I’ve been involved in youth work for about ten years now as a volunteer, a sessional worker in a local authority youth centre, a placement student and a full-time youth worker in a church setting. As well as allowing others to use the word ‘veteran’ to describe me - which happens far more often than you might think and much to my irritation – it means I’ve seen a few changes in both local authority and faith contexts and to be honest I believe we’re a little lost right now.
Allow me to set this statement in context. When I first became involved youth work (around December 2004) the country was in a relatively strong economic position. I was paid to work two evening sessions each week in the local youth centre and there was never any question about funding for the role, or that of any of the other four sessional workers or even the full-time worker. Additionally I was volunteering to support the church youth work. At this time it was my perception that there were an increasing number of professionally qualified youth workers, and youth work training was becoming recognised as important. When I commenced studying with CYM for a BA (with JNC accreditation) in 2006 academic training opportunities for youth and community workers were, in my opinion, at their peak. At this time, churches were also beginning to recognise the need to focus on young people – sometimes through a genuine desire to engage, sometimes through fear of the future – but either way, youth work roles in church contexts were increasingly common. Churches were finding space in their budget for investment in a youth worker.
By the time I graduated in 2009 there were a healthy number of churches, parachurch organisations and statutory roles available for those seeking employment in youth work. However, at about that time, the economic downturn began to be felt. Finances became strained, budgets were cut, investment decreased and everyone tightened their belt. Alongside this, many youth services became increasingly targeted in their approach and the role of youth workers and the purpose of youth work changed. It was no longer ‘open-access’ provision for young people and many local authority youth services were completely obliterated. Initially (and still in places) the voluntary sector, including faith based organisations and churches, filled these gaps and re-started or continued to provide services that would otherwise have been lost. In some ways this is precisely where I believe the Church should be, at the heart of community life, but I would suggest it is here that we started to lose our way and, like our economy, I am not sure we have recovered yet.
The pressure to meet targets, to be accountable for every activity we are involved in, to quantify the unquantifiable, regularly defend our approach and at times even our role has, I believe, changed the values of youth work in so subtle a way that to most people outside of the work - and to some of us in it - it appears nothing has changed. But it has. We’ve lost the essence of youth work, this has partly been forced upon us, and is partly because we have not stood firm and proclaimed effectively the value of youth work to those who cannot or refuse to see its value.
So having created what is a truly depressing read so far, where is our hope? Where? It is all well and good talking about youth work having lost its way, a view that you may or may not share with me, but if we are lost, how might we go about finding our way again? Well, I think a good way to start is by returning to the values of youth work, equality of opportunity, empowerment, informal education, (some might include incarnation in a Christian context – Brierley etc.) and, in particular, participation. You see, I believe that participation is at the heart of effective youth work and reclaiming and reimagining this will enable us to journey towards something that fully resembles youth work and reassert the unique and transformative role it can have in the lives of young people. While I don’t believe that we can ‘go back to the way things were’ I do believe that there are lessons from the past that can be applied today. Why reclaim participation? How about these four reasons:
1. Participation is an umbrella that holds the other values of youth work together. None of the other values articulated above are possible in practice without participation. Youth work is based on the voluntary relationships of young people with youth workers and without a willingness from young people to engage and be equal participants in the relationship, youth work is impossible. You cannot do youth work without the engagement of a young person/young people. Participation is at the heart of youth work and is most clearly expressed as learning through relationship and in the process becoming more fully ourselves. Jesus desired fullness of life for his followers and such fullness comes from a relationship with him where we learn through experience and reflection and when we participate in life with him. This was how the disciples learned (Lk.10:1-23) and is how we continue to learn what it means to be a follower of Christ today.
2. We frequently mistake attendance for participation and mistakenly interpret that when young people simply ‘turn up’ to activities this is ‘voluntary participation’. For me, the attendance equals participation position is based on a flawed viewpoint. While it is possible to choose to attend, it is a further and separate choice to participate. This misguided confusion of attendance with participation also occurs in the wider church community where regular attendance at worship services is sometimes assumed to equate to participation in the life of the gathered faith community when this is not necessarily the case. I would also suggest that we often settle for a basic or 'tokenistic' level of participation yet congratulate ourselves on our exemplary participatory approach, for example ‘we’ve invited some young people to do a reading in our service…’ In doing so we delude ourselves and fail young people and I believe unintentionally signal to young people that our interest in their involvement is neither full nor genuine.
3. We have a God who takes participation seriously. The incarnation also shows us that we have a God who participates. The ministry of Jesus shows us that God longs for his disciples to participate with him and in his power. The Church as Christ’s body embodies its participation in the world and responsibility for the open and inclusive ministry that Jesus articulated has been passed to that very same Church. This is how we participate with Christ. When we think about participation from a theological perspective we can’t escape the fact that participation involves creating hope from hopelessness which resonates strongly with an understanding of the God who brought hope to the world through the resurrection of Jesus after the darkness and despair of the crucifixion.
4. Participation will transform the Church, young people and you. Participation is about valuing people and recognising their ability to make a unique and effective contribution. The disciples Jesus called to follow him were those rejected by other rabbis (Lk.5:1-11). Jesus had time for women (Jn. 4:1-27) and children (Mk 10:13-16) tax collectors (Lk. 15:1) and prostitutes (Lk.7:36-50). When Jesus stood in his hometown synagogue and read scripture (Lk.4:18-19) he quoted Isaiah 61 clearly identifying himself to those listening as the promised Messiah, but at the same time also describing the nature of his ministry as one of compassion, hope, freedom and ultimately good news. The magnificent transformative power of Christ. It is this ministry that we participate in and we should be inviting young people to participate in too.
It is my belief that our context may have led us to lose our way but this is not irrevocable. I believe we must reconsider and reflect on what participation looks like for youth work today. We need to reimagine and redefine participation for ourselves and consider whether a new model of participation for our contemporary context is required. What do you think? What might this look like for you in your context?
