Grasp of global issues vital for youth work

In the 2011 Census, 20 per cent of the population in England and Wales identified themselves as from an ethnicity other than White British, up from 12.5 per cent in 2001.

For Tom Burke, global youth work director at the international development charity Y Care International, this demographic shift means youth work needs a "global dimension" to its practice.

"Youth workers have to develop skills to help all young people think about their place in the world," he says. "Often, the issues that were affecting the children in that country will be brought back when they come to this country. There are some who are all from the same country, but one group is in conflict with the other even though they've moved."

Burke believes that youth workers should research the global issues that may affect young people: "An understanding of global conflict, for example, will become as much part of the toolkit of a youth worker as careers advice and sexual health was 20 years ago."

Some are already embracing the kind of approach Burke advocates. In Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, the local YMCA supports nineto 16-year-olds from migrant families through Reaching Communities, a project that offers children a dedicated project worker and drop-in youth activities.

Most of the children the project works with are Polish and Lithuanian. Project manager Nancy Stapleton says language barriers have caused problems. Early approaches to parents inviting children to the scheme have failed to work.

"If we spoke to them in English, they put the phone down," she says. Communication improved when the project employed a native speaker. "She understood the cultural differences far more than we did," says Stapleton.

But recruiting native speakers with the correct skills is difficult. "They're not up to a standard we have from local people who understand our systems - for example, child and adolescent mental health services," she says.

School-related problems

One of the biggest problems due to language is young people not attending school. Stapleton says parents have kept children out of school to interpret for them without realising this can lead to a fine. "Some parents are summoned to court, but don't go because they don't understand," says Stapleton. "We help them make an arrangement to pay the fine."

Also school-related, some parents are unaware that they must complete admission forms when their child enters secondary education.

In Slough, the local YMCA has a drop-in centre catering mainly for Roma Gypsy children. It is aimed at children aged six and above, but YMCA chief executive Colin Young says the rules sometimes have to be bent. "The family nucleus in the Roma community is relatively poor as parents are out doing their own thing - you could easily have an eight-year-old looking after two younger siblings," he says. "If a six-year-old turns up with a four-year-old, we let them both in."

Since opening three years ago, it has built a good reputation with social services and the police. Its Children in Need-funded native Romanian speaker even interprets for social services during interventions with at-risk families.

"For a charity to be involved in something like that shows how well the community trusts us," says Young. He expects the centre will become even busier from January when Romanians and Bulgarians gain the right to work in the UK.

In Newham, east London, the Dost youth centre runs evening sessions during the summer for 11- to 25-year-olds from Afghanistan and India. Youth work programme manager Marian Spiers says they encourage the children to talk to each other about their backgrounds.

Dost also tries to introduce the young people to life in the UK: "They might not speak any English or have any concept of what is available, so we try to show them as much as possible," she says. To overcome the language barrier, Dost relies on visual communication, such as drawing pictures to explain instructions.

Consistency is also vital - Spiers has been working with the same young people for more than four years. "It's pretty essential to a lot of their lives," she says.

"If they come to this country themselves, they're put in a foster family placement and may be moved. They may be age-assessed, told they're older than they said they were, taken out of school and put into college and their own flat when they're 16 or 17 years old. A lot of them are quite isolated."

Lessons from abroad

Prince's Trust team leader Frank Fallon explains how going abroad with the International Citizen Service helped him support young people in the UK

"I lead a 12-week project in Brighton and Hove for 16- to 25-year-olds not in education, training or employment. It's a self-development programme that aims to help them find a job. They have had sheltered lives as many were born in Shoreham and have not left the area.

At 21, I was in a similar situation. Unemployed and without qualifications, I did a Prince's Trust course. This led to a voluntary placement in Zambia, where I learnt how to develop youth programmes.

The techniques I use in Shoreham are based on those in Zambia. There, we used more informal education, energisers and activities around songs and dancing. Bringing that back made a real impact. I don't use flip charts - my course is more active and participatory.

I get the young people to sing and dance during different tasks. The final one is public speaking. Rather than standing and talking, we practice by reading out speeches that may involve dancing. We act out film scripts or do role-plays in different accents. When they come to do their final speech, it's much easier to speak after all the dancing around.

At first it's daunting for the young people because it's new. But I explain I'm passionate about what I learnt in another country, so they give it a go.

We show the young people there's a whole world out there. It helps them gain employment, as employers look for experience.

Young people may only know certain ways of doing things, but if they can speak to different sorts of people, it helps. I want young people to realise experiencing difference can contribute to what you do in the future."