Research and Policy Reports

‘Starting Out’ The National Induction Training Programme for Volunteers engaged in Youth Work Practice provides a framework for the content and learning outcomes for training volunteers.

In response to an identified need, the Practice Sub-Committee of the National Youth Work Advisory Committee (NYWAC) contracted a Project Consultant Team (Louise Monaghan & Siobhán Mc Grory) to support the development of a nationally agreed, standardised programme for training volunteers in the youth work sector in Ireland. This work is part of an overall commitment by the Youth Affairs Section of the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to develop a quality, effective and value for money youth service for young people in Ireland and should be viewed as complementing the Quality Standards Framework (QSF) for youth work. While the QSF is aimed at staff-led youth work provision it also emphasises the importance of volunteer support and development and, therefore, aims to enhance all aspects of youth provision. However, it is also recognised that there are specific needs regarding the training of volunteers and therefore significant work has been invested in developing this standardised programme to support volunteer training in the youth work sector.

This report investigates the negative stereotyping of young people in Ireland. It includes the findings of research into the experiences of young people and their perceptions of how they are regarded and treated by adults, as well as the results of a case study of the stereotyping of young people in the Irish media.

This report presents the findings of a qualitative research project investigating the attitudes of adults and young people involved in youth work towards development and global justice issues, and explores the implications of these findings for youth work practice.

The research provides us with a rich source of baseline information to inform NYCI’s development education practice and advocacy work over the coming years, as well as providing impetus for future research. The findings and recommendations will challenge NYCI and the wider youth sector to reflect on how best they can provide appropriate and effective supports to youth organisations.

Authored by Maurice Devlin and Hilary Tierney, Department of Applied Social Studies, NUI Maynooth on behalf of the NYCI Development Education Programme, National Youth Council of Ireland.

This One World Week resource contains a range of activities including games, role play, small and large group work activities, art-based activities and stories and is divided into four sections. Section One, What is Justice, explores what young people think justice is and opens up these concepts. Section Two, Young People and Justice Systems, looks at young people’s experience with justice systems. Section Three, Global Justice, bring the concept of justice out to global issues such as trade and climate justice, Section Four, Taking Action for Justice, encourages young people to take action on the justice issues that concern them and has a number of activities that help narrow down actions that they can take on issues of injustice.

This resource evaluates the Health Quality Mark (HQ Mark), which is as a health promotion initiative with a view to enhancing best practice and a high standard of quality in all aspects of health promotion in youth organisations. The HQ Mark is a set of quality standards in youth health promotion and takes the form of an award conferred on organisations that satisfy agreed quality criteria. The criteria, eighteen in total, have been drawn up by the NYHP and are based on best practice in health promotion at a regional and national level as outlined in various national health strategy and policy documents, and at an international level.

This resource is a mental health promotion initiative for those working with young people in out-of-school settings. One of the key findings of the project was that the relationship between the worker and young person is central to the goal of promoting mental health. Of note also was the importance of organisational context for the work, the out-of-school settings themselves need to pay attention to policies that contribute to mental health.

This resource has been written for the Youth Work sector and stems from a recognition by NYCI Youth Health Programme and the Child Protection Programme that we have a shared responsibility to respond to the issue of bullying in this sector as a matter of priority. This resource manual is practical, informative and comprehensive in relation to the issue of bullying and offers a range of options in relation to the prevention of bullying and the development of an anti-bullying environment. The resource outlines a variety of responses which may be used to intervene in situations involving bullying. It also provides a framework and process for devising an anti-bullying policy.

This research surveyed over 1,000 young people across the country and offers an insight into the issues that affect young people in Ireland today. The issues covered in the report are Education, Voting Participation, Health, Housing and Personal Finance. Based on the research we have outlined 16 actions which we believe Government should introduce to support and assist young people to achieve their full potential and to better contribute to Irish society.

“Get ‘em Young: Mapping young people’s exposure to alcohol marketing in Ireland.”

This report, launched on June 9th, 2009 is the first of its kind in Ireland as it involves young people recording their experience of alcohol advertising and marketing in their own surroundings. NYCI believes that the startling thing about this research is that it shows the level to which young people are subjected to alcohol products from an array of media channels in Ireland and demonstrates that current policies are not working to protect them from pervasive advertising and marketing of alcohol.

Targeted at both the youth service and the arts sector, IN2 is a resource for anyone interested in developing the arts in youth work. It includes information, opportunities and resource details, case studies and analysis of policy and practice in the area of youth arts and is both stimulating and challenging.