IN DEFENCE BUSINESS – YOUTH WORK PRACTICE/TALKING TO YOUNG PEOPLE

In many ways the impact of our first book, This is Youth Work : Stories from Practice, sponsored by both UNISON and UNITE, exceeded our expectations. Not surprisingly our enterprise has been ignored conspicuously by the self-styled pragmatic realists in the leadership of such as the NYA, NCVYS and UK Youth. Nevertheless on the ground and within some supportive training agencies our effort to unravel the distinctiveness of an educational relationship, free from compulsion or sanction, has been warmly received. Workers have commented that participation in our workshops has illuminated their practice and restored their confidence in its principles. Against this backcloth we have been encouraged to explore a second book, which will include further stories, including those, within which workers strive to uphold their principles in the face of imposed agendas. In particular the book will seek to interrogate the differing ways in which the discourse of ‘story-telling’ can be used – with both students, new and experienced workers, paid and voluntary, as a contribution to staff development plus monitoring/evaluation and much more.

To find out more, find below the notes of the last working group meeting held in early January, 2014. As ever your responses sought.

Towards a Second Story Book – Notes of January 4, 2014 meeting