This draft document was produced by the Principal Youth Officers of Wales (PYOG) with the support of the Wales Youth Agency (WYA) to encourage Local Authority Youth Services to introduce these standards in the context of their total resource allocation.

The document identifies an agreed set of standards for Youth Service provision, which are designed to promote young people’s social development and personal achievement within the economic and social policy agenda of the Welsh Assembly Government. It should complement other standards to secure effective policy for young people across various services. In particular they underpin those of ESTYN in respect of the quality and outcomes of the work of the Youth Service.  Locally agreed standards may improve on these minimum national standards.

[The document remains draft as it was not formally adopted at it's publication due to the financial implications for local authorities in meeting these standards.] 

 

 

This research project from Northern Ireland investigates the thinking behind youth work in schools from a youth work perspective and a school perspective. It discusses theoretical concepts so that youth work can be understood in a formal context. Youth workers, teachers in relevant schools and young people exposed to this intervention were interviewed. The findings were analysed and discussed and the project concludes with a set of recommendations. 

Between 2009-2011 CWVYS was commissioned by the Welsh Government to facilitate the research and publishing of Youth Work Methodology Handbooks or best practice guides for youth workers in Wales. CWVYS facilitated this work by bringing together voluntary youth organisations and maintained local authority youth services. This document is part of a library of Good Practice Methodology Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. 

This handbook introduces, explains, and describes methods for recognising and accrediting the learning and achievements of young people and the potential role for youth work within this context.

The Handbook offers definitions of accreditation, types of accreditation and how to choose the most appropriate for a particular group, National frameworks, role comparisons and basic contact information. To ensure that it has a practical use for Youth Workers, reference is made to how a type of accreditation is appropriate in a youth work context or how a learning style or curriculum of learning contributes to the pathways of young people’s achievement. 

[CWVYS does not represent that the information contained in the handbook is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this website or for any reliance placed by any person on the information.] 

Short paper to open up a wider debate on the process required to measure the journey taken by the young people, in particular those involved with the different youth work sectors. Considers whether there would be a means by which these tasks and activities could be categorised by using a non-formal Learning Framework. To assist this, a visual interpretation of the structure and principles of the Learning Framework have been developed into a 'Learning Tower'. 

Short paper looking at the principles of creativity and how these can enable the practitioner to work with the young person, using a process of experiential learning through which they can seek solutions to problems with which they may require some adult support.

This article is based on the premise that youth work practice is contained within a Community of Practice (Lave and Wenger. 1998) underpinned by and through experiential learning mirroring a quasi-Steiner approach to learning. The amalgamation of these three tenets make youth work, as practiced mainly by qualified workers, an interesting template that tips the balance of learning in favour of young people rather than based on a more formalized curriculum. The blending of both informal, non-formal and formal approaches within a youth work context is, we will argue, a more holistic approach to the development of learning which is based on the needs of young people.

In a previous article (Gallagher and Morgan. 2013) it was argued that while youth work should be independent of the school system it could offer a valuable contribution that will complement the learning process. This article takes the debate further by suggesting a model that could be emulated in other youth work projects and that might form the basis of collaboration between the formal and informal sectors.

 

This article is a positional paper on the need to reinvent or at least reinvigorate the use of group work in a youth work context. While youth work practitioners work with many diverse groups the imposition of an imposed policy curriculum continues to shape the nature of the group process towards, we contend, a more prescribed set of outcomes.

What we are suggesting in this paper is that if we know the expected outcomes that many young people need to achieve in life in order to make them more resilient and self-aware of their lives, do we need to emulate the formal didactic approach to learning, i.e. as in school? If we have a vehicle in which and from which these outcomes can be achieved do we really need a curriculum? Or more appropriately can the curriculum emanate from the lived lives of the young people themselves?

This paper presents a practical approach to the measurement of outcomes in youth work.  What we are proposing is that the ‘core’ of youth development can be addressed and achieved within an ‘experiential growth group’ and that the process is indeed the product. In other words we are proposing a move away from highlighting the end product of outcomes or ‘expected ‘ outcomes to refocusing on the vehicle in which and from which certain less tangible and nebulous outcomes can be nurtured and recorded.

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