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Youth work practice needs to be guided by a youth work policy that…

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is based on clear and measurable qualitative and quantitative indicators regarding what shall be achieved in relation to young people’s participation, influence and learning.

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Introduction

Young people’s participation, influence and learning are expected core outcomes of youth work. In order to see to what degree these outcomes actually occur and to be able to gather knowledge to be used for further development, youth work needs to set up measurable indicators that clearly describes what should be achieved in terms of participation, influence and learning. These indicators (i.e. points of reference in relation to which actual outcomes can be compared, analysed and assessed) needs to be both quantitative and qualitative.

Please note that working with quality indicators unfortunately lacks tradition in youth work and that it is a complex process. It is therefore recommendable to use existing models or to seek professional guidance when initiating such a process. The charter team would be happy to assist you to establish the right contacts.

References

Guiding questions

To what degree does our local youth work meet this bullet point?

Are there sides/aspects of it that are not reached?
Are there differences related to different activities?
Are there differences related to different groups of young people?
Are there differences related to different youth work providers?
Are there other differences? Related to what?

Specific questions
  • Have we got a clear idea on what characterises quality in participation?
    • Is this formulated in a measurable way?
  • How can we use the core principle that says that youth work should be “created, organised, planned, prepared, carried out and evaluated together with young people” as a basis for formulating measurable quality indicators?
  • How can we measure if young people perceive that they are learning new things through taking part in youth work?
  • How can we know how young people perceive different steps in the participatory process and their learning without asking them in a structured way?
    • How can we do facts based advocacy for youth work as space for learning without a structured follow up on learning?

Self-assessment

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Good practices & tools

  • School youth work

Learn more 

  • City Incubator = Helping make the ideas of youth happen

Learn more 

  • Guidelines: How to implement open youthwork in municipalities and cities (in German)

Learn more

  • ACCOMP+

Learn more 

Future steps

What different steps do we need to take in order to meet this bullet point?

Do we miss any knowledge that we need?
Do we need to take contact with stakeholders not present in our discussions?
Do we need to develop new competences, methods, work processes or organisational structures?
Can we find good practices or tools that might help us to improve this?
Do we have positive experiences from other areas of youth work that we can use also in this case?
Are there other organisations that we can contact and learn from regarding this?
Do we need to take other measures?
Do we have to revise our perspectives and/or priorities regarding youth work?

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