Monthly Archives: January 2018

‘Crouch dismisses call for NCS to be evaluated against traditional youth services’ reports CYPN

by Tony Taylor

Joe Lepper in Children and Young People Now [CYPN] reports that:

 

Crouch

Tracy Crouch – thanks to womenofrubies.com

 

Youth minister Tracey Crouch has rejected calls for the effectiveness of the government’s flagship National Citizen Service (NCS) to be compared with traditional youth services.

Speaking in parliament, Labour’s shadow youth minister Steve Reed asked whether the government would “widen the scope” of the annual independent evaluation of the National Citizen Service (NCS) in order to “make comparisons with other youth programmes with similar aims to NCS”.

But Crouch rejected the idea, adding that the government is already supporting efforts to improve evaluation of wider youth work.

This includes funding for the Centre for Youth Impact, a social enterprise that aims to improve how the youth sector measures its effectiveness.

“The youth sector evidence base is not yet sufficiently developed to enable robust comparison between different programmes,” she said.

In a riposte, Joe quotes yours truly.

20170317-_DSC1346

Tony Taylor, co-ordinator of campaign group In Defence of Youth Work, said it is “absurd” to scrutinise the National Citizen Service in isolation from the diversity of continuing youth provision.

“Contrary to the claim that there is no evidence base to inform a thorough-going evaluation of practice, a range of insightful research is available, the latest being the 2017 Anu Gretschel report on the impact of International Youth Work,” Taylor said.

“However, this body of knowledge has been wilfully ignored. Its qualitative perspective is utterly at odds with the government’s neoliberal obsession with measuring the immeasurable.

“Though we do not think the way forward lies in some sort of crude, comparative exercise. As of now, we see a strong case for using the funding – some £400m – that could be saved from a reduction by a third in NCS’s recruitment target up to 2020/21 to reinstate the nearly £390m cut in youth service spending since 2010.

“The urgent longer-term need is for an independent inquiry into the present state of youth work in its entirety, premised on a renewed understanding of youth work as a distinctive educational practice rooted in voluntary relationships with young people forged outside of formal institutions and agencies.”

Read in full at Crouch dismisses call

 

Is the tide turning? IDYW 9th national conference, March 9 – book your place

by Tony Taylor

newlogo

THE NINTH IDYW NATIONAL CONFERENCE
FRIDAY, MARCH 9 at THE BIRMINGHAM SETTLEMENT, ASTON

‘Swimming with or against a turning tide? Where should youth work be heading?’

Towards the end of last year a series of regional ‘Is the tide turning?’ events were held around the country. As a result, we are attempting to draw out of these diverse discussions a coherent set of proposals and demands that might be put to what we see as the progressive wing of British politics, those parties willing to ditch the damaging legacy of neoliberalism – namely Labour, the Greens, the Scottish Nationalist Party, Plaid Cymru and increasingly the Liberal Democrats. The conference will be our collective opportunity to debate and revise both the purpose and content of such a policy paper. As last year we are organising on the basis that the starting time will help those travelling longer distances and that you will have consumed your lunch in advance.

PROGRAMME
12.00 Arrivals, socialising – drinks available. Participants responsible for own lunch.
12.30 Welcome, housekeeping
12.45 – 1.05 Presentation of the major themes in our draft set of proposals. These will have been circulated in advance.
1.05 – 2.00 Small group discussion about and responses to the proposals
2.00 – 2.15 Break
2.15 – 3.00 Implications for the workforce with UNISON, UNITE and the Institute for Youth Work
3.00 – 4.00 Implications for the purpose and culture of youth work practice with Centre for Youth Impact, Training Agencies Group and National Youth Agency
4.00 – 4.15 Break
4.15 – 5.00 Final session, initially in small groups: ‘What might we do next?’

Cost will be £10 minimum waged, £5 student/unwaged – payable on the day
To book a place contact Rachel at info.IDYW@gmail.com

We hope you will join us in the supportive and reflective atmosphere, which over the years has characterised IDYW debates.

 

 

Young women and domestic violence in rural South Africa – new article in Y&P

by Tony Taylor

Y&P

Young women and domestic violence in rural South Africa – new article in YOUTH & POLICY

Linda Mshweshwe explores how South Africa’s Domestic Violence Act of 1998 is failing young women in rural communities who are subject to cultural norms that reinforce abuse.

It is of great concern that more than two decades since the implementation South Africa’s Domestic Violence Act (1998) many rural populations remain unaware about women’s rights. Young girls continue to be subjected to cultural practices that expose them to violent marriages.

SAdomviolence

The custom of Lobola and its implications for young women
In the rural communities of South Africa, girls as young as twelve enter into forced marriages with older men (see Mwambene and Sloth-Nielsen, 2011). The perceived financial gains from Lobola (the bride price) encourages parents to marry off their daughters at an early age, undermining their human rights (Sibanda, 2011). Lobola is a cultural practice whereby the groom’s family pay money or transfer livestock to the bride’s family in order to gain permission for the marriage (Mazibuko, 2016). Lobola serves to compensate the bride’s family for the expenses of raising the girl (Chireshe and Chireshe, 2010). Furthermore, it acknowledges the transfer of a bride’s reproductive capacity to her husband’s family (Rudwick and Posel, 2015).

Overall, South Africa’s Domestic Violence Act (1998) has not done well in addressing the rural cultural norms that place young women at risk of domestic violence. Practices like Lobola continue to expose teenage girls to domestic violence through arranged and forced marriages with older men. Lack of awareness of women’s rights and ignorance about domestic violence is the central problem in rural communities. Currently, there are no interventions aimed at changing the community and cultural norms that reinforce abuse. The implications that the practice of Lobola has for young women in rural areas needs to be addressed through social service interventions. These could include targeted community campaigns against gender-based violence and educational interventions aimed at challenging and changing cultural norms.

 

S.O.S. Voice of Youth will close… unless you can step up and take it on?

by Tony Taylor

Voice of Youth is circulating the following plea, which gives also a revealing insight into the joys and tensions of organising ‘horizontally’, alongside challenging the target and outcomes culture embraced by so much of the youth ‘sector’.

S.O.S. Voice of Youth

Hackney youth workers’ cooperative VOY will close…
unless you can step up and take it on?

After six wonderful years of cooperative youth work in Hackney, we are now looking for the right team of youth workers to take Voice of Youth forward.

What is Voice of Youth (VOY)?
Voice of Youth is a special organisation. We do things differently: we work co-operatively without bosses, we are inspired by radical and anti-oppressive practice, our work is rooted in young people’s needs and wishes, and we avoid funding that involves meeting targets or defining young people as problems. We were set up in 2011 by local young people and youth workers, and have been doing estate-based youth work, detached youth work, and projects on social issues. Our recent work in Upper Clapton, Hackney, has had around 30 fantastic young people aged 8-18 taking part each week (over 100 each year). We have received funding from a variety of sources, have a good track record in managing our funding and running projects, and currently have around £16,000 available for a project using creative activities to get young people talking about social issues. Our overheads are very low, so even when our income is low, we are still reasonably financially stable.

So, why would VOY need to close?
We have always had a committed group of co-operative members (some paid as part-time sessional workers where funding allows) and volunteers, who run the organisation cooperatively. Sadly, the current workers and volunteers (apart from one of us) will need to move on over the next few months, for a variety of work-related and personal reasons. We all still love VOY and working together, and we are all sad to leave, but we will need to plan for closure unless we can find a new group. We are keen and happy to hand over to you and help you get started – and then it’s all yours!

What we can offer a new group:
– Funding for a 6 month youth project, including sessional paid work for three workers, using creative methods to discuss and challenge inequality.
– Current co-op members will hand over and provide support to the new group over the next few months. One of us – a young woman from the local area who is an experienced youth worker – plans to stay on long-term as part of the co-op.
– Several years of relationships with young people, parents and carers, and organisations in the area.
– All legal documentation, policies, working procedures, financial records, financial procedures, a website. You can choose to amend these, but at least you’re not starting from scratch! We are registered as a non-profit company and workers’ cooperative, and have developed a widely respected ‘How we Work’ pack for our volunteers and co-op members.
– Established processes for insurance and DBS (criminal record checks) – these are currently paused while our work is paused, and will need to be reinstated before starting face-to-face work. Access to free community venues. Freedom to work together to take the organisation in new directions – once you get up and running, there are few restrictions on what you can do.

What does it mean to be a co-op member?
Co-op members work together without bosses to run the organisation. The idea is that those working with young people make the decisions about how the organisation is run. Between them, they share out all the tasks such as working with young people, organising activities, buying resources, supervising and supporting each other, keeping financial records (one member needs to be the treasurer), and ensuring meetings happen and conform to certain procedures (one member needs to be the secretary). All the co-op members also share legal responsibilities – including for safeguarding, financial management, and accountability to funders. Have a look at our website to find out more about our work and our principles: www.voice-of-youth.org. So far, some of our co-op members have been unpaid, and others have been contracted sessionally as self-employees. We don’t yet have long-term funding or PAYE systems – the new coop could, of course, choose to change all of that.

Who can be a VOY co-op member?
Anyone who supports and commits to working towards our principles and policies! Our work relies on trusting relationships with young people and within the staff team, so we ask you to commit to 6 to 12 months if at all possible, and to working well with others and sharing tasks and responsibilities. Anyone aged 16+ can join the co-op (you need to be 18 to be officially on the committee, but we will still involve 16-17 year olds in all decisions). We aim to reflect the community we work in, and we particularly welcome Black and Minority Ethnic people, local people, and EVERYONE of ANY background and identity who is keen to work with young people on their terms, valuing their views and perspectives. All co-op members and volunteers will need a DBS (criminal record) check – an unrelated criminal record is no problem, but please discuss this with us in advance. Travel expenses may be available, ask for details.

Come to an open meeting to find out more: 6pm Monday 5th March (venue tbc).
Contact voyhackney@gmail.com by 19th Feb to let us know you’re coming.

Albemarle pioneer and Principal of the National College, Peter Duke RIP

by Tony Taylor

We have to register with great sadness the news that Peter Duke, a pioneer of post-Albemarle youth work, died recently.

 

PeterDuke1

Peter Duke in the NCTYL days

 

As a result of the Albemarle Report’s 1960 recommendations to expand youth provision and the need for an increase in the youth service’s full-time staffing an ’emergency’ college offering a one year course was set up. Peter Duke became the Vice-Principal of the National College for the Training of Youth Leaders (NCYTL), welcoming 90 students as its first intake at the adapted civil defence premises in Leicester. He took over as Principal when Ted Sidebottom left in 1964. When the college was closed in 1970 he moved to become the Course Leader of the Leicester Polytechnic Youth & Community course, which was housed on the Scraptoft campus. We are not sure of the date of Peter’s retirement from this pivotal post.

Sue Atkins, still going strong and a student at the NCYTL, remembers Peter.

Without Peter Duke, I wouldn’t be doing the job I do, or have done the jobs I’ve done as a Youth Worker for the last fifty years

I first met Peter when I got involved with Oxford House, through my sister who with friends from University were community service volunteers there and among other things took groups of kids on a regular Summer Camp to Goudhurst in Kent. I spent two weeks at that camp when I was 16. Two years later when I got a job in London I volunteered to run some activities with the youth club; and would go once a week when we chatted and did some ‘Drama’. 

Peter, was ‘The Man Upstairs’ at Oxford House; the group I worked with was all boys and we had a very ‘interesting’ version of the Workman’s play from Midsummer Nights Dream that we adapted and brought up to date with our very own ‘Duke’. It never got to full production though but I remember we had a great time making it up, ‘rewriting’ or reimagIning Shakespeare. I wish I’d kept the ‘script’, such as it was.

At the time I recall Peter as being an overall benign presence in the House who was suitably impressed and amused by being ‘The Duke’ of our Play, and probably quite relieved we didn’t get to the performance . By the way, working with this group I learnt a valuable lesson; it is not all about The Play and performing it, but chatting, improvising and just playing with it was great too. (Another by the way, this all took place in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel at the time of ‘Call the Midwife’, making me realise that my life experience is other people’s history!)

For the next ten years I continued on my path of ( what I later found out was ) chronic job changing. Basically I auditioned for Theatre School, ( got places and didn’t take them) worked in Bookshops , wandered through dole offices, delivered the post, and soap coupons etc. ………all the while working with a Youth Theatre Group in Hillingdon and teaching drama in a dancing school.

Ten years later I took the plunge and applied to and was accepted at the National College for Training Youth Leaders. I was placed in the tutorial group of  a certain Bernard Davies  (who left after my first term choosing that year to go to the United States). Of course, I renewed my acquaintance with Peter who was the Principal and once again I saw how he brought his ‘presence’ to that enterprise on Humberstone Drive

There were 148 students at Leicester that year, and if I recall only 17 were women . There was a disproportionate fall out rate of the women students and I was nearly one of them.

You didn’t ‘Fail’ at Leicester. It was ‘put to you’ that you might like to consider your position, you reflected with your tutor on the feedback, and came to the ‘right’ decision and withdrew. I had lasted to the end of the second fieldwork practice in Huddersfield.  The Club Leader I worked for, decided I wasn’t suitable so with my tutor ( NOT Bernard who was still in the US)  put this decision to me, pointing out all the negative feedback from other tutors, including my ‘scores’ on the ‘tends To X tends to Y questionnaire, which apparently were extremely unbalanced, not forgetting the fact that I wore blue woollen stockings! So I was invited to consider my position over the weekend . . . .

If I drank, that would have been the night I drowned my sorrows and got very drunk ~ but fortunately I didn’t drink ~ so after a long weekend wallowing in despair and feeling sorry for myself, feeling angry and conned by said Youth Leader/Supervisor, ranting about those bloody men, whilst drinking copious cups of tea and coffee and yes crying a lot ~ I got to OK I’ve considered my position and I don’t want to go , so I am going to stay.  If ‘they’ disagree then ‘they’ will have to change their policy and ‘Fail or Sack me’. That’s what I told my tutor, who then asked Peter to come and talk to me, presumably to sort me out. Peter came. He didn’t ‘talk’ to me, he asked questions, he listened, he asked more questions, and listened some more and the upshot was he agreed with me that I should stay.

So Thank you, Peter Duke, you really were the Instrument of my completion of the Course (albeit by the skin of teeth) at NCTYL . A wee while back I found my certificate, a copy of which I’ve pinned on the wall behind my desk at Youth Association South Yorkshire, where I still lend a hand. It is, of course, signed by Peter Duke and so as ever I have his backing , his presence as ever inspiring, caring and believing the best in people always.

We’ll leave the final word to Malcolm Ball, a Scraptoft student in the mid-1980’s, a member of the IDYW steering group and Adviser to Lewisham’s Young Mayor.

Indeed Peter was a lovely man. It seems to me he was the epitome of what is to be defended in the Albermarle legacy, a belief in the values of the enlightenment and a commitment to holistic, liberal education. He warned against the dangers ‘of doing irreparable good’ in the name of ideology and warned always of the dangers of working on rather than with young people – a measure of his deep knowledge and subtlety.

‘Youth Policy: Then and Now’ conference 9/10 February, Leeds… still places left

by Tony Taylor

Y&Phistory

STILL PLACES LEFT AT THIS ALWAYS STIMULATING EVENT

The Youth and Policy conference ‘Youth Policy: Then and Now’ will take place at Hinsley Hall, Leeds, 9th-10th February 2018.

This event is in place of our bi-annual ‘History of Youth and Community Work’ conference and will include presentations on contemporary as well as historical issues.

Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite here (£190 plus Eventbrite fee)

As with the earlier gatherings, it will include a mix of plenary sessions, workshops and ‘surprise’ events. We hope that this conference will be once again a relaxed gathering of enthusiasts keen to talk to and learn from each other.

Confirmed speakers so far include:

Michael Whelan (Coventry University) – Digital Youth Work

Tony Taylor (In Defence of Youth Work) – The rise and fall of local authority youth work

Rys Farthing (Oxford University) – Inter-generational Poverty

John Goodwin (Leicester University) – The life and work of Pearl Jephcott

Matt Scott (Community Development Journal) – Community Development: Then and Now

Presenting a workshop
At the heart of our conferences are the workshops. The breadth is always impressive covering an enormous range of topics linked to the history of youth work, adult education and community work. As before some of these will focus on the historical development of practice in countries outside the UK. A feature of this conference is that around a third of those attending volunteer to deliver a workshop.

If you are attending the event and would like to present a workshop please email Paula Connaughton (p.connaughton@bolton.ac.uk) with a short description of your planned workshop (around 100 words).

Confirmed workshop topics so far include: the youth impact agenda; young Muslims and exclusion since 9/11; youth clubs 1967-2017; rethinking community development; and young people and citizenship.

Full programme available now:
Friday 9th February

10.00-11.00 Registration, Coffee and Biscuits

11.00 – 12.30 Michael Whelan (Coventry University): Does youth work have a digital future?

12.30- 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Rys Farthing (Oxford University) : Inter-generational poverty

15.30 – 16.00 Coffee

16.00 – 17.15 In Defence of Youth Work: Is the tide turning?

18.00 – 19.00 Evening Meal

19.00 – 20.30 John Goodwin (Leicester University): What Pearl Jephcott did next: The life and legacy of a social researcher

Saturday 10th February

09.30 – 10.45 Workshops

10.45-11.15 Coffee

11.15 -12.30 Tony Taylor (In Defence of Youth Work): The rise and fall of local authority youth services

12.30 -13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 14. 45 Matt Scott (Editor Community Development Journal) Community Development: Then and now

14.45- 16.00 Workshops

16.00 Coffee available

16.00-17.00 Panel discussion

17.00-17.15 Close and depart

 

Rod Norton responds to Bethia McNeil’s pertinent musings

by Tony Taylor

At the end of last week, we asked for responses to Bethia McNeil’s musings upon key issues in evaluating our practice, Here they are again.

Thoughts From The Centre – to be found in the very useful Centre for Youth Impact Newsletter
This month, Bethia has been mostly thinking about…

What is the most meaningful language in which to talk about provision for young people? Does it make sense to talk about different ‘fields’ of practice? Or approaches? Or even practices? And what about ethics, values and principles? To what extent is shared learning held back by a lack of common language and/or understanding?
What is the relationship between ‘organisational’ or ‘practice improvement’ and improvement in outcomes for young people? Are there common areas of improvement, or is it more nuanced? How much is about systems and processes, and how much about relationships?
How can we value the act of measurement as much as the data that we are gathering? It feels like there are fractures on both sides of this issue at the moment: there is widespread antipathy towards the act of measurement and its impact on youth provision, and similarly a scepticism that the data gathered can tell us anything meaningful about our engagement with young people. Where to start?
What do we actually mean when we talk about ‘what works’? To what extent is this in the eye of the beholder?

judgement

Thus we are really pleased to post a reply from Rod Norton, a long-time youth worker and the former Chief Officer of a local authority Youth Service.

 

Tony’s call for people to engage in the debate with the Centre for Youth Impact got me thinking that his distinction between judgement and measurement is fundamental to the discussion. Let me explain ….

 
One way to look at youth work is that it is about helping young people to engage with, and change, the world about them. It is therefore about values, relationships, debate, discussion and above all about the active engagement of young people in their communities – it is a process, not an outcome. Predefined outcomes are therefore problematic as, from this point of view, the very purpose of youth work is to help young people gain the insights, skills and confidence necessary to change the world in ways that have meaning for them and not necessarily in ways that have meaning for workers or funders. Youth work therefore inhabits the realm of politics (in the widest sense of the word, we’re not talking about party politics here) and had its heyday under the Social Democracy of the post-war period where a commitment to process driven, user-focussed services was fairly mainstream. Evaluating youth work in this context involves making judgements about the work that are based upon transparent and contestable moral and political values. In the end, the fundamental question is whether the work advances the common good – which makes it political.

 
The type of society that has developed over the past thirty years is very different to Social Democracy and is based upon very different foundations. The neoliberalism which now dominates our lives doesn’t value politics, it values economic efficiency. For neoliberals, what matters is success in the marketplace and here politics, morals and values are largely irrelevant. Neoliberalism therefore has a desire to turn social activities, such as youth work, into products that can be traded in the market in order to make a profit, or at least to save money spent elsewhere. As products always have to be sold, the key driver for the work under neoliberalism becomes the wants and needs of the buyer or funder – the views of young people are secondary. And, of course, funders always want proof that they have received what they have paid for, so the emphasis of evaluation shifts to the measurement of outcomes and to the generation of savings or profits. Youth work thus risks becoming a value free commodity, delivering only funder defined outcomes. The natural tendency under these influences is for youth work to move away from an open access, user led and process-based format, towards more individualistic and formal models delivering predetermined behavioural change to passive young people.

 
Of course, these two models of evaluation based on political judgement and economic measurement have been contrasted here in very stark terms, whereas in reality the two usually merge into each other in some form of messy compromise. But, in the exchanges between Tony and Bethia over the last couple of years it is Tony who inhabits the world of political judgement whereas it is Bethia who, even though she valiantly struggles against their worst economistic excesses, is more influenced by models based on the measurement of economic efficiency. It is therefore Tony who is trying to move beyond neoliberalism whilst it is Bethia who is trying to find some kind of progressive accommodation with it.