On September 18th, 2024, Mary Cunningham, CEO of the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), spoke at the launch of “Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy for Youth Work and Related Services 2024-2028.” She highlighted the crucial role of youth work in Ireland, stressing the need for recognition, adequate funding, and effective implementation of the strategy to ensure youth work can support young people to reach their full potential.
Good afternoon Minister, Departmental Colleagues, Colleagues from Youth Work Organisations and Young People.
I am happy to join you at the launch of Opportunities for Youth, the National Strategy for Youth Work 2024-2028 and want to thank the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for extending the invitation to me to speak.
Firstly I want to welcome the publication of this document ahead of Budget 2025. I know that officials have worked very hard to ensure that happened.
It’s almost 9 years since I stood on a similar platform at the launch of Ireland’s first ever National Youth Strategy, genuinely full of optimism and hope for the future for young people and youth work in Ireland. Sadly most of that Strategy wasn’t implemented, so I’m much more cautious at the launch of this Strategy today. We know only too well that without strategy execution is aimless and without execution, strategy is useless.
Firstly I want to welcome the use of the term “youth work” in the title. When we talk about the need for recognition of youth work, it is critical that our ‘parent’ department uses the term youth work to describe the work that they fund and that we do. Youth services are a means of delivering youth work, as are youth clubs and so on. Youth Work is a distinct practice, youth services and youth clubs are the settings in which youth work happens.
The sectoral Vision for Youth Work’s aspect on Recognition and Resources calls for ‘The distinctive nature and contribution of youth work is widely recognised and valued within society as a whole and is strongly and explicitly endorsed as a key element of national policy for children and young people, developed and implemented in partnership with the voluntary sector and young people themselves, and adequately funded and resourced’. I hope that the language in the strategy and the commitment to engage with youth organisations and young people regarding implementation is a positive step in the right direction towards the recognition of youth work. Hopefully the battle on the use of the term youth work will continue!
NYCI is proud of the work we did facilitating the voices of young people, youth workers and volunteers and youth organisations to inform the development of Opportunities for Youth. Focusing on the Lundy Model of Participation, I am confident that we provided the Spaces, ensured that participants had the opportunity to express their views, made sure that those voices and views were communicated to the right people, and it will be for the young people and staff and volunteers in youth work organisations to determine if their views were taken seriously and acted upon in Opportunities for Youth.
I want to thank all of those who gave so generously of their time, experience and expertise to inform the development of this strategy. Each and everyone of them heavily vested in ensuring that youth work is recognised for the positive contribution that it makes to improving young people’s lives.
Everyone wants the best for children and young people and aspires to ‘all young people in Ireland are able to reach their full potential and positively shape their own future’, I do believe that we could have gone further in the Vision in this strategy by including ‘through their participation in quality youth work’.
The current Taoiseach, Simon Harris, when he was Minister for Health, was heard to say ‘No Strategy, No funding’ so a strategy should set out clearly the Departmental ambition and the overarching policy framework for the future delivery of youth work in Ireland… it’s my view that articulating the State’s ambition for youth work is still work in progress. I look with envy at the ambition the State has for Early Years Care and Education, which is so clearly articulated that the Taoiseach is talking about it as a key priority!
The three strategic objectives focusing on strengthening the role of youth work and increasing the visibility of youth work, embedding an equality and rights based approach in all youth work provision and structures and ensuring that youth work services are high quality, accountable, sustainable and shaped by relevant data and evidence, align somewhat with the sectoral Vision for Youth Work aspects on recognition, equality and equity and quality, relevance and responsiveness.
It remains to be seen how the actions identified in Phase 1 will make a significant contribution to the achievement of the Strategic Objectives. Looking at them with the most positive lens that I could, I think at best they are in construction terms the ‘footings’ upon which hopefully we will be able to lay a solid foundation on which we can then build ambition for the growth and development of youth work in Ireland.
I do welcome that this strategy has strong links to the Young Ireland Framework and the wider European Youth Policy agenda and makes specific reference to the SDGs.
I want to acknowledge the departmental commitment to ensure that young people had real opportunities to participate in the consultation process. I hope that young people will be involved in a meaningful way in the implementation of the strategy.
It comes as no surprise to those of us in youth work that one of the most striking things from the consultations was the very high level of consistency between what young people themselves and those who worked with them ranked as key priorities, transformative and critical everyday youth work, creating spaces with young people at their heart, supporting young people in their ‘being, becoming and belonging’. Youth work is about working with hope, to try to measure that in numbers will not succeed. We need to continue to use creative and innovative ways to capture the inspiring practices and the impact of youth work.
Young people, youth workers, volunteers and youth work organisations have stated our shared ambitions for improving the life chances of young people in Ireland and that is really exciting… we want to work together to support and empower our young people to make positive choices. To put them in charge of what they want to do and learn and give them every opportunity to contribute to their communities, our wider society and beyond. Let’s use this National Youth Work Strategy to harness and realise the value of youth work practice, build on what we know works and strengthen partnerships so that we can keep creating safe spaces for young people and delivering vibrant, fun and effective youth work that helps young people become the very best they can be.
Importantly this strategy recognises that both universal and more targeted specific work have equal validity and importance, and it states specifically that young people are valued in their own right. It recognises that young people are not simply ‘adults to be’ they are current rights holders who may experience particular challenges to fully enjoying their rights, and therefore require particular policy efforts and supports.
Right now, we have a unique opportunity to ensure that youth work plays an increasingly key role in supporting young people to achieve their full potential, we want to take full advantage of our experience, resources and talents to maximise our capacity to contribute to the implementation of the strategy and to support young people to reach their full potential and positively shape their own futures.
Ireland has a strong, responsive and imaginative youth work sector that supports and empowers young people to improve their wellbeing and life chances. We want all young people to have the skills for life. Youth work has a strong track record of meeting the needs of young people and the communities they serve. Youth work is ready, willing and able to embrace a reform agenda that focuses on making youth work more visible, embedding an equality and rights based approach, providing high quality services shaped by evidence and data, greater integration and partnership, bringing a strong focus to workforce development and engage more with EU and international opportunities.
Every day, hundreds of youth workers and tens of thousands of dedicated volunteers across Ireland are enabling and empowering young people by providing safe spaces, being trusted adults, providing all kinds of opportunities, giving tailored support and building long term relationships. We know and have always known that youth work changes lives for the better, it now seems that decision makers and policy makers think so too.
National Youth Work organisations and the wider youth work sector remain committed to supporting and working collaboratively with the widest range of other stakeholders including government departments and agencies to help young people live their best lives.
For most young people in Ireland life is good, however too many of our young people face acute challenges in areas such as child poverty including homelessness, mental health and well-being and struggling with life post pandemic. We know the groups who are facing additional challenges, members of the Traveller and Roma communities, young people who are LGBTI+, those from minority ethnic communities, those fleeing war and seeking international protection, young people with a disability and other marginalised groups.
So put simply, all young people deserve a better deal.
The energy, enthusiasm, and innovation which comes with youth offers a huge demographic dividend to Ireland and to our world as a whole. It’s essential to unlock that potential through investments in youth work, education, skills training, mental health services and a wide range of opportunities for young people in general. And it’s essential to include and empower youth so that they can play their full part in building stronger and more inclusive and sustainable communities.
This strategy – matters immensely to today’s young people, as it will shape how they will make their contribution to society. It’s in the interests of us all that our society is a more enabling, equitable, and sustainable one than what we have today. The strategy itself emphasises the importance of young people’s ‘present’ as well as their future.
So the challenge will now be the pace of and process for implementation. We are on the cusp of significant change—a new Government, a new Minister, perhaps a new departmental location for ‘youth affairs’ not to mention the regular ‘churn’ of officials and an under-resourced Youth Affairs Unit. Eighteen actions over a relatively short timescale—we really need to get cracking. There must a real commitment from DCEDIY and the other key Departments and agencies to implementation and a concerted effort to lead and drive that implementation in partnership with the youth work sector and young people.
So 2024/25 is an important year, it could also be the year of opportunity for youth work and young people in Ireland and in many regards the timing of this launch couldn’t be better. We know that the Budget hasn’t been totally finalised yet, so we are urging the Minister and your officials to do everything you can to secure additional resources for youth work and for the implementation of this strategy. Those are political choices.
We further urge you that when you get your Departmental budget that youth work and the implementation of this strategy are prioritised for funding. We know that Youth Work can do a lot with a little but the impact of the historical cuts in funding has been immense and we cannot deliver more and better youth work to young people without additional resources and investment. The youth work sector is resilient and resourceful but for how much longer?
We also know that we have an election coming up, either in the next couple of months or early next year, it is important that young people are prioritised in Party Manifestos and in the future Programme for Government irrespective of the composition of the new Government.
A former soccer pundit, once said that soccer isn’t played on paper, it’s played on grass and I thought I might borrow that quote as appropriate for today. Opportunities for Youth, the National Youth Work Strategy is very welcome but young people’s lives are not played out on paper, they are played out in communities and youth centres and youth clubs up and down this country. This strategy will be meaningless if there isn’t a concerted effort to implement it and the youth work sector is ready, willing and able to engage constructively on how best to do that.
Finally I would like to say thank you to the members of NYCI for their co-operation and commitment to the consultation process; to the Board, Staff of NYCI’s for their dedication and passion to influence the strategy and most especially to the young people who informed the strategy.
Working together, I am confident that we can help ensure that this strategy really does deliver Opportunities for Youth so that all young people in Ireland get to play their full part in shaping their futures and a more equitable, and sustainable future for us all.
Thank you.
