Youth Work for All
Youth Work Ireland’s “Youth Work for All” campaign is a rights-based, sector-led initiative that champions the right of every young person in Ireland, irrrespective of background or location to have access to a youth service in their community. Developed through extensive consultations with young people, volunteers, youth workers, and local services during summer 2024, the campaign reflects a shared vision for a more accessible and equitable youth work system. It seeks to strengthen the connection between targeted and universal youth services, while highlighting the importance of ensuring that mainstream youth work remains open, welcoming, and responsive to all young people.
At its core, the campaign is about recognising the value of youth work as a space where young people can build relationships, develop confidence, explore their identities, and experience a sense of belonging. It also places a strong emphasis on the contribution of volunteers, who are the backbone of youth work delivery across Ireland.
The campaign also calls on Government to make a sustained commitment to properly resourcing youth services so that every young person can access meaningful youth work opportunities, regardless of where they live or their circumstances. This includes increased investment in youth organisations, support for the recruitment and retention of qualified youth workers, and the development and maintenance of safe, accessible youth spaces in communities across Ireland. By advocating for stronger investment in youth work infrastructure, staffing, and volunteer support, Youth Work for All seeks to ensure that the sector can meet the needs of a growing and increasingly diverse youth population, both now and into the future.
Youth Work for All Poster
Youth Work for All Demands
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 Brochure
About our Concensus Conference
Youth Work Ireland’s National Consensus Conference took place on November 4th, 2024 in Dublin and brought together young people, youth workers, policy makers and researchers to celebrate and advocate for youth work. The conference was the culmination of a year of consultations and thinking with key stakeholders.
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