News December 2009

Youth Work Principles and OCN Accreditation

Context

Government policy is to introduce an integrated structure for children’s services by bringing together a range of services which are delivered within a multi-agency framework to support children and families.

It is important to consider ‘best practice’ and to develop joint training opportunities that ensure all staff members are equipped with an understanding of the most successful approaches for working with young people.  The introduction of the NOCN Skills Towards Enabling Progression (Step-Up) qualifications aimed specifically at 14-19 year olds increases the opportunity to accredit learning by young people.

Open College Network provides units of assessment that can be used to accredit youth workers and young people. Both regional and national units can be used in different contexts and there is scope for considerable flexibility in the nature of course delivery. The awarding body authorises the use of units on a Centre by Centre basis according to available resources and the qualifications and experience of delivery staff.

Principles

The principles of youth work offer a useful template for the development of work with young people. It is important that tutors delivering units originally written for use in the youth services understand the principles underpinning the youth work process. These principles have been outlined as:

• Young people are able to maintain an element of control, as most young people come to youth work voluntarily. All parties understand that the young person can decide not to participate at any point and this defines the relationship between adult provider and young person.

• Youth workers and young people are expected to negotiate a long-term strategy which might keep the young person interested rather than insisting upon their compliance. Young people take part in youth work in their own time so it is important that their experience is enjoyable and not limited to the possibility of attaining good qualifications and a better job at some future date.

• Young people interacting with youth workers on a voluntary basis can expect their ideas and opinions to be treated with respect. The building of trusting relationships is used to encourage young people to get involved in new experiences. The youth worker can provide resources, but the young person remains at the centre of the way his/her life develops. Young people may be disempowered in many areas of their lives: home, work and education for instance. Youth work has a commitment to prepare young people for citizenship whilst remembering that they already hold the basic civil and legal rights of a citizen.

• If a young person has been labelled by non-youth work agencies, these labels will not determine how the young person is received and treated by youth workers. Youth work focuses on the potential of young people rather than judging them based upon preconceived labels.

• It is important in youth work to connect with the young person’s particular physical and cultural environment. The focus on building potential in the individual is balanced with work done with groups to which young people are attached and to which they give high priority. Activities and experiences in peer groups can provide space away from power-holding adults. They can also facilitate the development of identity; provide support and challenge, and achieve important collective outcomes. Gaining access to young people’s networks requires negotiation. Youth Work uses a range of media to harness the positive potential of peer interaction through stretching group activities.

Shared community and cultural identities shape interactions between young people and youth work, which seeks to strengthen them where appropriate. Collective activities can raise political awareness and engagement. Youth work can offer balancing role models to enable the young person to sustain his or her identity when set against community or cultural expectations. 

• Youth Work emphasises process and is often located within leisure time and contexts, but needs to be a value-based practice in order to be effective. It needs to be nurturing in order to help to realise a version of the young person which is greater than the one they are displaying or have imagined and to encourage an outward looking critical approach to the world and their own experience of it.

• Young people want to see some return for their efforts – and although these outcomes may be different from those of providers and funders, they are just as important. But these outcomes are not sufficient on their own. Young people need experiences and responses which help them to accomplish developmental tasks. Too much emphasis on changing behaviours can limit responsiveness and alienate the young person. It is also important that their current emotional response to themselves and to others as well as to their wider environment is valued.

Walsall Youth Service

Running OCN accredited courses in the West Midlands Region has been an important step forwards for many organisations which run provision for youth workers and young people in the area. OCN units provide structure and an outline for assessment, but modes of delivery remain flexible and do not necessarily tie the learner to a particular context or time line.

Training and Guidance Worker, Ann Russell from Walsall Youth Service writes: “A variety of teaching methods are used to motivate young people in the hope of building their self esteem on completion of their course.”

She continues:“Whilst in theory the unit carries 30 hours of learning, this is notional time, with young people often engaging in activities over a longer period.”

The course run by Walsall Youth Service is ‘The Youth Awareness Programme’. It involves young people in planning, voluntary work, peer mentoring, delivering workshops, and for some, the assessment of the impact of youth work across the borough. The evidence produced is a natural and integral part of the activities and experiences is assessed against OCN criteria. Participants are given the opportunity to achieve credits at level two in youth work. Ann Russell sees the variety of activities engaged in along the journey as vital to the development of confidence, motivation and self worth.

Asad Ali was referred to the youth service for “Additional support around the theme of social development”. He “has obtained paid employment with New Deal for communities” and says of his experience: “My interest in the area of youth work grew and I decided that this was the type of job I wanted to do”.

Youth work seeks to raise the aspirations of young people whilst providing support to each individual. As such it is an excellent model for the work that can underpin all learning experiences aimed at young people. It may not be enough to ‘put on courses’. We may be able to learn from the experiences and philosophies of different types of organisations how best to move forward.

References:

Youth Work: Davies, B. A Manifesto For Our Times; Reprinted from Youth & Policy Number 88, Summer 2005

Making a Positive Contribution; Russell, Ann; Walsall Youth Service, October 2007