed at supporting local cooperation between schools, social services, the police, and the leisure sector. The cooperation model is part of the municipalities' crime prevention work and is carried out in over 190 municipalities.
To promote children's and young people's participation in an active and meaningful leisure time in community with others, the government has introduced the leisure card (fritidskortet). The leisure card applies to children and young people aged 8–16 and shall provide increased access to sports, culture, outdoor life, and other association life. Particularly children and young people from economically disadvantaged households shall, through the leisure card, receive expanded opportunities to participate in leisure activities. To date, over 270,000 leisure cards have been granted, of which 36,000 were with the higher amount of 2,000 kronor to children in economically disadvantaged households. The leisure card is one of the most concrete measures showing that the government takes children's and young people's leisure time most seriously.
Overall, several different efforts are being made to enable a safe leisure time for children and young people. This is and remains an important priority for the government.
Mats Wiking (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
I want to start by providing some background as to why we Social Democrats consider it important to have functioning meeting places for young people. When it is, for example, difficult at home or in school, youth centers and other meeting places can be a support and an alternative. At the youth center, one can feel community and belonging, and there are youth leaders who can offer an adult presence.
Young people are given the opportunity to develop social skills, leadership, and responsibility through youth centers and meeting places. These are environments where one can test ideas, express oneself, and grow as a person without performance requirements. Youth centers and meeting places can contribute with the life skills that the school does not always have time for. Youth centers and meeting places also counteract loneliness, mental ill-health, and social exclusion.
Madam Speaker! I want to tell you about Tove, who is actually named something else. Tove is an example. Tove had a hard time in school and lacked friends. She had played handball, but there was a lack of money for the fee. She had to stop playing handball. When the seventh graders had activity days, Tove met the activity leader Kajsa. Kajsa asked if Tove wouldn't like to come to the activity center. From that day on, the activity center has been Tove's safety. There she can be herself, and there are good adults who have time to listen. At the activity center, it is free to participate. Kajsa has ensured that Tove sits on the center council, where one can be involved and influence what happens.
Madam Speaker! As more and more families cannot afford to pay the membership fee for youth leisure activities, the need for open meeting places increases. Leisure centers and meeting places provide equal opportunities regardless of background, finances, and family circumstances. Leisure centers and meeting places give young people an experience of influence and responsibility by often allowing them to be involved in and influence the activities. It can actually be a gateway to social engagement, association life, or why not politics. Experience also shows that safe leisure environments reduce the risk of destructive behaviors, crime, and substance abuse. When adults are nearby, young people in the risk zone can be identified early.
Madam Speaker! The economist Ingvar Nilsson has shown in several reports that investments in leisure centers specifically are a preventive measure that is socially and economically profitable. It is, as he puts it, cheaper to build people than to repair them.
Despite this, we have seen that many municipalities have been forced to reduce their open leisure activities as a result of financially pressured budgets. Ingvar Nilsson argues that many young people lose their safe place in everyday life when youth centers are closed down. Furthermore, the closure of youth centers and meeting places risks leading to increased insecurity, loneliness, and in the long run, greater social problems, something that will become significantly more expensive for society in the long term.
I want to ask the Minister: What is the Minister's opinion on the claim that youth centers and meeting places for young people are rather a social investment than a cost? Does the Government see a need to provide the municipalities with better conditions to be able to develop their meeting places in the long term?
Jonathan Svensson (S)
Madam Speaker! I would like to thank my colleague Mats Wiking, who has chosen to raise the issue of young people's access to various meeting places and the importance of the youth center in society.
Fritidsgården is in many ways a unique activity for our youth. One could say that it is an odd bird. The activity is entirely voluntary and free of charge for those who wish to participate. The thresholds for participation are quite low. Everyone who wants to participate can do so on their own terms, as the activity is often adapted based on the participants who are there on a given day.
The operation is professionally led and thus has the competence to support young people in their development while simultaneously offering a safe environment to stay in. The youth center, with its unique character, has the opportunity to be a complement to the school and the structure of organized sports and associations. It contributes to preventing social exclusion and isolation. Not least, it can work to ensure that more young people who today may be drifting do not fall into the criminal path.
My colleague asked several concrete questions to the Minister regarding how the government can ensure that more young people get to take part in youth centers and other safe meeting places. I do not quite feel that the Minister gave an answer to my colleague's question. She did, however, highlight two concrete measures. The first concerned the leisure card, which one can absolutely discuss but which can well be referred to another debate another day. The Minister also raised various policy documents and trainings from MUCF.
Beyond these two concrete points, I felt that it echoed relatively empty. The Minister spent the other half of his answer describing the differences between fritidshem and fritidsgård. I believe, Madam Speaker, that most members in the chamber are fully aware of the difference between fritidshem and fritidsgård. They are two completely different activities.
In addition to this, the Minister also describes that different leisure activities and various youth centers around the country have varying quality. In many places, it works very well, and in other places, it works worse. It can be about staff shortages, insufficient resources, and lack of follow-up, something which, according to the Minister, can lead to criminal networks recruiting youths at the youth centers.
Madam Speaker! I pose the question: Where are the major measures? If one sees that there is a widespread and serious problem with the fact that amounts of underfunded leisure activities lead to gang criminals recruiting youths in these places, shouldn't that ring an alarm? An alarm could perhaps make the government see that the youth centers in the country are chronically underfunded, largely due to the government's misprioritizations.
Just as the Minister described, the youth centers are not regulated by law. When the municipalities are forced to make cuts in their operations due to the government's incorrect economic priorities, it is fundamentally not strange that they choose to cut back on those activities that are not mandated by law. I would have done the same if I were sitting and governing a municipality. But this means that certain activities take a disproportionately hard hit when the municipalities are forced to make cuts.
I suspect that the Minister considers it to be the municipalities' problem and fault that the situation is as it is, but I still want to give her a chance, if she feels the need, to correct the picture here in the chamber. I therefore want to ask the Minister how she views the government's responsibility for the primary free meeting place for young people – the youth center – having insufficient resources and perhaps not being enough across the country.
Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)
Madam Speaker! I am sincerely pleased that there is a great commitment to the issue of meaningful leisure time for children and young people. We are in complete agreement that it is of incredibly great importance to build secure adults out of these young people. They need to have somewhere to spend their leisure time where they can feel safe, be seen, and develop.
I must still say, Madam Speaker, that I am surprised that it seems to be considered more important for the government to step in and finance the open-time activities that Tove was relegated to because she could not afford to play handball as she preferred. The government has instead chosen to provide a direct support to Tove so that she can choose what she wants to do in her free time. It will not be noticeable who receives the special increased support, because all children and young people in the age range 8–16 receive a support for the leisure activities they prefer to engage in and where they can fit in. There are, to the highest degree, good leaders and role models there.
Often they also get to be together with teenagers of the same age. The open leisure activities face certain challenges with older teenagers being there at the same time as younger teenagers. That we enable all children and young people to receive support to be able to engage in the leisure activities they prefer within culture, music and sports involves an enormous investment in a meaningful leisure time for children and young people.
Mats Wiking (S)
Madam Speaker! The undersigned only mentioned the contribution in passing. It could obviously contribute to families with children being able to give their children the opportunity to participate in an activity, but it is about thousands of kronor every year if one wants to be active in association life today. Depending on which sport or activity one is involved in, it can sometimes cost that much per month. A small drop, however, this can contribute.
But I am also thinking about those youths who are not members of any associations but need something else. In that case, the youth center or meeting places are something that can attract them. There, they can feel that they have a place.
Tove could not play handball because the money was not enough. She had to switch to the youth center. But the youth center turned out to be absolutely perfect in her case. There were decent adults there who had time to talk to her and who could give her confidence. She perhaps did not get that in school because she did not have many friends.
Let us look back historically. Once, in the 50s and 60s, there were wise politicians who saw that young people needed something. People spoke about youth without associations who wandered aimlessly in society. In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, youth centers were built out extensively so that young people would have a place to gather and where there were also adult youth leaders who could be good role models.
The leisure leader often became an important adult person that one developed a good relationship with, someone one could talk to when life at home or at school was not at its best. The leisure center was a place where one could be instead of gathering in a square or in a shopping center. The leisure center was an important preventive measure, and the leisure center often had a good cooperation with social services and the local police. One could catch youths who were in the risk zone of ending up in crime.
Therefore, it is important to raise the questions: What is the role of the youth center and the open meeting place in society? What can the youth center contribute?
Ingvar Nilsson, whom I referred to in my first speech and who is a researcher in sociology and youth issues, has clearly shown that the risk of ending up in exclusion and crime increases if young people lack employment and, above all, meaningful leisure time. This entails great costs for society. In the short term, a young person in exclusion can cost up to half a million per year, Ingvar Nilsson has calculated. A young person who gets stuck in crime can cost society up to 23 million during their lifetime. 23 million is an enormous amount of money.
Apart from the money, it is about tragedies and human suffering. This is shown in the report *Utanförskap och unga* from the Agency for Youth and Civil Society, MUCF, which the minister refers to in his answer. The report also shows that young foreign-born boys in socioeconomically vulnerable areas visit youth centers and meeting places to a greater extent than young people in general. At this year's Järvavecka, MUCF therefore highlighted the need for investments in safe and open youth activities, not least in socioeconomically vulnerable areas. MUCF argues that a well-planned youth center with trained staff can promote inclusion, prevent mental ill-health, and counteract young people falling into exclusion.
My and many others' conclusion is that youth centers and meeting places for young people are needed. Does the Minister, just like I do, consider the youth centers to be a preventive measure? How does the government, in that case, intend to support this work?
Jonathan Svensson (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. It feels reassuring that we agree that it is good for young people to have safe and secure meeting places to grow up with, including youth centers.
The Minister mentions the leisure card. It is fundamentally positive to strengthen young people's opportunities to participate in association life. On that, we are in complete agreement. Then one can discuss the effectiveness of the leisure card. But that can, as said, perhaps be done in a different debate than this one.
The Minister mentioned some issues regarding the youth centers, including that there are age differences in the activities. Once again, it is a question of ambition from the municipality's side. Fundamentally, it is a cost issue. In my home municipality, where we have allocated relatively many resources to our open leisure activities and our youth centers, we have an age distribution between different youth centers. A certain age group has a certain youth center. When one moves up a grade in school, one has another youth center. It is possible to adapt the youth centers in very many ways, because this is not regulated by law. That is fortunate, as it means one can manage the activities in the way deemed best.
I believe that it should be possible to have several thoughts in one's head at once. That we dare to allocate resources and facilitate for young people to participate in association life is positive. But we must dare to think two thoughts. The second thought is reasonably that we should have meeting places where no requirements are imposed, such as youth centers.
I would like to take the opportunity to ask the Minister how she views the government's responsibility for the chronic underfunding of the youth centers. Throughout the cost crisis, the government has not compensated the municipalities for all the cost increases that have occurred. I therefore wonder: What is the government's responsibility for that?
Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)
Madam Speaker! We are in complete agreement. There is no contradiction between open youth centers, meeting places for young people, and young people engaging in a sport or some other leisure activity of their own choice during their free time.
The government has seen it as a very big problem that the fees for many leisure activities are so high. We think it is important that children and young people are not categorically referred to free open leisure activities without us making more types of activities available for all children and young people and providing specifically targeted support to children and young people who live in economic vulnerability. This will be very accurate and truly contributes to increased equality by allowing access even to activities that cost a fee. Children and young people in a vulnerable economic situation actually receive thousands of kronor for a leisure activity.
There is no conflict between us. We are in complete agreement that safe meeting places and open youth centers fulfill an important function.
Just as was mentioned here, Madam Speaker, the activity is not regulated by law. Therefore, the state's financing responsibility is not so palpable. On the other hand, we think that this is important. That is why MUCF, a state agency, has a mandate to support education and guidance to strengthen the competence at the youth centers.
But this is truly an area where each municipality itself has the best conditions and competence to design meeting places and leisure activities based on the needs and conditions in its own municipality. There is, for example, a huge difference between rural areas, large cities, and areas of exclusion. This is a typical area where each municipality should be free to design what suits them.
It is a question of an investment for the future that has a preventive effect. That is why as many as 190 municipalities choose to cooperate with, for example, the police, school, and social services. It is very good.
Mats Wiking (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank you for the answer. It is very good that there is leisure activity, association activity, and open youth center activity. But what my colleague and I have tried to highlight is the preventive role that the youth center has. I spoke a little bit about this, but the Minister did not quite answer it.
Given that we today are prepared to put young people in prison early, I want to remind that youth centers and meeting places have traditionally and historically constituted a preventive measure. Ingvar Nilsson also describes in his reports and his research that we can save society an incredible amount of resources, money, and human suffering in that way. I believe that we should upgrade the youth centers and the open meeting places and see them as a major complement to other measures made for young people by the social services and other authorities. One can actually save girls and boys who are heading downhill.
This is a very important message that we must take with us. I wish that the minister could answer a bit more on whether the youth centers are seen as an important preventive measure and, if so, in what way. One can say that they save resources and money.
We all know that this is a municipal responsibility. But the state can ensure that expert agencies such as MUCF have sufficient resources to support municipalities across Sweden. Early in history, in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, all municipalities had plenty of youth centers and open meeting places and were very far ahead in their work. A lot was lost at the end of the 90s and in the beginning of the 00s, when there were cuts in municipalities and so on. Now we need to build up the open youth center activities and see them as a resource in society.
Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)
Madam Speaker! I thank the interpellor and everyone who has participated in the debate. I am glad that we can have such a consensus regarding these important issues. We understand the importance of highlighting that children and young people – it is primarily about youth here, but many of them are still children – have a meaningful leisure time where they can feel safe but also have freedom of choice and the opportunity to choose what they are passionate about and interested in.
I regret if it did not appear from my previous posts that I believe open leisure activities and safe meeting places fulfill an important function in reaching those who are not club people, who do not feel at home there or for various reasons seek out another leisure activity. If there are any doubts about it, I say once again that I absolutely see that those places and activities fulfill an important function.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.