The Global Youth Work Good Practice Guidelines
Welcome to our Good Practice Guidelines for Global Youth Work which are informed by NYCI’s Vision for Youth Work and overall commitment to the promotion of sustainable development and social justice.
Building on NYCI’s Ten ‘Going Global’ steps, originally developed in 2005 and used by NYCI to deliver quality Global Youth Work ever since, these Good Practice Guidelines are designed to support you as educators and practitioners in your work with young people. The Guidelines inform the downloadable Global Youth Work journey Global Youth Work Self-Assessment Tool which is designed to support you to reflect on your Global Youth Work practice and track your own Global Youth Work journey.
10 Guidelines for Good Practice in Global Youth Work
1. Start where young people are at
Listen to the young people you are working with and start where they are at.
Support your young people and learners to explore their own place in the world, and to identify their interests and concerns at personal, local, and national levels.
Ways to build this into your practice: Based on the PLiNGs compass you can support your groups and learners to engage in these levels:
Personal: Start with the young person’s issue – draw this out through experiences, personal connection, memories, family, friends, what’s familiar. Spend time with this and discuss.
Local: Tease out the issue with the young person at a local level. In the young person’s community, youth group, local area-urban or rural, networks, media, sports, or church. Who has power here?
National: Support the young person to think about the issue at a national level: business, NGOs, media, youth and community organisations, as well as education, laws, policy, Government commitments and progress made. Who has power here?
This is the journey that supports young people to see themselves as part of a bigger system, and to figure out their place within systems, and just as an individual.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
2. Make global connections between the realities of young people around the world
Support discussion around connections at a global level, identifying links between everyday life here in Ireland and young peoples’ lives throughout the world.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- Get curious about globalisation and create a space to open discussion on it. Who benefits? Watch the video on Understanding Globalisation with your group from the GYW eLearning module to support ideas sharing.
- Invite opinions and discussion to create connection with the group.
- Building on the PLiNGS compass, think about ‘Looking Up and Looking Out’. Ask your learners when they look to other parts of the world, do they see similar issues to the ones they have identified personally, locally, and nationally? If you already have a connection with a youth project or a story from elsewhere that is of interest to the young people in your group, you could start there.
- NYCI’s Global Issues Empathy Spectrum may support you to explore and deepen your discussions on these connections.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
3. Highlight and explore issues of global inequality and injustice
Support your learners to identify, connect with and explore the key equality and justice issues of our times.
Place the exploration of core issues like Justice, Power, Inequality at the centre of your work.
Remember, the local is always in the global – it is where we start from.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- Bring in the Five Faces of Globalisation: economic, cultural, environmental, political, and technological. For example, use the activity ‘Find the Face’ that speaks to issues identified in your groups (in the resource Globalisation: The Youth and Truth). In exploring themes such as education, people on the move(migration), access to quality food, fast fashion, and climate change, focus on the justice and equality aspects, both between countries and within countries.
- Remember, the youth worker does not need to be a subject expert. It is about opening a conversation and inviting curiosity.
- Explore the Water Justice Tree resource produced by Trócaire, in collaboration with communities in Malawi.
- Book training that supports you to bring a global lens to inequality, justice and power with Youth 2030, Financial Justice Ireland, Trócaire, Concern Worldwide or any other organisation offering training in this area.
- Check out the Youth2030 One World Week resources which have lots of exercises and ideas to support exploring the key issues: Justice, Power and Inequality.
- Explore the Climate Justice resources here from the Future Generations project at Youth2030.
- It is important here to use a human rights lens; start talking about people before categories: starting with ‘a person who is a refugee’, rather than starting with ‘a refugee’ as a category.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
4. Include the voices and perspectives of young people experiencing the issues under discussion
In exploring issues at a local, national, and global level, draw on young peoples’ lived experiences and personal stories, locally, nationally and around the world to strengthen understanding, and build empathy and to support young people to make their own connections.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- Collaborate with other youth services, with Global South partners, or with International NGO networks engaged with young people and draw their experiences and stories into your work where appropriate.
- Draw on some of the resources featuring young people to support understanding and insight.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
5. Use the most appropriate and effective methodologies to encourage the participation of your young people and learners
What we pay attention to grows: Focus on cultivating the imagination and justice muscles with young people. Draw on creative methodologies to spark their inspiration.
Draw from the rich pool of resources/toolkits in this area. Work on developing your own resources too, documenting the growth journey in your youth project and building a sense of connection with the issue, as a result. Share and workshop with others.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- Use stories or videos and interactive exercises with your group to support them to see their own experiences in the lives of others. Provoke consciousness about the world around us, and our place in it, using playful and interactive tools and resources. See some resources in the Tools to Support section here.
- NYCI’s ‘Taking stock of your approach to group work for Global Youth Work’ should support you in deepening your group work practice.
6. As a youth work practitioner, explore your own values and attitudes
Be aware of your own biases, and work on challenging these, as part of your own growth journey.
Develop and deepen your understanding of racism, including by engaging with racial justice training.
Be committed to challenging discriminatory behaviours within your groups, networks, and organisation, as part of a commitment to racial justice. Racial justice is an aspect of social justice, a core value of youth work practice.
Develop your knowledge on oppression, and on social justice as a core principle of youth work.
Spend time in exploring and understanding the origins of global inequality, from colonialism to globalisation. Importantly, consider what a decolonial approach might mean to your work. This includes acknowledging the enduring legacy of racism, how it impacts your work and systems you operate within.
Consider some of the legacy issues here, including for young people of African descent, growing up in Ireland.
Centre the expertise and knowledge of contributors from the Global South in your work.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- Consider the Critical Reflection Tool developed by IDEA which presents a series of questions that Global Youth Work Practitioners may find useful.
- Consider the Critical Reflection Tool for engagement with social media developed by the Young People’s Committee.
- Book racial justice training with the Intercultural and Equality team at NYCI.
- Take a look at the NYCI e-learning module on social justice.
- Explore globalisation, colonisation and inequality through a human rights lens with the NYCI resource Globalisation: The Youth and the Truth.
- Hear from voices exploring why a racial justice lens is an important part of a Global Youth Work approach, including Racial Justice – An Introduction, the webinar: A racial justice approach to development education.
- Hear the testimony from young Irish people of African descent impacted by stereotyping and dominant stories of the African continent, produced by Love and Care for People.
- Listen back to the Global Youth Work Learners Network, June 2024 session on decolonising youth work.
- Reflect on issues of oppression and Youth Work, including through use of NYCI’s eLearning module on GYW. Check out the GYW eLearning module, part 3, Understanding Oppression in Youth Work.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
7. Encourage young people to imagine a better world for themselves and for future generations
In order to cultivate the imagination muscle, support young people to build relationships. Start with recognising the richness of contributions from people in the immediate community, which may include parents and family members from other parts of the world.
Consider how you can use story to support young people to harness these contributions, so that they themselves can integrate the experiences, perspectives and insights, making their own local-global connections, and creating their vision for a better world.
Actively nurture and promote participation strategies with young people. Create a culture where young people see themselves as political actors and part of the story of change, now and into the future. Grow that imagination muscle.
Use creative, future-visioning games or ideas to support young people in shifting perspectives towards seeking solutions. For example, suggest they create a conversation between them as a ‘now youth group’ and a ‘future youth group’ to explore how they may see the future, and their part in it.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- The Empowerment Deck (link coming soon!) is an important tool here to show step by step approaches to engaging in a changemaking process.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
8. Take action for a better and more just world
Referring back to indicators 1 & 2, building on themes identified there, be explicit with your young people and learners that taking action for a fairer world is a key part of Global Youth Work.
Support your learners, as part of your Global Youth Work programme or project, to take informed action for a more just world.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- Think about how you can ‘action’ the PLiNGS (Personal, Local, National, and Global) and use the PLiNGs to explore an issue and develop an action. See the PLiNGs case study: the Monday Morning Sausage Roll, as an example on how to build a personal to global pathway. Consider the discussion points at the end.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
9. Evaluate your Global Youth Work activities and programmes, and learn from others
Review the system in place to learn from ongoing feedback from young people, volunteers, and staff.
Find opportunities to share your learning within your organisation and the wider youth work community. Importantly, aligning themes identified through a GYW approach to other key areas of the project e.g. UBU.
To support your practice, access training, CPD, resources, speakers, and other supports, and get involved in on-going Global Youth Work events and networks.
Become active participants in networks that include expertise and insights from the Global South. Do this to build connection, capacity, competency, and community.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- As part of your practice, consider running focus groups to gather the voices of the young people you work with, and in this way capture evidence of change brought about by your practice.
- Use tools such as the ‘13 Crucial Truths for Youth Workers’ to help you reflect on your practice.
- Explore tools that can effectively demonstrate the impact of your work, including case studies and stories of change. For example, see case studies under the 15 indicators in the Global Youth Work Journey.
For more information on these tools and resources see here.
10. Mainstream Global Youth Work into your youth organisation’s work
With a focus on justice and addressing inequality, make Global Youth Work a core part of your organisation, and bring other members of staff and volunteers on board.
Develop an organisational policy and/or integrate a Global Youth Work approach into your strategic plan and prioritise Global Youth Work in organisation planning.
Align global justice themes across organisational events.
Bring a Global Youth Work perspective to all aspects of your organisation’s work, for example by using fair trade products, and hosting walking debates on justice and equality issues, and asking questions about sponsorship and funding sources within your workplace.
Ways to build this into your practice:
- This guideline offers suggestions in a range of practical ways to mainstream Global Youth Work into your practice. Please contact NYCI for further support in any of these areas of mainstreaming Global Youth Work into your organisation’s work.
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Contact Information
If you would like to support undertaking the Global Youth Work good practice journey, support is available from NYCI’s Youth 2030 GYW team. For more information, please contact Sally@nyci.ie.