The Impact of Youth Work in Europe: a Study of Five European Countries
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The Impact of Youth Work in Europe: A Study of Five European Countries Edited by Jon Ord with Marc Carletti, Susan Cooper, Christophe Dansac, Daniele Morciano, Lasse Siurala and Marti Taru The Impact of Youth Work in Europe: A Study of Five European Countries ISBN 978-952-456-301-7 (printed) ISBN 978-952-456-302-4 (online) ISSN 2343-0664 (printed) ISSN 2343-0672 (online) Humak University of Applied Sciences Publications, 56. © 2018 Authors Jon Ord with Marc Carletti, Susan Cooper, Christophe Dansac, Daniele Morciano, Lasse Siurala and Marti Taru Layout Emilia Reponen Cover Clayton Thomas Printing house Juvenes Print - Suomen yliopistopaino Oy Printing place Helsinki Dedicated to all the young people who shared their stories Contents Acknowledgements ............................................. 10 Notes on Contributors ......................................... 11 Jon Ord Introduction ......................................................... 13 Section One: The Context of Youth Work Manfred Zentner and Jon Ord Chapter 1: European Youth Work Policy Context ...17 Jon Ord and Bernard Davies Chapter 2: Youth Work in the UK (England) .......... 32 Lasse Siurala Chapter 3: Youth Work in Finland ........................ 49 Marti Taru Chapter 4: Youth Work in Estonia ........................ 63 Daniele Morciano Chapter 5: Youth Work in Italy ............................. 74 Marc Carletti and Christophe Dansac Chapter 6: Youth Work in France ......................... 86 Susan Cooper Chapter 7: Methodology of Transformative Evaluation .................................... 100 Section Two: The Impact of Youth Work Jon Ord Background to the Research and Analysis of Findings ...................................... 112 Susan Cooper Chapter 8: Impact of Youth Work in the UK (England) .............................................. 116 Lasse Siurala and Eeva Sinisalo-Juha Chapter 9: Impact of Youth Work in Finland ......... 138 Marti Taru and Kaur Kötsi Chapter 10: Impact of Youth Work in Estonia ....... 156 Daniele Morciano and Fausta Scardigno Chapter 11: Impact of Youth Work in Italy ............ 175 Christophe Dansac and Marc Carletti Chapter 12: Impact of Youth Work in France ....... 195 Jon Ord Chapter 13: A Comparison of Youth Work in England, Finland, Estonia, Italy and France ...... 213 Susan Cooper Appendix: Reflections on Transformative Evaluation .................................... 230 Acknowledgements First of all thank you to the many hundreds of young people, who shared their stories with their youth work- ers, without whom this book would have been impos- sible. Apologies to those who wanted their real names recording but our ethical approval criteria prevented this. Perhaps some of you can recognise your stories in here. Secondly we would like to thank Anu Gretschel without whose valuable assistance in the writing of the Eras- mus funding bid this project would also not have been possible. Thirdly we would like to thank the many youth work- ers from the youth work organisations in each of the five countries whose commitment and dedication to the yearlong process of story collection enabled such a rich tapestry of data to be compiled. Sadly due to the conditions stipulated for ethical approval from our university their names and their organisations must remain confidential, but we owe them our gratitude. Fourthly many thanks to Jarmo Röksä and Emilia Reponen for their work on publication under very tight timescales, and to Louise Maskill and Carin Laird for proof reading. We must also thank Erasmus for having faith in our pro- ject proposal and selecting this project for funding in what is a highly competitive field. Finally thanks to the project coordinators for their hard work and commitment to the project. The time scales were tight but we got there. Notes on Contributors Principal Authors Jon Ord: Project leader and book editor. He was a youth worker for many years and is currently an Associate Professor at Plymouth Marjon University. He is the author of a number of books and articles on youth work theory and practice including the 2nd edition of Youth Work Process, Product & Practice (2016). Marc Carletti: French project coordinator. He is an international project coordinator at IUT Figeac, Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University, (France). He is the author of a number of articles exploring the concept of youth work in France including chapters in the 5th volume of the History of Youth Work and Policy in Europe (2015) and Thinking Serious- ly about Youth Work (2017). Susan Cooper: English project coordinator: She was a youth worker and manager before joining Plymouth Marjon University where she is the Programme Leader for UG and PG Youth and Community Work courses. She developed her expertise in partici- patory evaluation during her doctoral studies and has supported a range of youth work organisations in applying it. Christophe Dansac: French project coordinator. He teaches psychology for youth workers as a senior lecturer at the IUT of Figeac. He currently heads the Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire du Nord-Est Midi-Pyrénées and is part of the ONOP-G team. His re- search focuses on youth, volunteering and the non-profit sector, professional identity of social workers. Daniele Morciano: Italian project coordinator. He is a sociologist of culture and ed- ucation and is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Bari (Italy). His re- search interests lie in the area of youth work and youth policies, with a focus on youth participation processes, impact of non-formal learning on youth agency and spaces for youth-driven innovation. Lasse Siurala: Finnish project coordinator. He is Adjunct Professor (Aalto University) and currently a lecturer of youth work at Tallinn University. He is a former Director of the Directorate of Youth and Sport at Council of Europe and a Director of the Department of Youth at the City of Helsinki. His research expertise is on youth work, youth policy and evaluation. Marti Taru: Estonian project coordinator. He is a researcher at Tallinn University and is a member of Pool of European Youth Researchers. He has been involved in youth work and public policy research for over 10 years and has participated in a range of cross-national research projects. He is co-author of the Youth Partnership publication: ‘Needles in Haystacks’. 11 Additional authors Eeva Sinisalo-Juha: Finnish project coordinator. She has worked as a Youth Worker and Youth Work Manager for more than 20 years before joining HUMAK (University of Applied Sciences) where she has been responsible for nationwide research, develop- ment and innovation in youth work. She is writing her dissertation on ‘Human rights education in youth work’. Kaur Kötsi: Estonian project coordinator. He has a Master`s degree (MA) in youth work management and has worked for 10 years as Deputy Director in Estonian Youth Work Centre – he is currently the head of the Youth Work Implementation and Analysis Department, and the Youth Work Quality Development Unit. He has previously worked as School Youth Worker as Youth Participation Manager. Fausta Scardigno is assistant professor of sociology of education at the University of Bari (Italy). As delegate of the University Dean for relations with foreign students and manager of the University Centre for Lifelong Learning she coordinates international research projects to promote cultural and human capital of young migrants and refu- gees. Bernard Davies is a qualified youth worker who has practised in open access youth work settings, taught on qualifying youth work, teaching and social work courses and is active in In Defence of Youth Work. His publications include a three-volume history of the Youth Service in England and ‘Youth Work: A Manifesto for Our Times – Revisited’. He co-wrote the UK context chapter. Manfred Zentner is researcher at the Danube University of Krems (Department Mi- gration and Globalization). He was rapporteur in the Council of Europe international review teams for the national youth policy in Hungary (2007) and in Belgium (2011). His main topics of interest are youth cultures, participation, migration and youth policy. He co-wrote the EU policy context chapter. 12 Introduction By Jon Ord Background to the project This book is the culmination of a European project funded by Erasmus + Key Action 2 in the field of ‘Strategic Partnerships for Youth’, and the title of the key action was ‘Co- operation for innovation and the exchange of good practices’. The project was entitled ‘Developing and Communicating the Impact of Youth Work in Europe’, and the reference number was 2015-3-UK01-KA205-022861. The project aimed to independently identify the impact of open access youth work in each of the following five European countries – the UK (England), Finland, Estonia, Italy and France. It applied a participatory evaluation methodology entitled ‘transformative evaluation’ which collated young people’s own ac- counts of the impact of youth work on their lives – collecting their stories. The data was analysed independently in each of the five countries and then compared and contrasted across them. The lead partner was Plymouth Marjon University, which also lead the UK element of the project undertaken in the south west of England. The project was coordinated in each of the other four partner countries by coordinators from the following universities: Finland – Helsinki University of Applied Sciences (HUMAK); Italy – University Degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro; France – University of Toulouse Jean-Jaurès (UT2J);