Sam McCready
Head of Subject (Community Youth Work)
University of Ulster

The central purpose of youth work is educational and the work is concerned with personal and social development.
Youth work is educational and the processes we create are therefore designed to create learning and the activities, programmes and processes through which youth workers engage with young people are the means, not the ends of youth work.

Youth work is about non formal education through association in groups.
Youth work begins with informal approaches which are person centred and moves into critical engagement as planned, structured interventions which can be issue or problem centred.

The Department of Education provides a range of educational services which recognise that education is more than schooling and youth work provides both a complementary service and at times an alternative service to formal education in Northern Ireland.

The education service’s activity will be characterised by the following 4 main strategic priorities:
• Enable learners to fulfil their potential through ensuring equality of access to a quality education and tackling the barriers to children’s learning.
• Prepare every learner for life through improving quality and raising standards for all children, supporting a curriculum which is relevant to individual aspirations and to social and economic needs, and motivating and empowering our young people to contribute positively to society, now and in the future.
• Transform education for learners by building the best support for educators across all sectors and phases and maximising the resources focused on teaching and learning.
• Provide the best environment for learning by securing the provision of buildings, equipment and materials that offer children a motivating and rich environment in which to learn.
(DE Business Plan 2008/2009)

• Motivated young people who enjoy and are engaged in learning, encouraged and supported by their parents or carers
• All young people having access to an
Education and Youth curriculum in settings that meet their individual learning needs

• Young people with the self esteem to be confident, happy and ambitious and contribute positively to their local community and wider society.
• Young people who are creative and have developed, to their full potential, the skills, attitudes and expectations needed to live, work, learn and play in a global society.

• Young people educated in a safe and caring environment where they are respected and receive the support they need
• All those involved in the education and youth sectors demonstrating respect for those from different backgrounds and circumstances and valuing diversity as enriching society.

• To empower young people to achieve their potential and to make informed and responsible decisions throughout their lives
• To develop the young person as a contributor to society
• To develop the young person as a contributor to the environment and the economy

• Each of these sits comfortably within a youth work paradigm
• Empowering practice is a core value underpinning youth work
• Development of young people as contributors lies at the heart of the key drivers of youth work
– Participative democracy
– Social Justice

When the subject of outcomes arises there can often be two particular tensions
1. Outcome led work is different from work with outcomes- Getting the balance right is crucial
2. An emphasis on some outcomes rather than others might mean that important outcomes are rendered invisible

• Within any discussion about collaboration and complementary working between formal and non formal education there is a need to explore the role of outcomes
• Characteristics of youth work and outcomes can be linked into the preferred youth work Policy and
Practice Framework model (based on Hardiker) and determined within each category

Model of Youth Work Delivery
Youth Service Sectoral Partners Group

This model identifies the nature and outcomes of youth work interventions at each of its levels
• Universal
• Early Intervention
• Prevention
• Targeted Intervention

“
In the majority of youth service provision inspected, the young people participated in the management and development of their own programmes. The participative structures allowed young people from a variety of urban and rural backgrounds to develop their self confidence , leadership skills and effective team-working, where they had to make decisions and solved a range of practical problems”
Chief Inspectors Report (2008-10) October 2010 ETI

Example of how participation outcomes can be mapped into the model

Universal services for all children and young people
Participation opportunities for all young people within a youth work setting
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORK
Assets-based approach
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Development of ‘thinking skills’ and personal capabilities
Greater assertiveness Maximising naturally-occurring opportunities for participation
Creativity Decision-making skills
Responsive interactions and programmes
Analytical
Greater self-efficacy
Facilitative process
Contains dialogue – a two-way exchange of listening & questioning
Greater Analytical skills – understanding of how individual actions can affect personal and social change.
More representative voice for young people
More responsive youth work services

Early Intervention services
Participation work for young people who may not involve themselves in or connect with the universal services
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORK
Analysis of Context influences content and approach
Community engagement
Strongly relational
Analytical
Planned but non-formal
Delicate and brash
Collective actions
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Greater access to existing services, resources and information
Increased sense of belonging
Increased sense of individual purpose
Greater understanding of societal patterns & structures
Learning experiences that can be recalled and articulated
Sense of personal satisfaction
Greater sense of collective purpose

Prevention/Specialist planned intervention services
Participation work for young people & groups that have become or are in danger of becoming invisible
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORK EXPECTED OUTCOMES
The nature of the group gives clues as to content of work
Group are not homogenous but multidimensional
Growing sense of individual & collective identity
Greater awareness of and openness to diversity
Intensive engagement & relational work Greater resilience to prize and champion oneself
Greater analysis of society and systems Explicit focus on participative democracy & social justice
Project-based or time-bound Sense of individual & collective achievement
Tangible outputs produced

Targeted intervention services
Participation practices with those most excluded from resources or with acute need
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORK
Intensive individual support
Working to find and practice the voice of the young person
Stimulate growth through challenges
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Building resilience to deal more readily with anxiety-evoking situations
Greater articulation of their own message and voice
Developed problem-solving skills
Advocacy role for worker
Analysis of exclusionary systems & processes
Strategic input to impact on policy & systems
Building alliances among individuals to combine strength of voice & action
Greater access to existing services, resources and information
Greater understanding of links between individual circumstances/situations and societal structures.
Clear explicit messages communicated to policy makers.
Growing sense of ownership of the message and the process
Collective actions that reflect a collective message

Measuring generic outcomes to provide service wide and standardised evidence to enable a year on year analysis of progression

• Sectoral agreement on generic outcomes
• Development of a user friendly outcomes measurement framework
• Methods of data collection – related to groups not individual young people
Proportionate to the organisation or groups involved