47 people attended IDYW’s “Youth Work Week” seminar on the theme of resistance.

After a warm musical welcome from Bianca Todd (no, sadly she didn’t sing for us!), Sue Atkins got us going with a beautiful and rather poetic piece of writing on the ‘three sisters’: resistance, rebellion, revolution. Modi Abdoul introduced the remaining speakers, leaving valued space for quiet reflection between them – a refreshing touch in this time of Zoom overload. Janet Batsleer shared insights on resistance from the youth work citizen enquiry diaries project, invoking the resonant phrase, ‘Persistence is a form of resistance’. Jacob Sakil’s thought-provoking talk concerned resistance in relation to youth participation, drawing on his experience as a youth worker and as a young person involved in youth politics. Ruth Richardson from Institute for Youth Work challenged those present on the youth sector’s resistance to collaboration, asking if we can really claim that we work collaboratively as a youth work sector, and suggesting that (often) the answer is ‘no’… And we missed Tony Taylor, whose contribution was prevented by a power cut.

We hope to share versions of these talks in the coming days. Thanks so much to everyone who came along and contributed. It was a refreshing end to youth work week, perhaps a contrast or maybe a complement to the #YWW20 theme ‘Ambitious for Youth Work’.

A final note that Institute for Youth Work is offering free membership this week to celebrate Youth Work Week – this offer closes tonight (Sunday) at a minute before midnight!