Session 4 – 12th April – 10.15 – 11.05

Title of Presentation: Looking for Personal and Social Transformation through Youth Work

Presenter: Bill Jenkins

Organisation: INFUSE - Youth Empowerment Project

Summary:

My presentation is both a report on the practice of the Infuse Youth Empowerment Project (an entirely volunteer-run project of which I am a trustee) and a discussion of the underlying theory.

Our programmes are delivered through residential events that provide an environment in which participants are confident to be in charge of their own learning.  An event will have a theme, for example ‘relating to your parents’, and include workshops using participative techniques (the exact subjects chosen by young people) along with social and physical activities.  The educational methodology relies on the whole event, not just the workshops, to create a safe environment in which participants feel emotionally secure to ask questions and challenge their own beliefs – hence our focus on residential events.  The aim is for participants to be supported to investigate the theme for themselves, reflect on and identify their own values and beliefs, reach their own conclusions and then have the confidence to act accordingly.  The methodology particularly depends on the qualities and values of the event staff.

We have focused for 3 years on events in Northumberland, where we have developed a Youth Action Group that now plans all the events and have trained a group of young people to act as mentors in events.  From January-March we are piloting a new project working with young people in a ‘disadvantaged’ Gateshead estate. 

Our work is significantly different to the youth and regeneration work that I see in the UK.  The current emphasis on community involvement ultimately means involvement in government programmes rather than in the life of the community itself.  Likewise, consultation is seen as a tool to find out what people want so that service providers can deliver it to them.  This approach casts community members as passive recipients of services, dependent on government programmes for change to happen.  Our work focuses on helping young people to identify the actions that they can take to improve their own lives.  This, we believe, is empowerment, specifically that it releases the power they all have to take action.  The Infuse Board consists mainly of youth, social and community workers and teachers who are seeking to deliver more transformative work than the policy limits of their professions allow. 

The conference presentation will outline the methodology of this project; contrast this with common practice in regeneration; and use our pilot in Gateshead to illustrate this approach.