Participants, Youth Workers and Course Tutors
Comments made by participants, youth workers and course tutors which highlight the value of participation in Youth Link's training programmes to individual personal and social development:
"The whole course was great – the teambuilding provided us with opportunities to see what worked, the presentation gave us an idea of our own strengths and weaknesses and also through the process I learnt you can’t just walk in and deliver you have to design the programmes – overall it made me a better youth worker.” Course Participant
“Most of my previous experience was in church or faith based groups, and this time I did my placement in a secular group in a ‘paramilitary estate’ – the course prepared me to do that giving me ideas / exercises / activities for programmes and new youth work skills.” Course participant
“I learnt to get to know my own boundaries and to focus on my own safety, how to handle conflict situations and the knowledge that it is necessary to involve young people in programme planning.” Course participant
“I learnt communication, issues affecting young people, conflict situations and child protection. I got a better understanding of all these areas of youth work.” Course participant
“I learnt about the seriousness of having a child protection policy and keeping young people safe. This isn’t something I used to take seriously but after learning more about it through the course I feel have had no choice but to rethink my viewpoint on this and adopt a better practice.” Course participant
"Key learning for me was teamwork, speaking out in a group, learning from different people’s background, the presentation, the booklet on core principles/EDI and new ice-breakers.” Course participant
“It has made me more confident in terms of working with young people and helped me loads in preparation for my interview for Jordanstown.” Course participant
“Some have grown in confidence and developed new ideas to take forward in the youth group. Others have not continued with their commitment to youth work but have been able to transfer these skills elsewhere e.g. within school contexts, through their employment or studies.” Youth worker
“ We had young people involved from the local schools who were on the way out with no qualifications at all – they got a great deal out of this going away with a certificate and this enhanced their employability.” Youth worker
“The learning and skills picked up from the course enhanced their confidence and ability and their level of responsibility and willingness to go further.” Youth worker
“For several of the participants this is often a new venture into the world of education/qualifications. We have had a number of people who have not studied for a number of years. We have also worked alongside participants with additional learning needs. For all these participants the course has given them more self-belief and confidence in their own abilities, many wish to progress on. Course tutor
“The course helped a number of people in my group to gain more confidence to move on into further education whereas before they would not have considered this – one now a teaching assistant, one doing an HND in Social Care and one has a conditional offer for Jordanstown to do youth work.” Youth worker
“Participants in all groups were very genuinely coming from low socio-economic backgrounds and low achievers. Through participation, the training built their self confidence, self esteem, basic skills around how to present themselves and then taking this further to build inter-personal skills and relationships with others.” Staff member
“For me personally I am now more effective in a leadership role as the courses made you more aware of programme development, what’s effective, leadership styles and how to apply these and to reflect on the programmes so you can improve them and your practice.” Course participant
“I first started with YESIP when I was 15 and went on the trainee leader course. I only went on it for a bit of banter and I was very disruptive so I left. I have since started to wise up and have just finished the OCN Level 2. These programmes have made me realise youth work is what I really want to do – in a sense I have been on a journey of discovery.” Course participant
“The course has made me more aware of what youth work is all about. The way the material was presented was very effective and I can now put what I have learnt into action in my work place.” Course participant
“It helped me to understand more about youth work and I got more involved in my club and in planning group work programmes. Course participant
“The course also provides a useful skills base in terms of youth work practice. Many of the topic areas presented challenges participants who were asked to reflect on their own practice and the values that back these up. It also encouraged participants who have come together to network with each other and pool resources.” Course tutor
“Methods and principles are now being applied in their youth work and a greater sense of awareness of good practice also being demonstrated.” Youth worker
“We have been appreciative of the opportunity to enable a number of our volunteers to gain accredited training in youth work. This has built the capacity in our local community and enabled a number of individuals to pursue employment or study opportunities that they desired. In addition, this opportunity for training enabled our club to have a solid base from which best practice could flourish.” Youth worker
“This was excellent for our organisation as we could target people not in receipt of youth work training and this enabled us to raise standards, build capacity of the staff team and, in turn, build quality programmes.” Youth worker
“These courses are essential for voluntary and part time workers to undertake as they provide a framework / context, are quality assured and ensure best practice is adhered to. For many these are the first wrung in the ladder and make a valuable contribution / springboard to higher qualifications.” Course tutor
“The YESIP programme was good as it provided us with the opportunity to bring young people along who would not normally access this type of training. The programme was well delivered and the young people enjoyed it – that was no mean feat given they were difficult to reach young people, the ones who do not normally get involved.” Youth worker
“Lots of the youth clubs we worked with had a strong tie in to the wider community the young people were more prepared to be involved in the wider community and to get involved in a voluntary capacity with other groups.” Staff member
“Nine young people from my youth club completed the Leadership in Youth Work; the training has encouraged them, improved their confidence and our relationship with them. They now stay behind at the end of the night for the debrief session, they have developed a greater sense of ownership and their involvement, participation and engagement in the youth centre have all increased.” Youth Worker
“There was a high level of ‘capacity building’ as a lot of people went through YESIP and have gone back into these disadvantaged communities to work in their own centres as volunteers; they also progressed through, for example, trainee leader, level two and some to Level 3 so this has given them a guided pathway for individual development.” Staff member
The following comments from participants, tutors, youth workers and staff highlight the value of programmes to building positive relationships:
“The important part of what I was trying to get across on these programmes was the importance of EDI principles and peace and reconciliation work and mainstreaming those issues – this took me down the dealing with conflict line and then they could see these are core youth work principles and embed these in all their youth work – building relationships is the basis of all their work.” Course tutor
“I found the session on conflict extremely helpful and useful. There isn’t a lot of situations that arise in my place of work, but I feel equipped to deal with them if they do and more relaxed about it happening.” Course participant
“Conflict resolution was most useful because I was unaware of how to deal with this.” Course participant
“Young people who came to the club and got involved in training have built up better relationships among themselves and this rippling effect is impacting on the wider membership.” Youth worker
“The EDI content illustrated the importance of communication and how conflict quickly escalates and as they also worked in an organisation setting, this helped them to understand how this related to work with young people.” Course tutor
“You are limited by what organisations can feasibly achieve as a lot of them / their communities still live in climate of conflict, violence and aggression and there is a real need to deal with this from a personal anger management level and to get them to think of the wider conflict agenda. The training gets them to look at themselves and how they can make a positive contribution to the community.” Staff member
“The young people undertook leadership training at OCN Level I which they will use to become more active members of the youth centre and to work on our existing and forthcoming community relations programmes.” Youth worker
The following comments from participants, tutors, youth workers and staff highlight the value of programmes to developing a shared vision of an interdependent and fair society:
“The EDI group work sessions enabled you to hear everyone’s views on how they saw the different issues – everyone was open and honest and I really enjoyed this part of the programme.” Course participant
“I found the first day at the course very interesting as we explored youth work values and our own values and this will give me a good foundation to base my work on.” Course participant
“I gained more knowledge of what EDI was all about and this helped me to get my head round this stuff – I had heard people talk about these before but I hadn’t a clue what they were on about.” Course participant
“The young people got a broader view of politics and community relations work which they had not got before and this was good especially given that our club is located on an interface.” Youth worker
“Given the high instances of inter-community conflict that exists within this community, young people worked in partnership with other young people from different areas.” Youth worker
“This was a good opportunity for our volunteers to meet with people from other youth groups and group work was effective in enabling them to learn from and with others.” Youth worker
“There’s been a massive change in our community relations programmes delivered in the centre; we’ve put maybe 20-25 through YouthLink training programmes, four of them are now employed at the centre and a further six are involved in delivering community relations programmes – there are longer term impacts emerging from this training.” Youth worker
“The capacity building work of the project was particularly important in contributing to peace building and reconciliation enabling the groups and organisations to have workers skilled in youth work practices and procedures which is a core part of the youth work curriculum.” Staff member
“Moving the participants to be a bit more politically aware, to recognise politics was important / necessary and to help them to learn about good citizenship, what politics and democracy is about and how this evolves from grass roots level counteracted negative attitudes they had towards politics and the whole political process.” Course tutor
The following comments from participants, tutors, youth workers and staff highlight the value of the programme in helping people to learn about different cultures/communities:
“YESIP was cross community and this was good for me as I came from a very sectarian background / area and this helped me to see that Catholics and Protestants can get on – the YESIP programme started me off thinking well it’s ok for me to meet Catholics.” Course participant
“I learnt about values and beliefs and to treat everyone the same no matter what their culture or religion.” Course participant
“The passion of the instructors and the way they were willing to open up and give examples from their own experiences was really good – they were willing to adapt and fit into our context – all this helped us to open up and explore issues of difference and diversity as well as our own practice.” Course participant
“At the very core level programmes create an awareness of prejudice and stereotyping at a personal, community and structural level and challenges the value base of participants.” Course tutor
“We had three people involved in these programmes which gave them the opportunity to meet people from across the divide, before involvement they would have been very parochial. We are starting to use them now to get them to use the skills and knowledge gained through the youth work programmes to work with young groups from different communities and get them involved in cross community programmes.” Youth worker
“It broadened the horizons of staff and took them out of the enclosed centre based environment with their limited knowledge and ways of practice and showed them there was a lot more to youth work. There were distinct movements in the way people think and practice and this impacts on the young people – the number of community relations based programmes have increased as a result of our involvement in YouthLink’s training.” Youth worker
“The programme challenges participants as at the heart of the training programme is the Model of Effective Practice. This model introduces a method of working with young people that should promote equity, diversity and interdependence. As part of the course we asked groups to develop programme ideas which has demonstrated a greater interest in issues such as cultural diversity.” Course tutor
