These are my youth work, youth ministry, childrens ministry and schools work links for 15th March to 19th March. For more related links, check out my links page

• The Youth of Today – The Youth of Today offers skills, opportunities and networks to help 13-19 year olds become leaders of change.
• exploRE: Resources for Schools – exploRE is a resource for use with 11-14 years olds as part of their Religious Education lessons in school, giving students the opportunity to investigate the Christian faith in a way that is fresh, engaging and relevant to their everyday lives.
• exploRE TV – exploRE TV provides a collection of short dramas, vox pops and talking heads from Christians today to offer insights into just these questions.
• About Our Boys – Lucinda Neall – Whether it is at home, in school or in our neighbourhood, adults need to engage positively with boys. If we make our boys feel valued, respected and part of the community, then they, in turn, are likely to value and respect their community, and grow into responsible citizens and loving husbands and fathers.
• How to Set Up a Voluntary Youth Club : DOPCANDY – The idea of setting up a youth club may seem somewhat overwhelming, but it’s actually relatively straightforward. This is how to do it.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Youth Work Links for 22nd July to 24th August
• Youth Work Links for 25th October to 25th November
• Youth Work Links for 24th August to 2nd September

This epic online broadcast is the first of its kind, created by young people for young people. The teens behind the scenes will be interviewing stars from Lord Sugar to Olympic Gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes.

There will also be appearances by A-listers such as Sir Michael Caine… star of hit TV series The Wire, Idris Elba… teen rap artist “Fugative”… and England footballer Gareth Barry, among others…

The Youth of Today Show aims to explore the lives of young people, dispelling negative stereotypes and showcasing the best of youth leadership.

You can watch the webcast live by heading over to www.theyouthoftoday.org/webcast at 4pm today.

If you’ve not yet heard about The Youth of Today campaign, you get lots of information from their website and can follow their progress on both Facebook and Twitter. The project aims to help young people make a positive difference to society. They offer:

• Leadership roles – Giving young people power to act on the issues they care about.
• Training – Providing young people with the skills they need to lead the way.
• Networking – Allowing young people to collaborate with peers and those in power.

The project is funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and managed by a range of organisations including The National Youth Agency (NYA), Changemakers, The Young Foundation, UK Youth Parliament, British Youth Council, the Prince’s Trust and the Citizenship Foundation.

For more information, visit The Youth of Today website.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Youth Work Links for 15th March to 19th March
• Youth Work Links for 7th December to 23rd February
• Aiming High with Social Media

The following is an excerpt from my opening chapter in Journeying Together. Growing youth work and youth workers in local communities. The book is a 144 page collection of writings looking at the practical issues effecting locally-based youth work. Although it is based around the experiences of The Rank Foundation, it will be of great interest to anyone working with local youth projects and agencies.

You can order a copy from Amazon here.

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Local Youth Work (Part 4)

5. The personality of the worker is vital
The first four characteristics of youth work help to give us a good sense of the nature of youth work. It is focused on young people, they choose to be involved, there is a strong concern for education and welfare, and youth work encourages cooperation and belonging. However, these only really make sense together when appreciated through the fifth characteristic: the youth worker. It is no exaggeration to say that the single most important factor in defining youth work practice rests with the worker.

There is a general expectation in youth work that workers should get on well with, and be liked by, young people. It makes sense. Most of us can think fondly of adults who encouraged or inspired us when we were younger. They may have been a teacher, family friend or youth worker, but they held a certain rapport with us and earned our respect:

At the youth club where I work, we constantly get adults dropping in to ask for the previous club leader. Although he has since retired, he ran the club for over twenty years and was so highly regarded by the young people who attended that they all come back to see him.

The example is not uncommon. There is something about the way these adults accept young people, and the fact that young people choose to be around them. Basil Henriques suggests that the success of any youth club rests ‘upon the personality and ingenuity of the leader’ (Henriques, 1933: 60).

With success dependent on their own character, youth workers face the interesting challenge of working in relaxed and informal ways to attract young people to their activities – or going to the places where young people already are. While equipment and resources may initially draw young people to an activity, their continued involvement rests upon the worker’s ability to engage with the young people.

We were doing a tidy up of the youth centre on a Saturday morning. It was going to be a long and miserable task. Although we’d asked the young people to help us, I wasn’t expecting anyone to turn up. To my surprise, within half an hour, six of our members arrived ready to get stuck in!

In this example, even though there was a potentially difficult and uninspiring task, the young people chose to attend and help the worker. There was no reward or incentive involved. The relationship the worker had developed with the group encouraged both belonging and participation.

We have already seen that youth work places a high value on building relationships, as it encourages association and belonging. When appreciation and trust develop in a relationship, there is a basis for learning – another characteristic of youth work. As Rogers (1967: 305) states, ‘The facilitation of significant learning rests upon certain attitudinal qualities that exist in the personal relationship between facilitator and learner’.

At a basic level, it can be argued that every relationship involves some kind of exchange between people (Goetschius and Tash, 1967: 137). The role of a youth worker is to develop this exchange into something more meaningful that goes beyond everyday contact to become ‘more appreciative of and receptive to the other’s perspective’ (Tiffany, 2001: 95). In this way, the worker is ultimately responsible for facilitating learning through their relationship with young people.

Core values
No two youth workers are the same, so we cannot easily pin down specific character traits or personality types to explain how these people are able to effectively engage and work with young people. Each has their own skills, strengths, ideas, beliefs and methods of working.

Yet, despite the differences, there are some core values that most youth workers embody. These values inform the way they work with young people and the choices they make. They define how they react to problems and how they inspire and encourage others.

Every worker has to make difficult decisions and the outworking of these values can be problematic, as the worker has to balance their own beliefs and values against those of others.

The core values of youth work are notoriously hard to define and often open to debate and interpretation, yet Jeffs and Smith have made an initial starting point. They are; ‘Respect for persons, the promotion of well-being, truth, democracy, fairness and equality’ (Jeffs and Smith, 2005: 35). These values are explored further and exemplified throughout this publication.

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Part 5 will be published next week. Click here for the full series of posts.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Local Youth Work (Part 3)
• Local Youth Work (Part 2)
• Local Youth Work (Part 1)

The following is an excerpt from my opening chapter in Journeying Together. Growing youth work and youth workers in local communities. The book is a 144 page collection of writings looking at the practical issues effecting locally-based youth work. Although it is based around the experiences of The Rank Foundation, it will be of great interest to anyone working with local youth projects and agencies.

You can order a copy from Amazon here.

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Local Youth Work (Part 3)

3. There is a concern with learning and well-being
Many may assume that youth work developed simply to give young people things to do – activities that would stop them causing problems for other members of society. In reality, however, youth work holds a strong tradition of providing welfare services and education for young people. It is motivated by a concern for the opportunities available to young people.

What we now call ‘youth work’ grew out of a desire to help and educate. The early history of the work is linked to Sunday schools that sprung up in churches in the late 18th century, which worked informally to provide Bible reading and basic skills to those who attended (Sutherland, 1990: 126). By the mid 19th century, ragged schools were educating young people ‘in far from ideal settings like stables, under railway arches, church halls and run-down houses’ (Smith, 1999).

As society began to recognise adolescence as a particular life stage, with its own needs and issues (greatly helped by G. Stanley Hall’s (1904) influential work) specific youth institutions began to form. There are various examples of early youth agencies that provided services such as food, clothing, basic health care, and even financial support, in addition to activity and community.

I love the job that I do. We give accommodation to vulnerable young adults, providing places for them to live and stay and be independent. It allows them to learn how to be an adult and how to cope with all those things. I love making a difference to their lives in this way.

Although the government today provides most mainstream welfare and educational services in the UK, youth work is still significantly involved in supporting young people. Usually, this is through informal and relational methods that are difficult for more formal state services to utilise. As such, youth agencies continue to provide advice and information on issues relevant to young people, such as careers, sexual health, and accommodation, amongst others.

The concern with education is still central. While it might be unusual to see a maths class take place in a youth club, workers constantly use informal methods to encourage learning. Examples might include using outdoor activities to build cooperation and esteem, or planning a celebration event as a tool to advance organisational and interpersonal skills among a group.

4. Cooperation, community and belonging are encouraged

The term ‘association’ is perhaps one that is not commonly understood or used in everyday talk, yet it has always been a defining aspect of youth work practice. Association is about individuals coming together for a purpose, allowing them to take part in a larger group or organisation (DoyleandSmith, 1999: 44) as in the example below:

The teenagers at the club were really keen on skateboarding but there was nowhere locally. They decided to petition the local council and with help from our youth agency, organised meetings, events and surveys over a number of months learning valuable skills along the way. There was a real sense of achievement and belonging amongst the group.

Many clubs and activities provide a setting to meet and make friends with people. They facilitate association almost accidentally through an environment of cooperation and participation, where members feel valued and included. These sorts of groups help to provide a sense of community for young people. This idea of ‘community’ is of central importance to youth work as it ‘plays a crucial symbolic role in generating people’s sense of belonging’ (Crow and Allan 1994: 6).

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Part 4 will be published next week. Click here for the full series of posts.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Local Youth Work (Part 4)
• Local Youth Work (Part 2)
• Local Youth Work (Part 1)

Break down the youth work divide
Over the years, I have often picked up on a perceived divide between the voluntary and statutory youth sectors.

To illustrate what I mean, there was one guest lecture at a university youth work course where I was asked to talk about the benefits of the voluntary sector. During that presentation, one of the students took great exception to my description assuming that I was, by extolling the virtues of the third sector, dismissing the value of statutory youth work.

While many voluntary organisations work closely with statutory agencies, this either/or attitude is still quite common. I’ve heard statutory workers criticise voluntary organisations for their lack of professionalism and ad hoc approach, and have myself been vocal on the constraints and outcome-focused approach in the statutory world. Many writers have also commented on the distinctions, drawing neat dividing lines between the two.

The result is that these sectors can sometimes be unintentionally framed as mortal enemies, set against each other in an epic battle for young people’s attention.

Of course, this is nonsense. So why does this “them and us” mentality continue? I’ve come to the conclusion that it is simply based on a misunderstanding of the other sector.

I recently spent a Saturday training with a group of part-time statutory youth workers on accreditation in the local youth service. Personally, I was interested in how accreditation was being successfully integrated into generic activities, but these workers were there to learn how it must be incorporated into their work in order to meet the service’s targets.

What was noticeable during that session was how enthusiastic and passionate these workers were, even though most had given up their time voluntarily to be there. I had naively assumed that they would simply accept outcomes and accreditation as normal practice without question, but many of them were incredibly self-reflective and critically thoughtful about how accreditation affects their work.

Learning and laughing together was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and my preconceptions were proved very wrong.

There must be a whole bunch of workers in both the statutory and voluntary sectors who, like me, would benefit from spending some time learning about how each other’s organisations work. In fact, it should be a mandatory part of training.

Of course, there will always be differences in ethos and approach between agencies and sectors, with workers drawn to particular styles of working. We need that diversity. But in these difficult times when many youth work jobs and services are under threat from budget cuts, maybe we should finally forget about our differences and join forces to promote the excellent and vital work that we do.

You can view all my Youth Work Now articles here.

Other posts you may find interesting

• YWN Article: Leave the hidden agendas behind
• YWN Article: Youth clubs do not foster risk takers
• YWN Article: Cannabis row leaves us all in a blur

The following is an excerpt from my opening chapter in Journeying Together. Growing youth work and youth workers in local communities. The book is a 144 page collection of writings looking at the practical issues effecting locally-based youth work. Although it is based around the experiences of The Rank Foundation, it will be of great interest to anyone working with local youth projects and agencies.

You can order a copy from Amazon here.

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Local Youth Work (Part 2)

1. There is a focus on young people
Given the term – ‘youth work’ – it should come as no surprise that it is concerned with young people! But the title does beg a more important question: why has work with young people developed as a specialist activity?

According to Savage (2007), young people view their experiences as being different to other age groups; they also seek out each other’s company. We know both from personal experience and biological study that the period of adolescence and puberty is a unique time of change and transition for a young person, where they start to test and form their own sense of identity (first proposed by Erikson, 1995:211). Due to these internal changes and the way in which they view themselves, young people can perceive the world differently to those of other ages. This is a distinctive feature of youth work; to provide a suitable response to those experiences.

Youth work aims to respond creatively to the needs of young people in a way that is appropriate and relevant to them.

“We recently started up a girls’ group, in response to what the young people were telling us. There are a lot of boys’ activities locally, but there was nowhere for girls to come and talk about the issues affecting them. Now they have that space and we’re busy getting to know them all and supporting them with their concerns.”

The challenge of working with youth, therefore, requires workers to understand and respond to the particular needs and experiences of this age group (Jeffs 2001: 156). However, the term ‘youth’ itself can be very difficult to define. Different agencies have differing criteria to define who they will – or will not – work with.

In addition, evidence suggests that adolescence is lengthening, due to rapid ‘changes in technology, economics, culture, politics, demographics, the environment, and education’ (Lloyd 2005: 17). This is leading to a widening in the definition of those classed as ‘youth’. Regardless of individual definitions, there is underlying agreement that a transitional period of ‘youth’ remains distinctive.

2. Young people choose to be involved
Youth work is not an enforced activity; it is about working with young people on their own terms. Young people do not have to go to a youth activity, they can decide whether or not they would like to join in. This idea of voluntary participation distinguishes youth work from other disciplines (Jeffs 2001: 156).

Another aspect that makes youth work, as we define it, distinct is that it allows young people the freedom to choose when and where they want to engage in activities and relationships with youth workers. Surprisingly, most other activities for or with young people are compulsory. Whether it is school, probation services or targeted projects, young people are required by law, or coerced by adults, to participate.

The ultimate control of a youth work activity is with the young people. An individual may decide to attend a youth club for a day, a week or a number of years – it is down to them. Voluntary participation also allows young people to be able to choose when they want to end these relationships or disengage from activities – they can vote with their feet! This can be problematic for workers, as there can be no certainty over the length of time young people might be involved. Instead, a worker must rely on their skills to engage young people and keep them interested in participating.

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Part 3 will be published next week. Click here for the full series of posts.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Local Youth Work (Part 4)
• Local Youth Work (Part 3)
• Local Youth Work (Part 1)

The following is an excerpt from my opening chapter in Journeying Together. Growing youth work and youth workers in local communities. The book is a 144 page collection of writings looking at the practical issues effecting locally-based youth work. Although it is based around the experiences of The Rank Foundation, it will be of great interest to anyone working with local youth projects and agencies.

You can order a copy from Amazon here.

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Local Youth Work (Part 1)

Learning gets passed on. You can’t help it. A young person gets some training, becomes a youth worker and then starts the cycle again with other young people. It’s just how youth work – works!

This Chapter introduces the idea of local youth work. I begin by clarifying the meaning of the term ‘youth work’, before looking at how it grows and flourishes in a local setting.
My aim is to present the case for the importance and benefits of growing locally based youth work and youth workers.

All quotations in this Chapter are taken from conversations with youth workers.

I became a youth worker almost by accident. I had been looking for a job in the town where I grew up and saw an advert for a part-time worker at a local youth project. Although I had done some voluntary work with children and had attended a youth club as a teenager, I had no real idea of what youth work entailed. Still, I went for an interview and to my surprise was given the job.

Over those first few months I found myself getting to know a core group of young people, taking them on outings, visiting homes, wandering the streets and learning a great deal.

Now, many years later, I realise that my own experience of starting out in youth work is far from unique. Growing youth work (and youth workers) in local communities is a common occurrence:

I joined a church small group as a teenager and really liked the environment. After a while I got asked to help out with one of the groups. I found that I loved it and it wasn’t long before I became a youth worker!

Later, I will argue that these locally based youth workers are essential to the success of youth work. However, before we explore that debate, we need to be clear about what we mean by youth work.

Defining youth work
Many diverse clubs, activities and ways of working with young people are commonly described as examples of ‘youth work’. From traditional youth clubs and uniformed groups, like the Scouts, to detached work, work in schools, organised sports activities and more. The sheer variety of work with young people makes it very difficult to identify common ground.

The National Occupational Standards for youth work, updated by the National Youth Agency and Lifelong Learning UK in 2008, provide a starting point for trying to define what is common to good youth work practice. The document includes a statement that defines the key purpose of youth work. It is to:

‘Enable young people to develop holistically, working with them to facilitate their personal, social and educational development, to enable them to develop their voice, influence and place in society and to reach their full potential’ (LLUK, 2008: 3)

There is some useful information here: the terms ‘young people’, ‘educational’ and ‘society’ give some hints towards its focus. However, while this statement contains part of the puzzle, it does not give us a clear picture of the nature of the work. For example, how is youth work able to develop young people holistically? What differentiates it from other educational disciplines?

To fully understand what youth work is we need to examine some common characteristics in its practice, rather than rely on general statements in isolation. Jeffs & Smith (2009: 4-6) identify five characteristics that form the foundation of youth work practice and provide a purpose to the work. Over the next few pages I will draw upon these five characteristics, explaining their importance and interdependence.

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Part 2 will be published next week. Click here for the full series of posts.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Local Youth Work (Part 4)
• Local Youth Work (Part 3)
• Local Youth Work (Part 2)

These are my youth work, youth ministry, childrens ministry and schools work links for 7th December to 23rd February. For more related links, check out my links page

• Aiming High for Young People: Engaging through social media – Every Child Matters – DCSF have created a set of materials to help communicate and collaborate with young people through social media and inspiring video content. This advice will help reach out to a youth audience by promoting activities and encouraging innovative ways of communicating.
• The Barna Group – New Research Explores the Long-Term Effect of Spiritual Activity among Children and Teens – What is the connection between childhood faith and adult religious commitment? A recent study conducted by the Barna Group provides new insights into this age-old question.
• Assembly ideas – Assembly ideas and other bits for schools!
• REYouthPastor – REYouthPastor.com– a youth ministry website that reactivates amateur theologians and missonal leaders within the youth pastor population.
• DCSF Publications: Risky Behaviour and Social Activities – A sudy to explore whether risky behaviour is reinforced or counterbalanced by various types of social and individual activities and the impacts on educational outcomes at age 16.

Other posts you may find interesting

• Youth Work Links for 1st October to 22nd October
• Youth Work Links for 24th August to 2nd September
• Youth Work Links for 8th March to 2nd April

I just read over on the Plings blog that the DCSF has just published two guides and a set of videos on using social media to promote positive activities.

The guides aims are:

• To explain social media technologies and functions using simple language.
• To provide you with the tools to increase interest and attendance at your project by working with young people and promoting your activities through social media.

So if you want to better understand social media and to use it in your work with young people, go check out the guide now!

Other posts you may find interesting

• Youth Work Links for 7th December to 23rd February
• Youth Work Links for 15th March to 19th March
• Youth of Today Webcast – TODAY!

There’s some interesting developments in my work role at Arun Community Church with a leadership transition and subsequent reorganisation. It’s all very exciting, but does have implications for me which we are working through. I’ll post more as things become clear.

In the meantime, I’m going to start posting some excerpts from my chapter in Journeying Together. I’ll have the first part up next week.

Image credit: karola riegler on Flickr

Other posts you may find interesting

• Love Your Neighbour
• Youth Work and Social Media: Boundaries and Guidelines
• Youthwork Article