Conference to explore future of youth work
CYP Now
Friday, March 6, 2020
The key drivers of change in youth work policy, practice and skills over the coming decade are to be set out and discussed at a major conference this summer.
The Children & Young People Now Youth Work in the 2020s conference, to be held on 25 June at a central London venue, will feature influential speakers from organisations involved in shaping revised statutory guidance for youth services and the review of youth work qualifications which will set out new routes to the profession and skills for youth workers in the future.
Leigh Middleton, chief executive of the National Youth Agency (NYA), CYP Now's conference partner, will set out the organisation's 10-year strategy to shape the future for youth work and services for young people. He will also bring delegates up to speed with latest developments in how the youth work policy landscape is changing and what this means for the future.
The NYA's director of youth work Abbee McLatchie will, alongside Paul Fenton, national officer for The Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work, outline how training, qualifications and continuing professional developments will change over the decade.
In addition, a session will look at how money from the £500m Youth Investment Fund will be spent to address the growing needs of the sector over the next five years.
Other conference sessions include:
- Measuring the impact of youth work, and establishing a framework of learning, evaluation and continuous improvement.
- How funders, commissioners and employers believe youth work can yield greater influence and win its "seat at the table".
- Effective youth work approaches for schools, and developing links between life in the classroom and life outside the classroom.
- How contextual safeguarding and detached youth work approaches can address serious youth violence and gang membership.
- Trauma-informed youth work in health settings, and building working relationships with health staff.
- How Leeds-based Getaway Girls – winner of the 2019 CYP Now Youth Work Award – has transformed the lives of girls and young women.
- Practice learnings and outcomes from the National Citizen Service that can be applied more widely to support young people.
Keynote talks and practice seminars are CPD-certified.
The conference is designed for policymakers and practitioners in statutory and voluntary youth services, commissioners and senior decision-makers in local authorities, and professionals working for health, education and early help agencies that employ youth workers.
For information on the full conference programme, speakers and exhibitors, click here.
