Apologies for the crap title but hopefully a better name will emerge as this develops. Thanks for the comments in the previous posts following the weekends UKYouthOnline event. The summary of my learning from the event is that I think there needs to be more debate/consideration about using the web as a practical tool for supporting young peoples development (and also for youth practitioners to work more effectively and efficiently).

With that in mind I said that I would start getting some ideas up for planning a ‘digital youth work strategy’. I’ve already thought about how to approach this and wanted to get early thoughts up, so here goes……

The ’strategy’ itself is going to involve developing an online programme using a ‘positive development’ approach. Once I’ve laid out my own ideas I’m going to explore methods for inviting people to contribute and collaborate into the programme along the idea of creating an ‘open source digital youth service‘.
So here’s the early thinking for the strategy:

• Develop a rationale for the programme
• Develop the practical programme
• Identify relevant online tools & resources
• Develop delivery methods including consideration for supporting practitioners to use the tools
• Invite collaboration to refine the programme
• Consider evaluation methods & methods for user involvement
• Promote and publicise the programme
• Ongoing evaluation and refinement

Now some things to keep in mind:

1. The programme itself will be based on my own previous work, so I’m going to skip a few things that would normally be involved in a strategy such as consultation. Partly because this has already been done in the context of the basic need for such a programme (however it hasn’t been done in terms of providing the programme online but its just a demo, I’m not being funded for it!)
2. You may not wish to use this particular programme – but the real point is to demonstrate a strategic approach to developing a digital youth programme
3. The development itself is likely to be messy – things won’t necessarily be done in the correct order and won’t be all nicely packaged up, because I’m developing it openly. Normally I’d be locking myself away for a few weeks, making a right mess of my office, before getting towards the end when I delete probably a third of ideas, reword everything, reorder everything and then tart it up to be presentable and to fit whatever funding guidelines are required. In this case no fundings involved so I don’t have to worry about that, although sometimes though guidelines actually help!
4. I’m not giving any particular consideration to involving young people in the development of the programme. Its being done openly so of course there’s an equal opportunity for anyone to involve themselves and it would be nice to get some good input, but I’m not going to get hung up on it. Normally of course I would on the basis that it does usually take extra effort and consideration to get young people involved – so in terms of a real strategy it should be a high priority – but this is just a demo.
5. I’m not looking for funding – however I would always argue that developing a programme in order to get funding is the wrong approach anyway. Much better to develop a programme based on something you’re passionate about or that has been identified as a need and then look for appropriate funders. Now some of you are already thinking “how naive!”, and you’re right (for the current climate) – but I stand by this as a principle, and who knows? if the programme ends up as being any good maybe some kind funder will get in touch to support real development and I’ll be proved right
6. So point number 5 isn’t very likely – but if you’re an organisation that wants to develop an online programme along these lines – take it! You can keep me happy by crediting me as the source and make me really happy by sending over a donation towards childrens school fees in Malawi – but that’s up to you, if you don’t care for my happiness just take it anyway!

OK – so on to the rationale!

The programme will consist of 7 ‘modules’:

• Creativity & Expression
• Appreciating the Environment
• Leadership & Teamwork
• Culture & Diversity
• Decision Making & Communication
• Organisational Skills
• Collaboration

Some people may find those modules familiar! They’re taken from the original Young Movers programme on which our current work is based. The brief history of these is that when I started developing Young Movers I took inspiration from some research and programmes in the US. Unfortunately I’ve long lost the details of these but the basic principle was that there are a series of ‘competencies’ that young people should be supported to achieve if they’re to make the successful transition from adolescence to adulthood.

I adapted these and over time refined them further based on courses we ran. The 7th module is a new addition and at this stage I’m really thinking of a module aimed at practitioners/programme leaders to support them to effectively deliver the online programme, so it may well change from ‘collaboration’ to something else.

I was going to go into the rationale for each of the modules but this is already lengthy so I’ll cover that in the next post! In the meantime if you have your own thoughts please do share them – having people to bounce ideas off always helps.

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