I have recently concluded a year long piece of #detachedyouthwork in a coastal area of the North West. I have enjoyed every minute of working again alongside colleagues in support of training and development, alongside considering the range of strategic assets focused detached youth work approaches that has provided me with some insight into establishing this important area of #youthwork in a contemporary sense. Thanks to Henry and Davinia for their observations, engagement and photos to in support of this blog post.
As an overview, it is difficult to avoid the fact that Covid-19 created many opportunities for #youthworkers to invest in both skills and training around detached youth work with young people on their terms and in their chosen environments. This has encouraged a validity and understanding (to an extent) to this often overlooked area of youth work if not #informaleducation.
The organisation and leadership team have been supportive of the process undertaken over the year, enabling a freedom to learn and to develop a stability in practitioner approaches to the experiences the team found on the streets.
There are ongoing challenging in relation to establishing effective detached youth work that have been present over the years and shifts in targeted delivery, funding body requirements and so on, and my intention is to open up the pandora’s box of findings from the perspectives of #youngpeople, youth workers, funding bodies and with insight for those in leadership roles to support an ongoing discussion regarding the value of detached youth work as part of an overall range of services for young people. Notwithstanding, I have been left with many more questions that are valuable to consider developmentally, that hopefully will fuel ongoing discussion around detached youth work, debate towards resolution and hopefully positive developments in the sector. It is my intention to create a monthly exploration of an area of youth work to promote discussion and dialogue.
On the ground, the team invested in time to understand core components and definitions of detached youth work to enable a thorough understanding of the similarities and differences that are likely to arise in this type of work. The discussions were focused on how to transfer key youth work skills from a centre based, schools based and project based offer to working in a #detached youth work arena. A walk and talk with constant review and analysis of how interactions, acknowledgements, early relationship building would be undertaken during a planned extended reconnaissance period. As a marker, often it is easy for colleagues to assume that the skills set (whilst positive) will function the same and the practical experience indicates that the nuances of power and ownership are a dynamic that shifts the way in which the practitioners approach, engage and initiate relationships. The isolation that colleagues experienced in situations even with immediate contact with the centre and limited ability to ‘refer’ to the centre rules was a key principle and take away moment regarding the nature of professional competence. Do we provide enough training and support to understanding self in relation to the work we undertake in youth work, particularly in specialist roles? Are there enough accessible qualifications that embrace detached youth work with enough vigour to create leading professionals in this area?
The team themselves through ongoing and developed relationships arrived with a valuable knowledge and skills set; the professional photographer, the community organiser, the educator that once embraced added such value to the work through utilising the lenses and perspectives that each member contributed. This will be a future post no doubt as an essential detached youth work consideration.
The community as an environment and a large aspect of the recce was another element that created a reflection regarding the wide variety of roles that perhaps do not exist in the same quantity or again, relevance to service leaders as in previous iterations of youth work organisations. I recall the broad range of roles that were once apparent in #communities. The #communityeducationworker, the youth worker, the informal educator, the community development worker, the list goes on somewhat. The identifiable change is the detached youth work team engaging with a whole community during their sessional activity and in our experience have been accessible to adult in the community who were experiencing challenges, the dialogue with the street workers around safety and support to those with complex needs that were equally on the streets. There are pockets of provision that dedicate support and yet the on the street nature of the detached youth work team created opportunities for interaction and on some occasions intervention. This whilst remaining clear on the developed ideology, philosophy, ethical aims determined by the team regarding the definition of the work. This evidences the investment of the youth worker, never just about a 3 hour shift, but about being an active participant in a community and enabled the team to draw the practice link between role and function and responsibilities. I am left wondering if youth work training at present fully embraces how the community education worker values and skills could be complimentary to the detached youth worker?
A variety of methods of utilising technologies to support the work were developed and I will return to this in a future post, but it is important to note that the technology that remained successful was chalk. The ability to leave #hashtag messages about the time the team would be around and to leave #positivemessages to young people was both replicated and used as a form of communication and initiate dialogue. There has been an investment in digital responsiveness that in the experience of the team was superseded by chalk in this case and the focus on the human skills rather than tracking the views, likes and recording progression were of lesser importance than the ability to be present in the community whilst retaining a level of awareness on the important personal, social and political aspects of each of the important things that the team experienced. Using all the senses to develop an understanding of the political impact on the community and therefore young people interactions, the social or community beliefs around young people, develop team approaches for instance and therefore the role is always nudging forwards developmentally and I wonder if much of this awareness is captured effectively or is lost week to week as the important features become norm or commonplace?
There is an on/off patch discussion that took place throughout; young people do not have local boundaries and are free to move to where they may choose to be; there is a tension for a detached youth work team to be present in another ward or district without invitation that is present. What stood out when meeting other teams and informing other organisations was a sense of mistrust and then in discussion the wide range of definitions and aims that specific teams have in their work with young people. Many of the agendas raised were out of sync with both the developed methods and ideological ideas that the team had developed which created both discourse and development. When is detached youth work not detached youth work and who should determine this?
As an initial offer, the year has raised a series of really interesting topics that I will take time to investigate in detail and to an extent by theme to open up the discussion base to continue to understand and develop some clarity for future practice with key questions to the field on validating the profession, the work and developing our approaches together to better understand our work with young people.
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