Series of nine papers taken from a research Ph.D. They are focused on data about the maintained Youth Service in Wales, collected and analysed from 2002 to 2007 when the Youth Service was first being directed by the Welsh Government policy ‘Extending Entitlement’.  These are being published in 2017 as there are issues which need to be considered due to the reinvigorated political interest in Extending Entitlement. These papers are intended to be a reminder that the translation of Extending Entitlement policy into practice was not a positive experience for the Youth Service in Wales and that there are inherent dangers that a refreshed Extending Entitlement will have just as many negative connotations unless we learn from, and respond to, the lessons from the past. The papers are: 

Extending Entitlement Revisited:

• Paper 1: Setting the scene
• Paper 2: How was the evidence found and analysed?
• Paper 3: The needs of young people and the Maintained Youth Service response
• Paper 4: What did politicians want from the Maintained Youth Service?
• Paper 5: How Knowledgeable were those working in the Maintained Youth Service of its discrete identity during the time of the Extending Entitlement launch?
• Paper 6: Did the Maintained Youth Service have the tools to meet the priorities of Extending Entitlement?
• Paper 7: What was happening in the Maintained Youth Service at the time of Extending Entitlement?
• Paper 8:  What did the Maintained Youth Service do after Extending Entitlement and how was this measured?
• Paper 9:  Findings and recommendations

Paper 5:

It is the intention of this paper to provide an answer about the level of collective knowledge and understanding of the purposes and associated principles and values of the maintained Youth Service held by those who work within it. This will be done to enable a decision to be made about whether the maintained Youth Service, as a clearly bounded group (or groups) of people interacting together to achieve a particular goal (or goals), is meeting the needs of young people and the requirements of government policy in a formally structured and co-ordinated way.

 

The Welsh Government Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015  and the recommendations from Donaldson’s Successful Futures review gives youth work in Wales a refreshed opportunity to prove its value and create for itself a sustainable future.

This article explores the contribution youth work can make to these Welsh Government policy agendas.

Jamie Jones-Mead was awarded a bursary from Youthworkwales to complete this article.

Jamie is a professionally qualified youth and community worker.  He has 15 years’ experience as a youth worker and has worked in a number of settings in Wales, the UK and globally. 

These include in statutory youth services, with young disabled people, young offenders, young cancer patients and significant experience in the third sector.  As well as being an experienced practitioner, Jamie has a particular interest in health and wellbeing, having spearheaded and managed ASH Wales' youth tobacco and smoking programmes, and is currently working in a public health setting.

Between 2009-2011 CWVYS was commissioned by the Welsh Government to facilitate the research and publishing of Youth Work Methodology Handbooks or best practice guides for youth workers in Wales. CWVYS facilitated this work by bringing together voluntary youth organisations and maintained local authority youth services. This document is part of a library of Good Practice Methodology Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. 

Youth work delivers information, advice, activities and support to young people who are learning about the many aspects of Health and Well-being. Youth workers have generally been in the position of seeking the resources to deliver these effectively through their own research. This handbook contains advice, guidance and suggestions for delivering good quality Health and Well-being youth work in one place. It is not meant to be the definitive answer to this but offers resources on most areas in which youth workers engage with young people. The resources are intended to be useable by all youth workers, paid or unpaid, in any setting and for whatever length of time that setting is operational. 

[CWVYS does not represent that the information contained in the handbook is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this website or for any reliance placed by any person on the information.] 

Between 2009-2011 CWVYS was commissioned by the Welsh Government to facilitate the research and publishing of Youth Work Methodology Handbooks or best practice guides for youth workers in Wales. CWVYS facilitated this work by bringing together voluntary youth organisations and maintained local authority youth services. This document is part of a library of Good Practice Methodology Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. 

The purpose of writing this handbook is to highlight the role of the youth centre in the delivery of youth work. The work will look at the origins of youth work and the position that buildings take within that, it will look at key milestones in the history of youth work and will draw together aspects of youth work practice and delivery that contribute to the notion of Fit for Purpose Youth Centres.

We will look at the role that youth centres play in the development of young people. Importantly the handbook will focus on the range of activity that is offered but also how the many functions of youth work come under the umbrella of youth centres. This will not be just about Youth services in a Statutory/Local Authority sense but encompass the voluntary sector, private provision but also highlight the importance of the legal aspects of work, how centres are staffed and impact of that. 

[CWVYS does not represent that the information contained in the handbook is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this website or for any reliance placed by any person on the information.] 

Between 2009-2011 CWVYS was commissioned by the Welsh Government to facilitate the research and publishing of Youth Work Methodology Handbooks or best practice guides for youth workers in Wales. CWVYS facilitated this work by bringing together voluntary youth organisations and maintained local authority youth services. This document is part of a library of Good Practice Methodology Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. 

This handbook has been developed to introduce, explain or expand on existing knowledge and experience in relation to ensuring equality in the provision of youth services.

In seeking to meet the outcomes for young people focussed upon in the Youth Work Curriculum Statement for Wales and the National Youth Service Strategy for Wales, this document encourages consideration of how best to ensure all young people in Wales have equal opportunities to engage in youth services and are treated fairly when they do so. The handbook will also provide youth workers with tools and ideas to raise young people’s awareness of equality issues. These aims should focus on celebrating equality and diversity. 

[CWVYS does not represent that the information contained in the handbook is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this website or for any reliance placed by any person on the information.] 

Between 2009-2011 CWVYS was commissioned by the Welsh Government to facilitate the research and publishing of Youth Work Methodology Handbooks or best practice guides for youth workers in Wales. CWVYS facilitated this work by bringing together voluntary youth organisations and maintained local authority youth services. This document is part of a library of Good Practice Methodology Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. 

This handbook introduces, explains, or expands on existing knowledge with regard to detached and outreach youth work. In seeking to meet the outcomes for young people focussed upon in ‘Youth Work in Wales: Principles and Purposes’ document which is about to replace the Curriculum Statement for Youth Work in Wales (June 2012) and the National Youth Service Strategy for Wales, it offers ideas and information to work with young people who do not use traditional youth work settings but meet on the street, in parks, on the beach or find other social space of their own. 

[CWVYS does not represent that the information contained in the handbook is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this website or for any reliance placed by any person on the information.] 

Between 2009-2011 CWVYS was commissioned by the Welsh Government to facilitate the research and publishing of Youth Work Methodology Handbooks or best practice guides for youth workers in Wales. CWVYS facilitated this work by bringing together voluntary youth organisations and maintained local authority youth services. This document is part of a library of Good Practice Methodology Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. 

This handbook introduces, explains, and describes methods for recognising and accrediting the learning and achievements of young people and the potential role for youth work within this context.

The Handbook offers definitions of accreditation, types of accreditation and how to choose the most appropriate for a particular group, National frameworks, role comparisons and basic contact information. To ensure that it has a practical use for Youth Workers, reference is made to how a type of accreditation is appropriate in a youth work context or how a learning style or curriculum of learning contributes to the pathways of young people’s achievement. 

[CWVYS does not represent that the information contained in the handbook is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this website or for any reliance placed by any person on the information.] 

Short paper to open up a wider debate on the process required to measure the journey taken by the young people, in particular those involved with the different youth work sectors. Considers whether there would be a means by which these tasks and activities could be categorised by using a non-formal Learning Framework. To assist this, a visual interpretation of the structure and principles of the Learning Framework have been developed into a 'Learning Tower'. 

Short paper looking at the principles of creativity and how these can enable the practitioner to work with the young person, using a process of experiential learning through which they can seek solutions to problems with which they may require some adult support.

This article is based on the premise that youth work practice is contained within a Community of Practice (Lave and Wenger. 1998) underpinned by and through experiential learning mirroring a quasi-Steiner approach to learning. The amalgamation of these three tenets make youth work, as practiced mainly by qualified workers, an interesting template that tips the balance of learning in favour of young people rather than based on a more formalized curriculum. The blending of both informal, non-formal and formal approaches within a youth work context is, we will argue, a more holistic approach to the development of learning which is based on the needs of young people.

In a previous article (Gallagher and Morgan. 2013) it was argued that while youth work should be independent of the school system it could offer a valuable contribution that will complement the learning process. This article takes the debate further by suggesting a model that could be emulated in other youth work projects and that might form the basis of collaboration between the formal and informal sectors.