If you consult young people by running a series of face-to-face workshops then the chances are that after you’ve run the first workshop there will be things you’ll want to adapt for future sessions. Unless you’re working with a very fixed research methodology, you may even adapt the workshop as you go – responding to the prior knowledge and needs of the young people you are working with.
I’ve often had to add new activities into a workshop, or take some out to accommodate the particular levels of interest, background knowledge and literacy of the young people I’m working with.
But when you consult with an online survey, the same ‘feedback loop’ that allows you to check if you are pitching the questions right, and to adapt, doesn’t always exist. And that makes it really important to get young people involved in the design of your online survey, or at least to try out a draft with members of your target audience for the real thing.
Otherwise you end up with examples like this – packed full of assumed knowledge, jargon and questions structured entirely around a policy agenda rather than young people’s lives.
When it comes to delivering consultation online, thinking about accessibility matters more than ever.
I’ve only recently come across Adam Fletcher’s ‘Younger World’ blog – but have already found a wealth of fantastic posts providing solid insights, ideas and commentary on youth participation and youth voice.
Late last year I had the pleasure of speaking a couple of times with Anne Õuemaa and her tear from Tartu’s youth service in Estonia as they were putting together their ‘Youth Worker in the Cyber Jungle’ conference. I even had the chance to present to the conference via Skype and to talk to some of the Tartu youth work team afterwards about plans they are developing to create local social networks where interaction is encouraged to boost young people’s self esteem through affirmation from peers.
True to a commitment to shared learning, the notes from the Tartu conference are now online, and you can find them all (in english) here.
As I browse through the conference notes I found ‘Guides of online youth work’. But as I browsed the 16 points drawn from the conference they struck me not so much as guidelines but almost as a manifesto for youth work and the web. You can read the PDF here, or, take a look below and share your thoughts on this embryonic manifesto…
International Youth Work Conference „Youth Worker Found in Cyber Jungle“
November 18-19, 2008 at Dorpat Convention Centre in Tartu
POSSIBILITIES AND GUIDELINES OF ONLINE YOUTH WORK
On the basis of conference materials
An active participant probably got a lot of new thoughts from the conference about
online youth work, why do we need it and where to start. To help you remember all
the things you have learned the conference team has prepared an overview of
possibilities and guidelines of online youth work. Would you like to add anything
here? Have a great time reading and implementing what you have learned!
1. First of all you have to get over the ancient belief that adults know better
than youth themselves what is good for youth! Get to know the world of
the new generation! The new generation consists of young people who
demand and expect openness, honesty, constant innovation and development.
They think differently from their parents. If for parents the Internet is another
world, then for youth it is the World.
2. Use new technological means in a new way when working with youth!
New technological means need to be used in a new way. There is a danger of
representatives of the old generation falling for old methods while using
means of new media. This is not very helpful because old methods don’t work
with new means. Previously used communication channels enabled to create a
situation where information was held by one person who presented it to others.
However, the Internet works slightly differently as a communication channel –
there are no hierarchies there, information may be got right from the source
and it is selected on the basis of genuineness. The main communication on the
Internet takes place between individuals.
3. Take into account that today it is easier to be in the same network with
youth than ever before! Virtual networks start having an impact on
communication, and an assessment presented by an individual may acquire
monetary value. As mentioned before, the structure of virtual communication
networks is no longer hierarchical. The parents of a youth in a communication
network are on the same level as the youth’s friends.
4. Get to know the life in virtual worlds! Get to know the principles of
communication in virtual worlds and use them when working with youth!
Youth and the Internet will go together now and forever, and all kinds of
youth work should be based on the Internet.
5. Get to know the possibilities of information technology and dangers
arising from them! Remember that life is constantly changing! If you want to
cope and keep your knowledge up to date, you have to move towards life!
6. Use the Internet environment in work with youth keeping their needs and
interests in mind! If we are unable to generate adequate materials in Estonian
on the Internet, then the current generation will not feel sad about it, they will
manage their business in English from then on. If we are unable to generate
enough knowledge and entertainment on the Internet, then youth will use the
knowledge and entertainment produced by others. The only way is to change
with the times and to go to a place with youth work where youth already is and
try to provide them the information which is interesting and important to them.
7. Tell youth about possibilities and dangers of the Internet and teach them
how to avoid dangers by using the possibilities!
8. Teach youth some source critical attitude, i.e. how to distinguish valuable
information from less valuable! Digital nomads do not need as much
information as they need help finding the information, assessing its reliability
and interpreting it.
9. Support involvement of youth! The new generation has not grown up in
front of TV. As communication on the Internet is always two-sided, they have
been able to have a say in things and express their opinion since they were
children. That is what involvement is all about. The concept of the Internet
favours involvement. Youth get involved because it is interesting for them.
Create conditions in virtual worlds so that youth could get involved and create
content in respect to subjects that matter to them!
10. Turn the web environment you use for working with youth into the one
which favours intercultural learning! Create possibilities for presenting
different cultures on the Internet! Translate the information into the mother
tongue of the users! This is how information is transferred from one
community to another and they can get to know each other better.
11. Teach youth, including youth with special needs and other minority
youth, how to present themselves positively (on the Internet), i.e. how to
play the cards so that it suits best for the youth! In the long run we will be
communicating with persons not a colour of someone’s skin or a wheelchair.
12. Develop the computer park of your youth centre and create possibilities
of communication in virtual networks for youth, regardless of their
mother tongue, cultural background, special needs, possibilities, etc.
13. Give a child the freedom to test what he has learned on the Internet!
Create a trusting relationship so that the child can turn to you when he has
questions! Just like you don’t follow your child in streets to check, if he is
crossing the street with a green light, in the same way you don’t have to check
on your child on the Internet all the time.
14. Use means of the Internet and virtual worlds when communicating with
youth and motivate them to communicate and act in real life, too!
Although virtual realities may be important, nothing can replace real contact
with a person. Online youth work supplements youth work in real life but it
cannot replace it.
15. Support the developing of self-concept and self-confidence of a youth and
his ability to put his foot down because this is ensures coping in all areas
of life, including virtual worlds.
16. When planning your resources, please take into account that online youth
work takes time and commitment and the work will never end! Improve
yourself constantly and be a role model for youth and your colleagues! All
virtual channels only work if they have a purpose and if their creators use
them to exchange their everyday messages.
What bits of Web 2.0 are essential for a local campaigning group?
One of the jobs I’ve taken on for 2009 is getting an online presence set up for the Oxford City Fairtrade Coalition. The coalition’s last static HTML website disappeared when the committee member who had set it up moved out of the area a few years ago, and the group is currently without a proper existence online.
With the rise of the social web over the last few years, it’s obvious that I can’t just set up a new static website. I need to make use of Web 2.0 tools to really give Oxford City Fairtrade Coalition a proper presence in the online space. But what should I use?
Should I leap in with Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and more? Or is this just going to leave a trail of un-maintained web-debris? What sort of strategy should a small, volunteer run, campaigning group use to be seen on the web?
As I get started setting up a web presence for the group, I’ll aim to document the process, and to produce some practical Getting Started guides for each of the tools I do use (in the style of the one page guides) in the hope that these can be useful to other campaign groups, and possible to the emerging digital mentors programmes. However, before I start on that, I’d really value your ideas on the tools and approaches you would recommend…
I’ve been really fortunate that all these projects, and the many other bits of consultancy, research and writing not mentioned above, have all offered great opportunities for reflective learning, and I’m looking forward to a lot more in 2009. From Action Learning around Social Network Sites and Youth Engagement, to exploring youth led innovation, and innovation in the provision of information for young people I’m set for a packed, but I hope, really interesting and collaborative, 2009. However, most exciting of all for me, I’ve just got confirmation that from October next year I’ll be getting to devote even more time to in depth exploration of the impact of social media on social processes and social change, when I start on a year-long MSc in the Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute.
Thanks to everyone who has been reading and sharing comment and insights here on Tim’s Blog or over on Twitter in 2008. Wishing you all the best for 2009!
[Summary: Are you a youth participation specialist? Fancy a change in 2009? Details below of job ad from NESTA. (Deadline 12th Jan 2009)]
One of the project I had the pleasure of working on this year was helping NESTA to develop it’s strategy for Youth Innovation, building on the work future innovators programme.
The new programme, named ‘Innovation Generation‘ will be launched early next year, and is designed to be increasingly youth led: putting young people in the driving seat of determining, developing, evaluating and disseminating learning from projects that are all about unlocking the innovative potential of young people.
Not only will the programme be looking at how it can involve young people in innovation, but it will be exploring innovations in participation – supporting the development and evaluation of new approaches to youth participation.
If you know any youth participation specialists (or you happen to be one yourself) interested in a change in 2009 – please do forward on details. Closing date is the 12th Jan.
Have you asked for the Fairtrade option in a coffee shop that advertise it as an extra and been met by a bemused look from the person serving, been told that it’s out of stock, or simply been told they don’t sell Fairtrade coffee, in spite of the big Fairtrade logo on their menu?
I have. Quite a lot of times. And it’s really frustrating.
So, this morning I set up an @askforfairtrade account on Twitter to start finding our who the worst offenders are.
If you’re a regular coffee-shop hopper and you’re amongst the twitterati, then follow askforfairtrade, and when you’re next getting a caffine fix, make sure you request the Fairtrade option. Report the response you get by tweeting an update to @askforfairtrade.
I’ll aim to collate the reports on a regular basis and will get in touch with the best and the worst of the coffee chains to let them know how they are doing and to put the pressure on to keep Fairtrade on the menu.
Why does this matter?
Fairtrade matters. When a mug of coffee with the Fairtrade Mark is sold in place of a bog standard brew the farmers of the coffee beans are getting a guaranteed price for their labour, and a social premium is being invested in health, education and infrastructure projects in producer communities. Asking for the Fairtrade option makes a tangible difference. (Read more about the different Fairtrade makes on the Fairtrade Foundation Website)
Big companies are actively misleading consumers, giving the impression that their coffee is ethically produced and certified to Fairtrade standards, when in fact, Fairtrade is only available as an optional extra, and no effort is taken to actively encourage customers to ask for Fairtrade. In fact, from my experience, the level of service when trying to ask for the Fairtrade option actively discourages it.
By collecting reports of whether or not coffee shops and chains are living up to their promise to provide a Fairtrade option we can put pressure on them to make sure staff are trained, and products are in stock, for choosing the Fairtrade option to be the easy option. And we can demonstrate the consumer demand for Fairtrade as standard.
Negotiation is not a word I hear a lot when talking about youth participation. Yet I suspect it is an important one.
I still encounter a lot of contexts where youth participation seems to be limited to asking young people, in the abstract, what they want. And then not delivering on the responses because they’re to tricky to implement.
But then, if you ask any group of citizens, young or old, what they want – without articulating the constraints (budgets, sign-off, existing strategic plans) then you are likely to get a list of ideas most of which would be almost impossible to implement (try it…).
The bit missing is the negotiation. Setting out the constraints on a decision, but allowing them to be critiqued. Making clear to young people the assumptions on which you are basing decisions (and in the process, probably becoming more aware of them yourself) and then getting into dialogue over these assumptions. Responding to young people’s suggestions for change with explanations of which bits you think won’t be easy to implement, but encouraging young people to negotiate and creatively pursue the implementation of the changes they want to see.
Of course, one’s position in a negotiation is often about power – and ensuring young people in participation negotiations are on an equal footing with adults is perhaps the most challenging part of all…
For the Plings project – concerned with promoting positive activities to young people – Social Network Sites (SNS) offer amazing opportunities. One of the main ways people find out about positive activities (the football club, dance group or arts society for example) is through word of mouth. So if you can feed information about positive activities into SNS, and increase the flows of information about positive activities through the networks of young people already active there, you could potentially have a big impact on young people’s awareness of activities they could take part in.
Take a look at the slidecast below to get an idea of how a Social Network Site application could work:
Of course, local authorities and professionals working with young people have a duty not only to make sure young people are aware of the positive activities available to them, but also a duty to keep young people safe from harm – and Social Network Sites can be places of risk as well as of opportunity. Which is why public and third-sector organisations engaging with SNS shouldn’t just copy the ‘viral marketting’ and often aggressive tactics of commercial SNS application builders – but need to develop a clear ethical and risk assessment framework for engaging with Social Network Sites.
I hope that this working paperwhich I’ve put together for the ISP/Plings project can go some way to starting off that development.
‘Safe and effective SNS applications for young people: considerations in building social networking
applications for under 19s’ aims to build a coherent foundation to support public and third-sector engagement with SNS through application building by:
Unpacking the reasons why we need to treat young people differently;
Exploring the features of Social Network Sites which lead to both amazing opportunities, and potential risks;
Clearly identifying the risks to young people within the Social Network Site space;
Proposing three levels of response that should lead to safe and effective application building;
The document also includes an outline risk assessment framework.
The three responses proposed are:
Abiding by ethical principles – and designing applications on the basis of principles derived from law, a respect for young people’s rights, and existing principles from professional practice;
Having a clear risk assessment in place for all projects – to make sure potential risks are identified and design decisions or resources put in place to limit potential harm to young people;
Building safety in – and creating applications which empower young people and encourage general safe online behavior.
So, if you’re exploring the use of Social Network Sites to engage young people, whether in positive activities or participation opportunities – or if you’ve got experience of e-safety or Social Network Site applications please do take a look at the ‘Safe and Effective SNS for young people’ working paper and share your reflections, questions and feedback.
Exploring further This first public draft of the paper is hopefully just a starting point of a deeper exploration on building positive SNS applications. In particular:
The ISP/Plings project will be seeking to operationalise some of the learning in this paper, so it’s proposals, and the feedback and comments on it should have an opportunitity to be explored in practice over the first half of next year…
If there is enough interest – then I’d love to host a seminar on SNS applications and youth engagement early in 2009 – exploring both this paper, and emerging practice from the field. If you would be interested in taking part do drop me a line (tim at practicalparticipation dot org dot uk) or leave a comment on this blog post.
All comments and feedback on the paper are most welcome. Again, e-mail or comment below…
The last couple of weeks have seen some great activity on the emerging youth work web:
The Federation for Detached Youth Workers have set up a Ning social network at http://detached.youthworkonline.org.uk where they’re sharing video content from their latest conference and fostering some key discussions about the future of street based youth work;
The Critically Chatting Collective (who I may not always agree with… but whose critical perspectives always provide food for thought) have made the move to a WordPress blog at http://criticallychatting.wordpress.com/ making it easier to keep track of voices of youth work dissent.
If you consult young people by running a series of face-to-face workshops then the chances are that after you’ve run the first workshop there will be things you’ll want to adapt for future sessions. Unless you’re working with a very fixed research methodology, you may even adapt the workshop as you go – responding to the prior knowledge and needs of the young people you are working with.
[Summary: A quick look back at 2008, and a look forward to plans for 2009]
Of course, local authorities and professionals working with young people have a duty not only to make sure young people are aware of the positive activities available to them, but also a duty to keep young people safe from harm – and Social Network Sites can be places of risk as well as of opportunity. Which is why public and third-sector organisations engaging with SNS shouldn’t just copy the ‘viral marketting’ and often aggressive tactics of commercial SNS application builders – but need to develop a clear ethical and risk assessment framework for engaging with Social Network Sites.
Unpacking the reasons why we need to treat young people differently;