A Consensus Approach to Youth Work for All
During the summer of 2024 Youth Work Ireland engaged with hundreds of its stakeholders across Ireland to develop a deeper understanding of what ‘Youth Work for All’ means to young people, volunteers and youth workers. The feedback and themes that emerged has been graphically depicted by artist @xkee.ly in a series of illustrations which will be on display at the Youth Work for All conference.
Background to Youth Work for All
Policy Intersections
Youth Work for All aims at creating a deeper understanding of policy context in which universal youth work can grow and succeed. Youth work funding is, in the main, concerned with targeting specific groups of young people. A Youth Work for All appraoch sets out to explore the margins between universal and targeted responses, better understanding the connections between the two and highlight the opportunities for the co-development of these approaches to realise policy objectives. The policy focus for many years now has been on ensuring that there are proper appropriate, focused and targeted supports and services for at risk young people. While this focus is to be welcomed and has borne fruit in terms of programme development and investment, it is now time to focus on mainstream youth work provision and the legitimate needs of the vast majority of youth people who simply desire to experience the youth work offer in their communities..
A Rights Focus
Youth Work for All aims at articulating a rights based understanding of universal youth work, with the centrality of youth work set within an integrated response to addressing young peoples’ aspirations and needs. The linkages between the realisation of rights and such everyday youth work is explored through the Youth Work for All approach and developed through discussions and consultations with stakeholder. In this way we can collectively come to a deeper understanding of the rights basis for the provision of youth work and identify meaningful steps to realise it. A Youth Work for All approcha affirms the sectors long held view that targeted youth work is best and more effectively delivered in the context of a mainstream youth work offer.
A Consensus Process
Young Ireland sets out the objective to “…ensure that young people have a role in the development and delivery of youth services.” Youth Work Ireland as a membership organisation does this through bringing together our constituency through deliberate, consensus building conversations to identify issues of importance, to understand these and identify actions. All of our events’ themes and discussions are premised on young people’s views of youth work and what it should be. The Youth Work for All approach purposely builds towards a deeper consensus on the steps we need to take to realise the rights of all young people to access and participate in youth work.
Championing and Recognising Volunteers
Youth Work for All provides a space to be allies and champions for volunteers and their work in supporting young people. Volunteers are at the heart of youth work and together, we recognise and celebrate the central role of volunteers and voluntary youth work in providing youth work for all. According to the Youth Work Act 2021, youth work in Ireland is primarily provide by the voluntary sector, therefore Youth Work for All reaffirms this delivery model and demonstrate the immense social capital and solidarity that such approach nurtures.
Youth Work for All Concensus Conference 2024
Conference Presentations
Available soon
About our Concensus Conference
This one-day conference will champion universal youth work, which is youth work for all young people, without exception with a focus on the vital importance of volunteer led youth work.
Youth Work Ireland’s National Consensus Conference brings together young people, youth workers, policy makers and researchers to celebrate and advocate for the critical importance of universal youth work. The conference is the culmination of a year of consultations and thinking with key stakeholders in order to launch our campaign for the right of access of all young people to “youth work for all” within their communities.
The conference will launch a contemporary vision for the right of access to ‘youth work for all’ that affirms and demands the resourcing of current provision to supports clubs, youth information services and other universal services and which will be understood by all.
*This event is now sold out.
Speakers and Contributors
- Dr Tobias Flessenkemper, Council of Europe Head of Youth
- Dr Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children
- Liz Canavan, Dept. of the Taoiseach
- Brian Coleman, DCEDIY
- Sean Roche, Clare Youth Service
- Lee Anna Warde, Youth Work Ireland Galway & Irish Traveller Movement
- Ger Cullen, TAG Meath Autism Group, Youth Work Ireland Meath
- Brian McManus, Clare Youth Service
- Gareth Gibson, Donegal Youth Service
- Celine Martin, Léargas
- Deaglán Ó Briain, Dept. of Justice
- Eifion Williams, Tusla
- Cormac Quinlan, Tusla
- Dr Seán Redmond, University of Limerick
- Ruth Griffin, ETBI