Digital Youth Work

This section will showcase my findings on my second research question.

Is there potential for youth work online?

To answer this question I will analyse examples of existing projects which have an online presence working with young people and examine the levels of participation and conformity to youth work principles they hold. I will then exam models of participation and attempt to adapt my own interpretation of what I think participation within online youth work looks like. Firstly, I think I should elaborate on the ambiguous term that is “Youth Work.”

Youth work can take many different forms. In its most simplistic form, youth work begins from where young people are starting (Davis, 2005). In other words, it starts from where young people are at. Youth work seeks to enable participation through the services it provides. These services include education, information and advice, media and health services. Youth work is also based on voluntary participation from young people. “To conform to the voluntary principle of youth work, youth workers offer services to young people rather than deliver them to unwilling or passive recipients (Sapin, 2009: 16). This voluntary principle is what makes youth work so unique as a service. Young people choose to take part because they enjoy making friends, feel relaxed and feel respected in having a mutual relationship with youth workers. “Youth work practice promotes change and development through a commitment to relationships based on respect for young people, listening to them and mutual learning” (Sapin, 2009: 3).

As mentioned before, youth work practice starts from where young people are at, so there is potential for a youth work presence within an online medium, namely, social media.

Online Youth Work

Youth work within an online presence can potentially take many forms. Simple promotion of existing services or events can be posted on a youth projects website to allow young people to hear about it and chose to participate; similarly a service can be promoted to recruit young people by giving them more information from the website. This level of engagement is quite low and is simply informative. Youth work however it is a relationship based profession and requires conversation and discussion.

Netari is a youth project in Helsinki, Finland and is coordinated by the City of Helsinki Youth Department, which is funded by the Education Services. “Youth work in Finland is a formally specialized and independent field, separate from schools, social work and child welfare” (Peltola, 2010: 21).

Netari ran youth work projects and engagement with young people on the social networking site, Habbo Hotel, this was a space where young people could come and hang out in an online youth centre. Youth workers were also available if anyone needed information or advice. The virtual youth centre had a limited opening time between 5pm and 7.30pm and because of the choice to leave at any time; young people came to the service voluntarily. Unfortunately the Habbo Hotel service closed in 2007. Netari is part of a larger National Development Centre for Online Youth Work, which “produces and develops youth-oriented work and activities that can be done with the help of the internet.” It also “acts as an expert and support service by concentrating on increasing information and knowhow related to its area of expertise.” (City of Helsinki Youth Department, 2011). Employees within the centre are trained

At current Netari have two projects online. Demilässä is a discussion board based website where young people can come and discuss and debate topics and answer questions. There is also a Netari presence on IRC Galleria, which is the largest social networking site in Finland. The IRC Galleria Netari page has an open chat room where young people can talk to other young people, as well as talk publicly or anonymously to a youth worker, health professional or police officer if they need advice or guidance on any issues these professionals specialise in. This chat room is open one day per week from 5pm to 7.30pm.  They also have a dedicated site just for speaking to health professional called Verkkoterkkareiden. There a user can message the site about health concerns; however it has a reply delay of 1-2 days.

This service, along with the national development plan is proof that youth work can work within an online medium.

Within the UK there are varying examples of an online youth work presence.

TheSite.org describes their website as an “online guide to life for 16 to 25 year-olds.” They provide “non-judgemental support and information on everything from sex and exam stress to debt and drugs” (thesite.org, 2013). The home page of the website has many different sections such as “Sex & Relationships” and “Drink & Drugs.” These sections have lots of valuable information for young people. They also feature moderated discussion forums and a live chat room. Users can also email the website with any issues they may be having and get confidential advice. Notably this website, as well as many others, contains links to the social networking site of the website. This recognises the use that young people have for this technology and so to not have this connection is missing out on a high percentage of young people. One other useful feature of the website is its “local advice finder” which finds places where young people can go and get advice or guidance in person from a professional, according to their issue. It searches using the geographical location the user specifies and whichever issue or problem they give detail of.

This approach is certainly useful as it allows for a cheap and effortless way to recruit and advertise a service to young people, but it also uses a one way process from youth worker to young person. However youth work is based on dialogue and relationships. It is about young people’s participation, rather than just consumption of information. Because of this one way communication this passive approach may not be completely described as youth work as such.

The Youth2Youth helpline is a service which identifies itself as “the confidential helpline run by young people for young people.” The homepage has a simple layout and the contact details right on the front, making it one of the first things you see. 

Young volunteers aged between 16 and 21 are trained to provide a supportive, confidential telephone and email service for young people under 19 with emotional difficulties who find it hard to communicate with adults and/ or prefer their own age group.

Young people between the ages of 16 and 21 volunteer for Youth2Youth and are trained to provide confidential support and advice to other young people. Since the beginning of the project young people have been “involved directly, deciding on the name and all matters relating to its development” (Kirby, 2001: 280). This is a perfect example of youth work utilising new technology fully. It is empowering both for the young people receiving advice to get given advice by people their own age, but also instils new confidence and independence in the young volunteers who are giving the advice.  It is clear to see this project is young person led, young person moderated and, through adult support, young person supported. .

As well as dedicated services for young people, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter also provide opportunities for engagement with young people. One of the features Facebook holds is the groups’ application. I have experience of working with this feature in my practice. I was working at a youth project which organised community events and the primary method of communication between the youth leaders and the young people in between meetings was through email. However I noticed a lot of the young people either didn’t have email but or had it rarely checked it. So I thought it would be easier if we could use find another methods of communication. At this time Facebook had just released their groups application so I presented the idea to the young people and they agreed to it. We discussed how we would implement it and it was apparent that there was an obviously safeguarding and privacy risk. What we decided to do was for me and another worker to create specific Facebook accounts for the sole purpose of engaging with the group. Within the group I was the “admin” meaning I had control over access and privacy. Facebook groups have three privacy options, which can be displayed below.

Photo reference: https://www.facebook.com/help/220336891328465/#What-are-the-privacy-options-for-groups

As you can see the levels of access vary depending on the type of group you wish to implement. For the group I was creating the privacy was set to private, meaning anyone could join but they had to be added by an existing member of the group. Similarly the group didn’t show up in searches and it was never shown on the group member’s profile. I was then able to message the young people with a form of communication they used regularly, in a safe way.

The above example shows how social networking can allow for engagement with young people. The Facebook group could also be used for receiving feedback through commenting on posts and it could be used to create debate and discussion.

The last example I will examine is Teen Second Life, which is an online role playing game where players are given an avatar and can travel around a virtual world taking part in activities with other users and exploring. A users avatar is a virtual representation of themselves. Usually avatars are fully customisable with physical features such as skin, hair and eye colour as well as changing their clothes and adding accessories. The user has complete control over their avatar, so a Teen Second life user “can create an avatar that is seemingly identical to their physical world persona or one that represents a radically different or impossible alter ego.” (Etengoff, 2011: 4). This in itself could be seen as form of teen self-expression online. Teen Second Life has also been used by educators to deliver a series of workshops on positive body image, using the customization options on the avatars to explore body types (Etengoff, 2011). Teen Second Life allows its users to have creative control over the virtual environment. Young people can create new worlds and share them with their peers.

Etengoff (2011) also raised the issue of vulnerability in Teen Second Life. She notes apparent racial inequalities being expressed between avatars of different skin tone. She also notes “many clinical psychologists discuss the fear that adolescents with low self-confidence and limited social skills may be particularly vulnerable to danger of substituding their virtual life and identity for physical world social interactions.” This is similar to the social compensation noted in the previous section where users will over compensate for their lack of self-esteem by adding more Facebook friends to their social network.

Teen Second Life closed in 2010, however it was the perfect example of young people being creative online and had big capability for educators, especially youth work.

So far I have studied a few varying levels of participation felt in online youth work.

The Finnish example Netari provided good engagement with young people but was somewhat based simply on information being “dispensed” to the young person when they needed help or advice, the same applied with TheSite.org. These approaches are very useful for a young person searching the internet for advice or guidance, however I believe online youth work can go further. Teen Second Life provided high levels of participation but seemed more like a virtual community in its own right than virtual youth work.

We can see that these different approaches have varying levels of participation from young people. I will now examine existing models of participation and interpret my understanding into my own model.

Levels of Youth online participation

There are many models used to measure levels of participation of young people in youth work. The most popular of which is Hart’s (1992) Ladder of Participation. It refers to increasing levels of participation with level 8 being the highest. At this point, young people are the ones who create ideas and take the initiative on a youth work activity. This is the best possible outcome for youth work practice as it allows for mutual respect and shared decisions, which are key values of youth work.

 Hart (1992) p.8

The model was developed from offline practice and therefore refers to face to face interaction, however can this model be applied to online youth work?

It’s clear that there is some room for varying levels of participation of social media facilitated youth work. Davis & Cranston (2008) devised a new model to measure levels of online participation which serves the purpose well, however I feel I have devised a simpler alternative.

The Creation/ Consumption model gives a clearer picture of online engagement through social networking however I think it can be simplified. It was developed with elements of both Hart’s ladder of participation and the model developed by Davis & Cranston. Below is my model of youth work participation within online space.

Promotion: This level refers to offline youth services being advertised or promoted through a website or social networking site. Young people see the information and attend if they wish. Examples of this level include a website for a local youth club or service or a Facebook page.

Engagement: youth workers engage with young people through message boards or blogs, and young people have the facility to comment, discuss and give feedback on information. Youth workers still retain a lot of control over content. Examples of this approach include a secret Facebook group with users commenting on posts and a message board with youth worker admins.

Participating: this level refers to young people participating in a project with an online presence which has been created and is controlled by youth workers. Examples of this level include youth2youth and message boards

Creating: this level refers to young people creating and managing content and having shared decisions with adults. Teen Second Life was a perfect example of this.

We have explored varying levels of participation in online youth work and identified appropriate measurements of participation. We have acknowledged that the internet and virtual spaces can be an exciting opportunity, as well as a dangerous space for young people. The ability to talk to someone anonymously over the internet may seem like a good thing if a young person feels comfortable talking about an issue; however the worker cannot be truly accountable in knowing the outcome of the situation which they provided advice and support for. As well as this, the young person can choose to leave at any time, which makes both for the ultimate voluntary relationship as well as potential gaps in ensuring safeguarding, a key ethical principle recognised by the NYA (2004).

These findings have found that online youth work already exists and comes in many forms, just as offline youth work. I think if we are to truly engage with young people through social media we must make sure it is:

1.    Safe to be involved with

2.    Attractive to young people

3.    Open to feedback and dialogue.

4.    Fun!