Youth Work is About...

Youth work helps young people learn about themselves, others and society through activities that combine enjoyment, challenge, learning and achievement.  It is a developmental process that starts in places and at times when young people themselves are ready to engage, learn and make use of it.  The relationship between youth worker and young person is central to this process.

Youth work happens in youth centres, schools and colleges, parks and the streets - wherever young people gather.  Youth work methods include support for individuals; work with small groups and learning through experience.

Youth workers can offer young people support, information, education and guidance plus access to other services. Youth work is also about providing opportunities for young people to take part in a wide variety of enjoyable, stimulating and challenging experiences.

It is a good way for young people to meet other young people, try new things, develop new skills, and importantly, have the change to speak out about things that affect young people's lives.  This is done by giving young people a voice at all levels of their engagement with the Youth Service.  The priority is to listen to most, those who are heard the least.  Youth work actively encourages participation and plays an active role in the decision making processes that affect young people's lives.

Youth work offers young people safe spaces to explore their identity, experience decision-making, increase their confidence, develop inter-personal skills and think through the consequences of their actions.  This leads to young people making better informed choices, changes in activity and improved outcomes for young people.

In Leicestershire we focus our work on the most vulnerable young people in the County.  The aim is to be a responsive and flexible service that targets the areas of greatest need.  Early intervention work is done as the needs of the young people demand.  This is done by targeting resources to specific groups of young people who are disadvantaged, vulnerable or at risk of social exclusion including:

Young people not in education, training or work

Young people with disabilities

Young people from black and minority ethnic groups

Young people in or leaving care

Young carers

Young women

Young people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender

Refugees and asylum seekers

Travellers

Young people living in rural isolation

Young parents

Young people who live in areas of deprivation

Youth work helps young people learn about themselves, others and society through non-formal educational activities which combine enjoyment, challenge and learning.

Youth Workers in Leicestershire work primarily with young people aged between 13 and 19, but may in some cases extend this to 11 - 24 year olds.  Youth workers seek  to promote young people's personal and social development and enable them to have a voice, influence and place in their communities and society as a whole.

Youth work is underpinned by a clear set of values.  These include young people choosing to take part; starting with young people's view of the world; treating young people with respect; seeking to develop young people's skills, knowledge and attitudes rather than remedy 'problem behaviours'; helping young people to develop stronger relationships and collective identities; respecting and valuing differences; and promoting the voice of young people.

Leicestershire's Youth Work Curriculum structures the approach to the work across 6 areas:

Participation and inclusion

Creativity and challenge

Equality and diversity

Health and wellbeing

Personal and social development

Education and independence

Whatever styles and approaches are used, the relationships between young people and youth workers are central to the youth work process.  Effective youth work, delivered within the framework provided by Leicestershire's Youth work Curriculum, has at its basis respectful and trusting relationships between young people and youth workers