Youth Work Week 2008

We'll wrap this blog up shortly but we've got one more "voice and influence" contribution reflecting on a participation strategy for umbrella organisations, this from Ellie Munro, one of The NYA's participation consultants:    

It can be difficult to create a participation strategy if your organisation does not work directly with young people. This was brought home to me when helping Y Care International to scope existing participation and identify recommendations for embedding it within the charity.

The charity itself supports a lot of excellent projects with the most deprived young people across the world, through a network of YMCAs. Projects include working with young offenders and young people in gangs, young people affected by HIV, and child soldiers. It also runs global youth work projects with YMCAs in the UK and Ireland. Projects are encouraged to involve young people from beginning to end, and the charity helps them, through training, to gain the skills and resources they need.  The difficulty is in making sure young people can be involved internally as well.

When using Hear by Right to check where you are and where you need to go, it is imprtant to identify exactly what you are trying to map. What does “young people” mean to your organisation – is it younger children, under 18s, under 25s or have you not got an age-based definition? The latter is fine, providing the group is at least defined as the “users” of the service, or those who are supposed to benefit from it. Are you trying to map the whole organisation or just one team? It might be helpful to think about what parts of the organisation make decisions that affect young people's services and lives. What is important to remember is that you are not mapping the services you support. If appropriate, you may want to encourage them to produce their own maps and plans, based on their own priorities, but ultimately it must be their responsibility, as they will have their own challenges to face.

A real benefit of involving young people internally is the lessons you learn. By embedding service users' participation within the organisation you gain a better understanding of what good participation is, what methods work and how to overcome the barriers that you will inevitably face. This puts you in a better position to support the organisations you oversee in involving young people more effectively in their work, and ultimately improving their services and their lives.

Happy Takeover Day everybody, and we hope you've had some good experiences with Youth Work Week so far.

Brighton's Experience in Mind project, a partnership between Hove YMCA and mental health charity Mind has been in touch to let us know of their exhbition at the city's Jubilee Library from 3 to 21 November. It features photographs taken by a dozen young people with the project, giving an insght into young people's mental health and providing a voice to express feelings around isssues such as depression, idnentity and anxiety.  

The sample image below  aims to illustrate how self-destruction can affect a person's mental health and that life can be bitter sweet.

Many thanks to all those who have been letting us know of what your plans are. We've also spent an idle five minutes on Google and come up with whole heap more activity: Durham's annual Youth Work that Work's Awards at County Hall;  conferences bringing together young people with the police and fire service in the Vale Royal area near Northwich; a Youth Summit in Pershore bringing together young people and council officers from Worcestershire to look at the big issues of the next 20 years; a conference involving of 160 young people in Hertsmere  looking at issues of staying safe and postivie activities; and a Q&A session for young people with the Mayor of Torbay organised by the area's member of the UK Youth Parliament.  

The NYA media team has marked Youth Work Week by handing over the writing and production our weekly spread in Children and Young People Now. Kenen Waters,15 and Priya Chauan,17, spent the day selecting themes, writing and sub-editing articles, selecting photographs, laying out pages and proofreading as well as uploading new content to The NYA website. A third young person, Fatima Manjra, shadowed The NYA's chief executive Fiona Blacke for the day and has interviewed here for a future edition of CYPN.   

Meanwhile details of other events continue to come through. In Newcastle on 7 November Barnardo's are holding an event at Westgate Sports Centre that will see some 100 socially-excluded young people have a chance to meet and talk with local MPs, councillors and other key decison makers.  The whole event has been designed, developed and will be delivered by a group of young dads from Barnardo's Newcastle Independence Network, supported by Barnardo's Regional Do Politix team with sponsorship from The Electoral Commission. The aim of the event is help young people who are currently out of education, employment or training to be aware of how politics affects their lives, to help them identify the issues important to them and to raise their confidence in communicating with politcians and others in positions of power.

Jake Manning writes:

On the 22^nd October, Harry Wade and I completed our 70^th, and final (for a while at least) Participation Works Hear by Right Workshop, having now delivered to over 1200 people from 900 community and voluntary organisations. It’s been a brilliant “tour” (as we affectionately refer to it), and emotions on the last “gig” were mixed – not least because the venue lost our resource box with all the delegate packs and training tools!

Hear by Right, in case you weren’t one of those 1200 people, is a standards framework that enables organisations to map the extent of children and young people’s participation and plan for future developments. It’s a way of building the participation of young people right across an organisation. See www.nya.org.uk/hearbyright for more info.

Several key themes emerged from the workshops, but perhaps the strongest one for me was about keeping the process manageable.

Our three top tips for keeping Hear by Right manageable are:

• Have the right people in the room

This includes the staff members you need to provide a full picture of the organisation and, crucially, the views of children and young people.  But don’t wait forever for the perfect set – get started with whoever you can get!

• Prioritise your indicators

Don’t try to tackle all 49 at once – prioritise the most relevant ones and start with those (you could choose one from each standard).

• Set an appropriate review cycle

Strike a sensible balance between being often enough to keep your strategy live, but not so often that it supersedes your capacity.

If you were one of the 1200, and have now gone through the experience of implementing Hear by Right, then what are your top tips for making Hear by Right more manageable?

Arts Award, a national qualification for young people run by the Arts Council and Trinity Guildhall, is marking Youth Work Week with a publicity campaign to expand use of the award in youth work.  

Diana Walton, Head of Arts Award Development, commented: ‘We know that Arts Award works well in youth work and informal education settings – to mark Youth Work Week 08 we are congratulating 170 successful projects in full page adverts! 

‘We also know that many youth workers incorporate Arts Award within their delivery and now have expertise which others could tap into.  We’re calling on youth workers to share their experiences though a simple online survey. We are committed to developing guidance which is really relevant to the sector.’

Arts Award supports young people to explore their own arts interests and to develop communication, planning and leadership skills. Each student works with an arts adviser who may be an artist, teacher or youth worker who has trained for this role.  

Abbie Dunn, an Arts Award adviser from Stradbroke Youth Centre, said: 'As a relatively new Arts Award adviser…it’s been a real learning curve that I have enjoyed and I feel positive I could do again. The young people…all agreed that the challenge was worth it and feel they have achieved their aim as they are now seen more positively by older members of their local community.'

Youth workers are invited to share their experience of running Arts Award within the youth sector at www.artsaward.org.uk/youthwork by 30 November 2008.

On 3 November young women’s groups will be invited to the launch of  "Read My Lips" magazine produced by the Young Women' s Forum, while on 7 November 28 young people will be awarded their Bronze Arts Award by the regional director of the award. Local councillors and politicans are also invited to this event to answer questions which have been compiled throughout the week by local young people. To complete the evening there will be dance and music performances from young people.

Young people will be filming events throughout Youth Work week which will be compiled and DVDs will be distributed across the youth service, while local radio station Pure FM will assist in creating podcasts.

'Make an exhibition of yourself' is a Youth Work Week event in Suffolk designed to show how diverse, creative and inspirational the coutnry's young people are. Young people are creating art works for an exhbition exploring ideas around "getting your voice heard'.  An afternoon event on 7 November at the Hyndman Centre in Bury St Edmunds will allow guests and the public to come along and see life from young people's perspective, followed by an evening launch party which will see workshops and performances with young people.   

Thanks to Coventry for sending in extensive details of their Youth Work Week activities.

An event is being planned for Coventry City Centre on Saturday 1 November to celebrate young people's contributions to the Every Child Matters agenda.  Young people will be showcasing work that highlights 'staying safe' using graffiti board displays and musical performances that promote an anti-knife crime message. There will also be the launch of an anti-knife crime poster campaign with posters created by local young children.

Young people taking part in a local 'Goodie in a Hoodie' initiative, will also be there promoting positive images of young people, highlighting their ‘positive contribution’ and preparing for their role in Takeover Day later in the week.  A group of successful Duke of Edinburgh Award participants will be there to showcase the expedition work that they have 'enjoyed and achieved' throughout the summer.

Coventry’s SHADOW team has established six young people's health focus groups in secondary schools across the city and will meet during Youth Work week to discuss the standard of health education in schools.  On Takeover Day on 7 November each SHADOW team member will be shadowed by a young person, which will include attendance and involvement of a Health 'Turning The Curve' event hosted by the Children and Young People's Champion. 

The City has its own Democracy Project and during the week it will be taking four young people to attend the Children's Workforce Development Conference in Birmingham, while a further eight are to take over the running of the council’s Consultative Forum – based on a theme of ‘young people - saints or sinners?’. Another group will be covering Takeover Day events for the Coventry Evening Telegraph

Wood End Youth Centre is organising a visit to another regeneration area to meet up with young people and learn from their experiences. Youth workers are working with the police to help young people team up with officers and local councillors on Takeover Day for a walk, during which young people can talk about their experiences and concerns about their area.

Other local youth centres will be inviting councillors and parents along to show what young people are doing at their clubs, while the President Kennedy Youth Club are planning to promote the International Youth Conference for Peace and the 2020 vision campaign promoting messages of peace and a petition against nuclear weapons.

The pace of events is quickening now.      

Bury has announced a packed series of events and activities marking Youth Work Week starting from 27 October.  These range from a fun day for young people with complex health needs, to sports, arts and recycled fashion events.  Take a look here for full details: http://www.buryyouth.co.uk/Youth+Work+Week.htm

 The Institute of Race Relations is inviting youth workers to an event marking its 50^th birthday with a half-day conference on 1 November linking the history of the anti-racist struggle to problems facing young people today. Organisers describe the event as a chance to hear from those who have participated in anti-racist movements, share experiences and “ask important questions about the anti-racist agenda and its relevance to education and youth work".  Catching History on the Wing takes place at The NUT offices in central London from 1pm to 6pm  and features an address from Lord Ouseley, a screening of a film about Notting Hill in the 1950s and a panel discussion of Islamophobia. Tickets are £10.  For further details visit www.irr.org.uk or call 020 7837 0041.

Finally, The NYA has brought out a new edition of Youth Action to coincide with the week. This colourful magazine promotes is full of examples of how young people are getting active in their communities. it gives them a chance to share their stories of volunteering in projects such as Love Music, Hate Racism to a commuity radio station in Bradford that is helping youngpeople learn new skills and giving others the chance to get their voices heard.  The magazine is being widely distributed thanks to Cabinet Office fudning  - click here to see the magazine online or to receive a free copy email Rita Kotecha     

As if there's not already enough excitement on show at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium, the venue is going to play host to a major event for Youth Work Week in the North East.   Youth Solutions 08 on 5 November focuses on young people leading service delivery and meeting the objectives of the Aiming High vision. The event will be run by social enterprise “Just for Youth”, a young-person led team that aims to break down barriers and guide statutory and voluntary partners through youth engagement. Keynote speaker is Fiona Blacke, chief executive of The National Youth Agency, while Alex Brooks of the Children’s Workforce Development Council will also talk on involving children and young people in the development of the workforce.  For more details and to register for the event, visit www.just4youth.com/youthsolutions08 or call Just 4 Youth on 0800 0833731.

Meanwhile in Rochford, Essex,  a conference is being held in Youth Work Week to enable young people to present their views to members of the Crime and Disorder Strategic Partnership and the Children and Young People Strategic Partnership, with a view to influencing service planning and delivery. Young people are currently being supported by TASCC (team around the school, child and community) youth workers to produce video and other media for the event.