1
Topics for 12 ICY-tables
This report summons up the discussions held around 12 different tables and subjects during the
InterCity 3 conference. On purpose of these discussions, besides sharing experiences and ideas, was
to get input for the future activities of the InterCity Youth network.
1. ICY-network
The Board of members will meet in February 2015 and decide on form, funding and activities.
2. Youth work and learning
Main remarks that were made:
Learning through youth work = non formal learning
It happens outside of school
Without a fixed curriculum, but there is a certain framework, with some defined targets (goals)
Some ‘pending’ questions:
o How to recognize non formal learning results
o How to validate this results
o Is it necessary to describe a set of skills? These are mainly social skills
 Working together
 Peer mediation
 Leadership
 Taking responsibility
 Taking care of others
 Project management
 To listen
 To express yourself
 To respect each other
 …
Youth work should be accessible for everybody so in a youth work setting young people from
different backgrounds can meet.
This mix is difficult to reach, the mix can enhance the learning (or can be a threat)
A part of the learning process is that young people should learn to express what they learned
through youth work. It’s not always easy to point out what the learned competence is, youth
workers should reflect on that with young people. It can help them for their CV or competency
interviews (job market)
But learning should not always be the result of youth work. It’s also about enjoying the
moment
Even if learning should not always be the aim of result it can be ‘politically’ smart to point out
the learning effect of youth work. Problem: the results are hard to measure. The balance
should be found between the informal setting of youth work and showing the results.
Watch out: to many indicators for measuring can make is all to formal.
Possible instrument: youth pass (some countries already experimenting with this instrument on
national / regional level)
Learning through youth work demands also special competences/ skills of the youth worker.
He/she should be aware of the learning process and methods.
It seems important that there is a better connection between schools (formal) and youth work
(informal). Formal education should learn from the informal setting
3. Balance between general and targeted youth work
What balance is meant or needed? In Italy and Finland youth work is for everyone. There are more
specialised forms for youth with handicaps; therefore youth work is really for all youth. In Britain and
2
the Netherlands the situation is totally different. There is a great discrepancy between policy and
practice in these countries.
Important aspects are:
- Open accessibility
- Large difference between capacity and number of inhabitants
- Difference in main target group as far as age is concerned
- There are many different forms of youth work
“Target group” can have all sorts of different notions: age, target group policy, all youngsters versus
youth at risk.
Every municipality organizes its own form of youth work. Therefore, it’s hard to combine situations.
Generally speaking, everyone is welcome but in practice merely youth at risk are reached. Participants
feel that focus should be on positivity and not on care. This is also what worries them.
A few of the risks:
- Cutting costs of youth work with the result of disappearing
- Start of social (area) teams. How will they work together with youth workers and what will this
mean for youth work and youth workers?
- Beke method and the target group of youth work. The Beke method is used in many Dutch
municipalities. It is a shortlist method to describe (potentially) criminal youth groups.
- Specific coaching of handicapped young people
4. Trust from young people and cooperation with other professionals
How do you gain trust from young people? They know that you are a professional, so why should they
share information with you about their life or other personal stuff? It gets even more difficult when
multiple professionals are involved in the case. What can they share with each other and how you can
keep a trustful relation with each other?
In fact, it’s simple:
1. If professionals are working together they always have to keep in mind that “it’s about helping
the young one”.
2. Professionals need to use each other! They have their own capacities.
But in reality it’s more difficult.
1. Professionals are not sharing information with each other because there are some typical
limitations:
a. They think it is not a part of their job to share information.
b. They are not the one who can decide about it
c. Privacy (“I cannot share what the youngster told me”).
These limitations are, when you think about it carefully, not really acceptable. There are easy
ways to overcome this:
a. Professionals are part of a team and they have to know “who is the best person for
this part of the job”.
b. Because there can be a discussion about who’s the best person and who is
responsible, a good (and formal) coordination is necessary, for every case!
c. If you don’t want to violate the trust in the relationship with the youngster, you need to
be clear about with whom you share this information. If the youngster knows this,
there is no problem in the trust-relation.
2. Teamwork and “making the difference” seems often only to work when there is an escalation
or a big problem. Than we can work together, we can share essential information, …. Why
do we wait until that moment? Often we already know that an escalation is in the make (for
several years).
3. There is obviously a difference between the European countries when it comes to Youth
Policy. In Flanders they start from leisure time and the capacities of young people. In the
Netherlands they start from the young person who needs help. In other countries they start
from ‘education’. In the end it does not matter from where you start, as long as we remember it
is
3
Other remarks:
1. It is important to be careful with promises. You always need to say that you are trying “to help”
(with finding a job, activity, help…) and not that you will get him/her a job, activity help,…
2. Professionals from different organisations are having different goals, it is also necessary to
make these goals clear when you start a cooperation.
3. Do not “force” a youngster in a help-relation, you will not come to a trust-relation.
5. Combining problem oriented and positive youth work?!
In three sessions with (mostly) Dutch participants it became clear that the main target group of the
Dutch professional youth work – funded through local municipalities – is for young people at risk, being
20% of all young people. This is not the case in other countries, where there is a wider leisure time
approach for all. The question therefore is also if youth work is positioned as part of the social work,
child welfare or leisure time approach. Budget cuts in all countries initiate a trend towards focussing on
those young people with problems or at risk as well.
Prevention
If there is a worry or a risk about a young person, then youth (social) work should come into action.
The earliest signals could be possible problems (e.g. hindrance on the streets), but youth work works
preventively to avoid that the problems become bigger. However this is also a reactive approach and it
may cause that some groups of young people remain out of sight of youth workers. Youth work
therefore should work more pro-active to keep the problems small. It should be a constant reminder
towards politicians that prevention works and to make it work it needs a long term approach.
Positive attention
Although the starting point maybe the problem, the attention to young people should be positive.
Working with young people in further developing their strengths, gives them a positive view about
themselves as well. Working on problems may cause that they will develop a sense of malfunctioning
and will put the young person downwards. It is a focus on learning opportunities rather than working
on the problems. It helps to work more pro-active rather than re-active. Cultural (fun) methods or a
focus to work on the problems stimulate young people’s progress in learning and focusses on the
efforts the young people are making to come to positive results.
Professionals support
Positive approaches demand investment in time and support from the coaching professionals to guide
young people towards steering their own lives. The main value is developing trust and provide a
mutual sense of belonging, being heard (voice) and to provide safety. Peer-to-peer education to
support youngsters in coaching each other in finding solutions is one of the main targets in training the
young people. Training of professionals to develop their own strengths in collaboration with others in
working with young people should be part of this investment in further professionalization.
6. Volunteers and youth work
There are three items to work on:
1. A change of mind set of professionals about volunteers. In order to do so, professionals need
the following competencies:
a. Give compliments to the volunteers
b. Guarantee space to operate
c. Give responsibility. This is a key factor!
Volunteers should be allowed to make mistakes. Otherwise, no learning is possible and
‘wanting to learn’ is a most important goal for volunteers.
2. It is important to develop a learning environment. A good example were the social internships
in Dutch secondary schools, now stopped. Let people formulate what they want to learn.
3. Start with any initiative to stimulate. Stimulate ideas about what people can do to realise their
wishes.
General question: where are the good practices to visit and be inspired?
4
N.B. This theme was also covered in the (Dutch) afternoon session. The idea was that working in a
setting with both paid professionals and volunteers is merely a Dutch situation.
7. Gender and youth work
There are generally more boys in the open youth centres than girls. The girls are in a higher degree
involved in more organized activities for example groups or youth councils.
If the target group for open youth work is all young person’s then we should have an equal gender
balance.
It is important that the youth work field addresses issues regarding discrimination. All youth, regardless
of gender, background etc. should have the same opportunity to develop. It is the young person’s
interest and talent, not gender, that should be the foundation for their involvement in youth work.
Gender issues and to work against discrimination is an important topic that should be discussed within
the Intercity Youth network. It is of interest to share experiences, knowledge and best practices
between the countries.
8. Making visible the value of youth work
Remarks:
- Youth workers cannot explain what they are doing. You should be able to explain in a few
words.
- Policy makers find it hard to formulate results.
- Municipalities want concrete results. Not everything can be made visible. Sometime results
are only visible after a very long time. But more things than you assume, can be measured.
- Client satisfaction is difficult; young people will not be satisfied when talked to on negative
behaviour.
- Need for quality certificate.
- Enquire stake holders / work with youth panels. Interview young people by students (peers)
- Register activities. Do this as lightly as possible, on basis of quality and not quantity.
- It is difficult to measure prevention.
- Youth work gets the most difficult target group (garbage can).
- Youth pass (competences) used as system for youth work.
- Make non-formal learning visible.
- Documents and research are needed (high level, community)
- Indicators can be: use of drugs, teenage mothers, criminal behaviour.
- Youth work has to learn to say NO.
- Be proud of your work!
9. Managing innovation in youth work
It is necessary to professionalize as this would contribute also to a more positive view on youth work.
In order to do so there is an important role for a knowledge institute and a branch organization for
enhancing knowledge, for advocacy and support and as a platform to share and obtain knowledge.
There is a dilemma concerning output versus outcome. It would be a good innovation to make the
added value of youth work visible (in concrete results), also linking with other (policy) areas. For
example in terms of social return on investment (SROI). Both authorities and youth work organizations
have the opportunity to aim better / more precisely at effort and output. Preferably this is strengthening
or matching the efforts of other parties involved. An example comes from Amsterdam where youth
work cooperated with other organizations in the field of youth. Together they worked on a social
agenda for the city, sharing tasks with a horizontal accountability. This led to further development and
professionalization of youth work. This may give positive and concrete results.
A good profile is needed; what is youth work about and what is youth work not about? Because there
is no current distinguishing image or profile of youth work, innovation is difficult. Traditional channels
5
and contacts are used for traditional assignments (harassment, risk, prevention) and new potential
partners do not involve youth work in actual social issues (developmental). So what are the unique
selling points (USP) of youth work? And will youth work start new collaborations with for example the
R&D department of Nike (a streetwise brand that wants to bond with the youth work target group and a
possible partner concerning social entrepreneurship)?
10. Employability and youth work
Discussed items:
Holistic view: it’s not just the youngsters’ fault, if they don’t get a job. The weakest of them are
“last in – first out”. Society and entrepreneurs have a great responsibility, too.
Youth-work plays a big role concerning non-formal and informal learning of youngsters. Youthwork helps to find talents and skills. The possibility of volunteer participation helps to sharpen
social competences, which are necessary to perform well in a job.
Helpful programs to increase employability can take place inside the triangle enterprise –
school – employee
Possibilities to make determined contracts more flexible where discussed. On the other hand:
Young people need non-determined contracts to build a stable life (family a.s.o.)
Volunteering can be an added value for involved enterprises.
Neighbourhood-work and networking can be an instrument to lead non-employed youngsters
to a job.
The “NEET” population require special programs to lead them in a job.
11. Youth work as an agent for social change
Young people are facing serious social problems in their life as poverty, unemployment, discrimination,
negative image etc. This topic was about what is the role of youth work to change this?
The participants agreed that not youth work but young people should be the change-agents. If young
people are or feel excluded from society it can lead to apathy, frustration, nuisance and radicalisation.
Youth workers are connectors between young people and society and can give young people a voice
as Micha de Winter emphasised in his speech. They can support young people through their group
activities to become a democratic citizen. That way youth workers can build bridges between different
groups (generations, ethnic, cultural or religious groups, level of education). That can also help to
improve the negative image that media, employers, municipality and organisations have of young
people.
Last but not least is the advice to youth workers to work together with other organisations that try to
improve social problems of young people in society.
12. International mobility and youth work
The members of the discussion agreed on the added value of international mobility by saying that:
• intercultural learning is an important element of non-formal learning,
there is a need to get young people out of their (often limited local) comfort zones,
there is no doubt about the learning aspect and effect of mobility.
This aspect of learning mobility has to be strengthened, further developed and above all to be
explained to policy and decision makers on all levels.
This could be one of the tasks of the network; to
• create better conditions for more mobility (in youth work),
• raise the awareness about the added value of mobility among all stakeholders in the youth field,
• strive for more cooperation between existing structures and networks acting in the field of or for
mobility.
In general there was a great consensus that mobility should be used and further developed as
important non-formal learning experience in youth work.
6
Some further aspects of mobility have been discussed and should be taken into consideration in the
future:
• There should be a broader understanding of mobility, not only in an international or European
dimension. For vulnerable youth it might be a great experience of mobility to go to another part of
their country or even to another part of their own town.
• The mobility of youth workers is crucial in promoting mobility among young people and in
organizing more and better mobility activities for them. Therefor youth workers must be trained
and qualified for the organisation of mobility activities.
… and youth workers themselves should get more possibilities for mobility experiences!
In many European countries there is no need to go abroad to meet young people from other countries
and cultures. We should make use of the experiences of young people with migrant background, also
when it comes to the planning and organisation of international youth activities.
Henny Wibbelink
January 2015