Quality youth work
===

Dariusz: [00:00:00] Okay. Welcome to the next episode of, UNDER 30 podcast that is brought to you by the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership, and yes, quality youth work of quality in youth work, this is what we are going to talk about today on the basis of the new study that has just been published by the Youth Partnership, and yes, we have one guest today besides Tanya from the partnership.

So let's maybe start with the introductions.

Tomi: Well, hello and thanks for the invitation. My name is to Tomi Kiilakoski. I work as a youth researcher at an institute called Finnish Youth Research Society. And like the name says, it's located in Finland and big bulk of my job is to study youth work. And I've been really interested in different variations of youth work within Europe.

Dariusz: Thank you, Tanya.

Tanya: So I am [00:01:00] Tanya. I am part of the youth partnership team and one of my areas of work has been to cover some research or new research dimensions related to youth work development. And this is one of the projects.

Dariusz: And my name is Dariusz Grzemny. So this is one of the projects. So what's the project about? What's the place of this project within the work of the youth partnership?

Tanya: So, as you know, we are fresh off after the fourth European Youth Work Convention. It's always a big undertaking. So this time over 500 participants were in Valletta at the end of May, beginning of June. And of course, we explored a lot of topics. There was an occasion for us to launch also a new youth work strategies manual and other support material. But, this research actually was proposed to start debates and to support debates and initiatives [00:02:00] on improving quality in youth work. This is something that has been coming from youth workers associations in particular, but also in some countries, even at government level they try to develop some criteria or some basics around how they want to see the quality of youth work happening in their countries, because of course, you can look at macro level, at micro level, at individual level. And so we have asked three researchers, coordinated by Tomi. We also had Sintija Lase on the team from Latvia and Jim O'Donovan. And, part of this research, Tomi will explain how they went about, but we wanted really to bring to the youth sector, to youth work sector a bit more, some more ideas of what are the challenges in relation to quality development, to understanding quality and what people have to [00:03:00] think about putting in place if they really want to make a difference. And then I let Tomi expand on that for sure.

Dariusz: Let's start a little bit with the clarification of terms, because I think this is one of the part in your paper, in your research, just to remind that we are talking about the study on youth work quality tools in 15 European countries.

This is the title of the study. yeah. We often talk about quality youth work or quality in youth work or quality frameworks and all these things. Sometimes, we're are referring to the things that may be existent in one place, but it's not existent or not understood in another, in another place.

What kind of definitions or what kind of, yeah, terms did you use in your research to define basically those very different concepts or those complicated concepts as well. And, is there any European concept of quality youth work or quality in youth work?

Tomi: Well, like you said, [00:04:00] quality is an elusive concept and it's used differently in different contexts really. So usually when we talk about quality, we refer to excellence. So if you do quality job, you do a good job. And that of course is, it's sort of a traditional definition of quality. So when we are talking about quality youth work

we are basically talking about good youth work, but a lot of the scholars of quality, they say that this is actually a poor way to understand quality. And they refer to, you know, quality systems, quality management, quality frameworks, quality tools, quality assurance, and so on.

And so on.

And they are basically saying that there's more to quality than actually doing a good job. So it refers to standardization and doing things similarly and so on. And I think that the, that then we are talking about quality within the European youth work community. We agree that they need to do good youth work. They need to provide good [00:05:00] services for, for the European youth.

But then we are moving towards quality frameworks and policy systems. That's the, the disagreement starts. If you look at European documents, at least for the last 15 years, there's been a constant emphasis that they need quality youth work and, we need to ensure the quality of youth work but it's, it's not often explicitly stated, what do we really mean by doing quality youth work and or ensuring quality of youth work. And the, the aim of this study was to understand how different countries are developing the quality frameworks, what do they really mean by it? What are the main tools of actually doing that, and how is the youth work community itself involved in the, in the process of developing quality? So we didn't really have a fixed starting point in understanding quality.

We are not using criteria and then judging it, certain countries, you know, meet that criteria and others don't. [00:06:00] So, our effort was to understand how do the, how do these 15 countries understand the quality of youth work? How do they, what type of tools do they use?

And so on. So it was really sympathetic. We are not criticizing anyone. We are just trying to understand how, what's a variety in talking about quality. And of course, one of the outcomes of, of many papers published by partnership is that there are, there's different variations within Europe, and this is definitely the case in this study as well.

Dariusz: Thank you. Let's talk about these variations a little bit. Something that maybe surprised you when exploring those different tools in countries that you actually researched.

Tomi: Yeah, So, we analyzed 15 countries. If you will, I'll just name the countries because it's really important that they get the recognition they need. So we studied in alphabetical order, We studied Austria, Belgium Flanders, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, [00:07:00] Sweden, Ukraine, and, Scotland in United Kingdom

and, other countries responded to us as, as well. If the countries didn't have quality systems there, there was nothing we could actually study. So, we didn't use all the answers we could get for this reason. We were quite prepared to, you know, to meet a lot of variety. But I guess one of the things that really came as a surprise was that some of the countries when they told us about the quality frameworks, or the international correspondence told us about, quality frameworks. Some of these quality frameworks were, they're really structural. And, I was a bit surprised that we didn't find that many practical examples. Well, Let me explain these terms. When we were talking about structural quality models, we were referring to those quality models or quality frameworks that

worked on, on a pretty general level describing how you can get finance if you are a youth [00:08:00] organization doing youth work, or describing what is your quality youth work in the national sense. But these were so general that you couldn't really use them to understand your local practice in your local community within a certain youth center, for example, or doing youth information and counseling or digital youth work.

What are the methods you are using to do your youth work? So most of them, they're structural instead of practical, which is of course fine because we need to develop our youth work systems. But then again, there has been constant emphasis on how to, how, how to help youth workers to do youth work on a local level really. So that that was a surprise, perhaps.

And of course one of the one of the things that fascinates me, partly because of my background, I used to study philosophy and philosophers are fascinated with concepts and every time they find something, something messy, something there, certain terms are not clearly defined. So they get really [00:09:00] enthusiastic and it sparks their imagination.

So personally, I found it fascinating that even though we say that they need quality youth work, what that means in practice, brings about a lot of different systems from starting from legislation, uh, criteria for finance, financiation, and moving towards user service that can be used on a local level and everything in between that.

So when we are talking about quality frameworks and quality tools, we are really talking about a lot of different tools. But I guess, you know, it's, it's a bit surprising that so many of them, they're structural instead of practical. Because that's at end of the day, that's, that is really what we want to improve, how youth work is done on a local level and how youth work is provided to young people in Europe.

Dariusz: You also write in the study that, it's quite evident in the study thatyoung people's voices are not really a formal part of defining the [00:10:00] quality tools. And so young people's voice is not really integrated in many examples. There are examples that this, but mainly it's not, what's the reason for that?

Tomi: Yeah, that was one of the things I sort of anticipated, but it was a bit surprising, I guess. Well, let me contextualize a bit. I've been studying youth work for close to 20 years now, and there's, you know, a lot of good work research done in the field of youth work studies. But then again, there are certain themes that are not, are not adequately covered.

So usually when I start researching youth work I try to understand it from within. And at a certain stage, I start looking at, you know, at at different fields of study in order to understand youth work better. And one of the things that are pretty basic in then you are talking about quality is the distinction between, you know, in the world of business, we talk about this dimension as being quality as production.

So if you buy a quality toothbrush [00:11:00] for example, it's a toothbrush that meets certain criteria. So you're sort of given a quality promise that if you buy this toothbrush, you know, there's a certain softness, there's a certain hardness, and so on. So it meets the criteria, and that's one way of understanding quality.

And another way of understanding quality is talking about, once again, using the business terms, talking about customer value. So what does it bring about to users regardless of the criteria. So we sort of transferred this idea to to youth work and talked about youth work as quality of the processs and the quality, you know, as shareholder value or beneficiary value.

And when we started applying these concepts, it became quite evident that actually voices of young people are, are not really present in most of these quality frameworks. Depending on the interpretation, we found, you know, two or three quality frame that actually integrated young people's perspectives within the system itself.[00:12:00]

For example, providing user service and so on. But most of them, you know, they're structural and they're pretty general. So there wasn't really a room for young people in the process. And that of course, it's a bit, it is a bit surprising because youth participation and youth engagement and the inclusion of young people in societies, that is one of the main goals of youth policy in general and definitely youth work in particular.

So you ask why these voices are not really heard in the quality frameworks themselves? It's a good question, really. I think that in most of the cases, you have to start somewhere. And I guess it, it makes a lot of sense to start, you know, by describing you know, what youth work is, and helping, you know, certain countries and certain societies to understand that, you know, if you wanna do youth work, you need to meet these criteria. So it's a good starting point really. [00:13:00] But at a certain stage, of course, we should move towards integrating the voices of young people and understanding what quality means for them and what youth work brings about to their lives.

And of course, if I wanna add up to sympathetic perspective, I would say that youth work is about doing good things to young people and helping them to integrate to society. But then again,you know, if I would adapt to critical perspective, I would ask that, you know, when we are doing quality systems do we really remember this starting point properly enough? And have you done enough to integrate the voices of young people? And I guess you could extend that to European documents as well. When we are talking about quality youth work, we refer to, you know, structures, legislation, youth work training andd so on.

And not really to young people themselves. So that would be, I guess, one of the key findings of this study. And one of the main suggestions for development, really, how [00:14:00] are we able to integrate the voices of young people? How are we able to talk about, you know, beneficiary value in the context of quality youth work?

Tanya: Maybe I can add from my side. I remember that at the convention, especially the final, the speech of the Rapporteur focused quite a lot on the need to prove to others the value of youth work, the value youth work brings to young people and so on. So in a sense, I don't think that the message is not in line with what the youth work community feels. I wonder if somehow this came through in a sense, because it's been so much on the policy agenda. The youth workers wanted it in policy. They wanted to structurally address development of youth work policy. So if you read the European policy frameworks, they often talk about [00:15:00] structurally improve or put in place structures and systems.

And then of course a lot of this groundwork happens at local level and at national level. And if you recall, Tomi, with another study that we just recently published before the convention when we updated the the practice architecture study, there was only one country that had moved in all the countries that we covered.

There's only one country that made the step forward and moved from one category to a better youth work system category. And, the conclusion is that it takes a long time to build that. So perhaps in a sense, it would be interesting, it'll be interesting to see what are the results of the convention, in written and agreed.

But certainly it might be a time for looking back at these basic questions, by the whole community, and focusing maybe [00:16:00] less on these big concepts and then going more to do the groundwork together.

Tomi: I guess it's the nature of European process as well. When we are talking about, you know, within European Union we are talking about 27 countries and within within Council of Europe we are talking about over 40 countries. So that's quite difficult to find a balance and for that reason, it's easier to work on the macro level and talk about structural issues and, and demand them. But then we are talking about quality youth work of course, we are talking about, you know, local perspectives still. So for me that would be one of the things I would like to see in the future, how to better integrate these local perspectives to these structural discussions, to European discussion.

So one of the things that, you know, whenever you are doing research, if the research is of any value it provides, a handful of answers and it, it provides a whole back full of, you [00:17:00] know, different, different added questions. So one of the questions would be to look at good examples within Europe.

How is youth work quality described on the local level? And then if possible, how it contributes to developing local youth policies. And, uh, you know, this might have connections to the national level, might be easier in, for example, my whole country of Finland has 5.6 million inhabitants, so it's easier to do that in Finland, connect local context, the national context compared to, for example, France and Germany with far more inhabitants involved.

So I'm not saying that these questions are easy and like Tanya mentioned, developing youth work systems surely takes a long time and it takes a long effort and there has to be political commitment and there have to be coordinated efforts from the community of practice of youth work so it's not an easy job to do.

But if we don't remind ourselves that [00:18:00] we need these perspectives as well, we might be willing to move, move towards certain direction using certain tools and forget about the other stuff, so, you know, reminding us about the local context and the need to listen to beneficiary voices, the voices of young people, also I mean also the local community.

So one of the things that we talked about, and we wrote a bit about that is, is that there are certain suggestions within the quality studies, which suggested, that we should look at different societal and ecological dimensions about quality and in the world of business

the idea was that then when you are creating a toothbrush you are, you know, it creates certain economic value. But there, there are ecological aspects as well. So it's the production of making it sustainable. What does it bring to society in general and so on. And they're suggesting that these perspectives should be added [00:19:00] as well to the quality discussion. And of course, in the context of youth work, the question is what does it bring to local community? How does it help local community to evolve? How does youth work contribute to ecological and social and cultural sustainability and so on and so forth. So, it would be great to see these perspectives at it as well. But I think you're talking about beneficiary value. Talking about the voices of young people might be easier. And like Tanya mentions, it's, in no way, it's not controversial claim. We all talk about youth participation and we all feel that this theme is really really important.

Dariusz: You actually responded to the questions I wanted to ask you about what's the way forward with this? Do we need a kind of standard on the European level? I mean, there are different things all over the place, different frameworks, formal or informal.

In your opinion, is such a [00:20:00] standard of quality or quality standards needed on European level? Will it help?

Tomi: Well, one of the things that sort of struck me was the fact that there is a quite nice document written by an expert group, and it's published by European Union and it's talking about quality youth work. It was published in 2015. So the book itself is 10 years old now and it's a fairly detailed, and I think it's a proper job.

So it's, it's good job about youth work quality. And out of the 15 countries we studied, I think only one explicitly referred to that document, and that country was Sweden. And perhaps it's not not surprising because certain key members within the expert group have also been key persons in developing youth work in Sweden.

So we already have a quite nice document, but it wasn't quite used. So, I'm not entirely convinced that, you know, [00:21:00] doing a European framework might be the right way forward, if you know, if the countries are not using it. That's one thing, I guess. But then again, I mean, it's easy to say that, you know, a lot of these things are really, really different.

But then again, you have to be reminded, and I have to remind myself also, and I have to remind the audience as well, that when we are talking about, you know, content issues. What are the key elements of the quality within different European countries, there's not that much variation.

There's sort of a common understanding. What could you, [inaudible], so if you may, I would like to talk about eight categories we find. So when we look at these, quality frameworks within 15 countries in Europe, we analyzed those categories that there're mentioned at least five times. So, uh. One third of all the countries at least talked about that dimension and we found the following [00:22:00] categories. For example, promoting learning, promoting wellbeing and safety for young people, working with groups, establishing a professional relationship with individual young people, promoting participation participation of the young in society, promoting inclusion, being youth centered and conscious of the needs of young people.

And then having organizational skills. And these content areas were fairly similar to Youth Pass, for example, and they were fairly similar to what my colleague and friend John [inaudible] found in his study, which was published in 2018. So content wise, I think it's easy to arrive in the conclusions, but finding really effective policy tools, that's a totally different thing, I guess. And one of the things of course that I was thinking is is how to integrate youth work community to the development of these quality standards. And of course, if the [00:23:00] inter quality systems is sort of emergent, if it's in the process of being developed and if the youth work system within the country isn't, you know, developed well enough.

It is been my understanding, not only based on this study, but based on other studies I have done as well, that you know those countries that need European documents most other countries, which are developing their systems and the different countries which have what I call really well developed practice architectures, they already have national legislation, they have their own training systems, they have their own documents and so on. So they might not need European documents and in some cases European document might be, might be a bit different compared to the national ones. So I think it's, you know, it's fair to spell out that, you know, European documents are needed in certain countries and in certain countries they are sort of the extra element which bring about added value, but they are not fundamental.

Or as fundamental compared to those other countries really.[00:24:00]

Dariusz: Thank you. Thank you, Tomi. Tanya, would you like to end up

Tanya: For sure there will be more talks. That's what I would like to see that this study gets picked up and discussed in quite a few networks. There is quite a few established networks by now around youth work development in Europe. I'm thinking of all the work around the European training strategy implementation, the Youth Workers umbrella structure, the Trainer's Guild, all the work around the quality in youth work in the Council of Europe. I'm thinking about the Quality label youth Centers network as well. So there's quite a few spaces where this study can help clarify a few things, take things forward, and maybe new ideas would emerge that, as Tomi explained, would be really useful for countries that seek that kind of support.

So that would be my hope and [00:25:00] my suggestion to read it, to work with it, to work with its findings and to question, maybe to find the role to play in contributing and not always necessarily in looking at what new kind of policy frameworks we might need, but really taking it much more to the practical level and developing tools that can be inspiring across countries and across organizations.

Dariusz: Thank you, Tanya. Thank you, Tomi. We of course, invite everybody to, to read the study, to have a look at it, the link is in the, description of this podcast in the notes. Thanks again and goodbye.