Discussion forum re spaces
Summary
We started by identifying the types of shared spaces we work in and the vast number of issues this can bring about, from issues of time and equipment to safeguarding concerns and the ‘stigma of space’. This raised some fundamental questions around what would make something a ‘youth specific’ space then, and if detached youth work was able to create spaces, or if youth work was about the relationships within ‘any’ space. If youth work is about the relationships, then the quality of the space shouldn’t matter, but there are pros and cons of having a homely ‘lower quality’ youth space versus a flashy new place to work.
We discussed what could be considered youth work, in any space, and closed by attempting to identify how youth workers could share spaces and work in partnership while maintaining professional integrity. We concluded here that youth workers needed to be more pro-active about owning the terms of the relationship and space use. We need to remember that we have some power in these negotiations, other agencies often need us to deliver the numbers and interactions they need to secure their funding, so we should be clear about out terms of engagement from the start. We discussed what would be some good principles to agree to before commencing a partnership:
-That the young people’s engagement must be voluntary
-That we do not function to ‘report back’ and monitor attendance or engagement (or more likely non-engagement) where it may result in adverse consequences for young clients
-Anti-oppressive principles underpinning work (no racism etc)
We decided that the next meeting will further explore the idea of positive partnerships for youth work, and will have a 2 hour reflection space and a 1 hour space to develop solutions. We’d love to see more workers from London attend!
Attendees
Colin Bent
Sarah Constable
Simon Bailey
Osei Pola-Samuels
Eleen Wilson
Yara Mirdad
Becca Nutley
Antony Parris
Alifiya Khan
Rys Farthing
Next topic
Partnerships in youth work, how can youth workers make the most of them? 2 hours of critical reflection, 1 hour of forward planning.
Briefing notes
Reflective space
The difficulties of youth work in non-specific spaces
Shared spaces are particularly difficult, in terms of:
-Facilities and equipment. What do you do with a wee kiddies sandbox during a session with 17 year olds, or when other services break your stuff? Can you share materials and equipment? Are you left with enough space and storage to deliver your service, or are you yet again stripped back.
-Safeguarding. There’s also real safeguarding issues sharing with adult services. Makes some people very ‘twitchy’ when the client groups are very different.
-‘Stigma of space’ – yp can see a building as not for them if the building is seen as a space for vulnerable adults, toddlers or mental health services
-Time. If you create a good space, yp don’t want to leave, but the shared spaces require you to ‘get them out’. You can change the dynamic of the space and make it feel ‘owned’ by young people, but that can raise issues for the times when it’s not theirs. The issue of making it a young persons space when it actually isn’t theirs. Affects your relationship with the young people – young people feel your available at that time, for these issues but not ‘youth led’. A positive example of free form youth centre in Germany was provided, which was open 3-10, where older young people had keys, no sessions just lots of youth workshops. Not possible in shared spaces.
-Often these are distinctly adult owned spaces (such as council chambers)? Often we use music and light to create a different space within a space, but that has its limits.
The decline of existing spaces (in terms of number and quality) is problematic. Driving us to towards these shared co-locate services, but this has it’s own issues.
Shared spaces often runs counter to youth work principles. It’s hard to be completely youth led if the times and agendas are driven by building restrains and outcomes frameworks.
What makes something a specific youth space?
What is the signifier of a youth space? Could a pool table or good relationship make any space a youth space? Is the space the nature of the relationship, or is it a physical building. Could we use flash spaces, ‘in need’ spaces or random space and make a quality provision within them regardless of the building? Think ‘detached work principles’ but delivered within a building.
Possibilities and difficulties of detached youth work which creates spontaneous spaces. Funders all to other think it’s for a low level of policing, but it’s meant to be about making a space for positive relationships and interactions. Can that space be used to ‘move young people on’? It’s what funders (mostly) want, but is that what we ought to do? Should detached work be about building relationships so you can politely ask young people to move out of the alleyway.
Outcomes focus really rubs up against the drive of youth spaces. The profession is expected to deliver really particular (and often peculiar) outcomes, while working within youth-owned spaces.
The decline in quality of youth spaces, be they specific or not.
It was noted that a lot of youth specific spaces, but also many shared spaces, are low quality. Examples of basement youth clubs, flooding, temporary porta-cabins etc were provided.
Do young people use flash spaces, or do they prefer homely ones? Many services are low ‘quality’ space in terms of equipment and provisions but feel homely. These tend to be well attended. But is this about poor quality spaces for low-income people? Can we make working class yp feel like flashy spaces are for them, or are we gentrifying spaces and making lower-income young people feel out of place? Is that about gentrification or making working class young people feel at home in them? How do you manage the ‘OK-ness’ of yp breaking stuff if your space is flash? But then are we saying all yp spaces should be trashed so don’t bother making them nice. The balance between making a space feel at home, and safe for young people to own and make mistakes in, and making it feel like a high quality space that they deserve is a fine balance
One respondent noted that the flashy centre they went to as a young person created apprehension and difficulty, but were able to claim space with art works and music. Also, ‘free time’ in sessions made the space feel youth led.
Co-option of youth services in to youth prevention/ criminal justice agenda.
Who are our shared partnerships and space?
Schools, PRUs, YOT, After care, Councillors, MPs, Churches, Large charities (Stonewall, St Johns etc), Uniformed youth groups, Co-located spaced generate new partnerships by ‘force’ almost, you are situated next to them.
Difficulty managing expectations of partners, in terms of ‘we’ve got the young people, can you get them to do this?’, or co-opting your young people to get the figures for a project they need. Negotiations with partners from the outset are most important – Mencap had a good example of how it was done, trying to find mutual benefit. Dynamics are often actually the individual workers you form partnerships with. The idea that youth work will ‘give’ partners something, that can be codified in an SLA, when actually it’s meant to be about contributing to the space that is being co-created.
What is ‘youth work’ in a partnership or shared space anyhow?
Pressure of voluntary relationships in youth centres and statutory services requirement for commitment. How does youth work maintain it’s distinct voluntary nature amidst these relationships?
Youth workers skills set has remained the same, little investment in genuine up skilling, but expectations that youth workers can now deliver targeted interventions that are part of structured, regulated programmes.
Ever changing nature of non-statutory youth work – we need to chase the pots of money. Youth work loses out in cuts endlessly. Lack of defence from professionalism, there’s no clear definition of what youth work as a profession is, which leaves it vulnerable to the whims of contemporary funding.
The ‘stuff’ we do that holds young people saves money in the long term, but isn’t clearly defined. This makes us easy targets for cuts, but ill advised. People can sort of see the benefits and understand it, but it’s still a vulnerable profession.
Issue a challenge to youth work – very reluctant to professionalise and do the hard conversations of defining ourselves and this has left us vulnerable. Difficult and we ‘loose’ stuff – people and practices. But the converse is that if we articulate what we do, we’re expected to roll it out at scale. If we do some CV support, some welfare rights support work, and we say we do that, then we may be expected to become welfare rights workers for everyone.
How would you advertise ‘youth work’? How can other professions work without great clarity and be seen as respected (from advertisers to lawyers) yet its such an issue for youth work? How do we build an inherent belief and popular understanding about what youth work is so we don’t have to be so dependent on the whim of the day?
Youth work and volunteering
Clearly articulating what it means to be a modern youth worker, skills and training, would be very useful for volunteers?
Difficulty with volunteers and public perception of youth work though. They have some specific skills that they bring, but does it make funders think that youth work can be done for free by anyone.
Issue of a real cycle of low skills, low quality, low pay, poor quality education – how do we ‘grow’ the profession in this context. No one is employing youth workers, how do we recruit and train for quality?
Solutions space
How do we share spaces and work in partnership while maintaining professional integrity
How can we invite other agencies in to the social and physical spaces we use without loosing who we are?
-Creative co-located hubs, BASED on youth work principles (voluntary, non reporting, non hierarchical). Who would fund that? Issues of power and money.
oOther services are there to solve young people’s problems, while youth work is often there while young people are making the mistake and generating the problem. But the issue is that youth work isn’t there to control young people and prevent any possibility of problems, we don’t expect them to behave like angels. Why would we work with angels? But that is hard for other services to understand.
-All services are outcome driven, exercise our power to give them the numbers they need if they work by our rules. Youth workers should negotiate better partnerships. Having more faith in your provision and service, you will get the stats and the partnerships if you do it well, but we need to keep our focus on quality service as we define it. Need to empower youth workers AND youth work line managers as well.
-Could we pilot a programme where youth work principles rein supreme, but other services have been invited to talk?
-It would be an amazing thing to create a youth centre where you can invite the specialisms in, to work together to create a hub, but too often it’s the other way around. Making youth work rules (voluntary, no reporting, anti-oppressive principles) the shared rules, but how do we do that?