Youth Work in Northern Ireland:

YOUTH STUDIES IRELANDThese principles are also under threat from an increasingly ‘managerial’ policyapproach. While the government has in recent years (DfES, 2002) officially recognisedthe benefit of youth work, Ord (2004: 57) has argued that ‘at the same time it isdenying the main tool utilised for that benefit – the youth work process’. Smith (2003:79) has warned that ‘organising youth work around concepts like outcome, targets,curriculum and issue’ means there is a danger of losing relationship as a definingfeature of youth work practice through a reduction in the amount of time youthworkers spend with young people.A further challenge to purpose and principle arises from the provision of youthwork in institutional contexts such as school or other ‘contested spaces’. Whiledemands placed on youth workers are likely to increase in future years as moreprofessions see the potential that youth work approaches offer, the voluntary principlemay be perceived by those professions as problematic (Jeffs & Smith, 1998/99). At thesame time, youth workers question whether they can do their job effectively whereattendance is compulsory. As Hand (1995) points out, school-based youth work hassometimes developed ‘negotiated programmes’ or the agreement of a ‘contract’ at thestart of the project which blurs the voluntary issue. Much of the current school-basedyouth work is funded to target specific ‘problem youth’ such as ‘truants’, young people‘at risk’, the ‘disaffected’ and those referred by teachers, parents or social workers (Jeffs& Smith, 1999). In such cases it is at least questionable that participation is voluntary.For youth workers this poses an ethical dilemma; whether to protect and control youngpeople or respect their rights to self-determination (Banks 1999).Finally, there are challenges posed by the emphasis on combating social exclusionthrough youth work. Given that youth work has historically been engaged with botheducation and welfare provision, it is not surprising that it is at the forefront of effortsaimed at tackling social exclusion among children and young people: those fromdisadvantaged backgrounds, with special educational needs, children in care, Travellerchildren, teenage parents, and those caught in a cycle of poor school attendance, loweducational achievement and poorly paid employment (Youth Council for NorthernIreland, 2001). In the light of this, Young (1999) believes it is important for youthworkers to keep focused on the fact that they do not work with young people solelybecause they are ‘in trouble’ or ‘cause trouble’. Indeed, youth work programmes thatfocus on particular issues such as harm-minimisation or alternatives to school, may becriticised for addressing the symptoms rather than the root causes of the problem(Morgan et al., 2000). In this context it is both unrealistic and unfair to construct youthwork as a panacea for social exclusion or other contemporary social problems.Research Method and SampleThe rest of this paper documents some findings from an exploratory research project(Harland, Morgan and Muldoon, 2005) designed to investigate the perceptions ofyouth workers in Northern Ireland of the nature of youth work and of key issues incontemporary youth work practice, including how it applies to and addresses socialexclusion. Four focus groups were conducted (total 42 participants) with youthworkers who were experienced and currently practicing in the field of communityyouth work, including students enrolled on the Postgraduate Diploma in CommunityYouth Work at the University of Ulster. A purposive sampling strategy was adopted and8 VOL. 1 NO. 1 AUTUMN 2006