Trust and respect trump targets and outcomes
Howard Williamson
Friday, July 22, 2011
Some years ago, I published an article with a youth and community worker about his experiences of trying to re-engage disaffected young people in education, employment or training.
He faced enormous organisational pressures to construct a credible account of his success in doing so, when in fact he was achieving little on that front, though arguably a lot in terms of building relationships and establishing stepping stones that might eventually lead to those outcomes. In the way, however, was the cultural resistance of the young people concerned. They had had a bellyful of local initiatives that ultimately gave up on them. Educational measures, training programmes and real jobs were for others; over generations, they had cultivated different ways of living.
A European youth work conference on working with such vulnerable young people was held recently in Antwerp, Belgium. The views of the youth workers who attended resonated remarkably closely with those we had expressed in our article. Working with vulnerable and often disadvantaged young people in economically deprived communities does require a special form of youth work. The conference participants were very clear about some of the core themes that informed their work: acceptance of all young people (if not approval of some of their behaviour); respect for the person (and not a preoccupation with their problems); and the need to display patience and work at the pace of the individual.
They saw their role as providing anchors, compasses and bridges for young people living often chaotic lives with little sense of direction and limited connection to positive structures and opportunities. The critical feature of this work was about being there: promising some continuity in young people's lives and a space for communication and participation. The youth workers defined part of their responsibility as one of advocacy and action to strengthen the networks that may open new doors for young people.
There was little talk of targets, outcomes, indicators and performance, except insofar as these pressures now distorted the effectiveness of their work. A rebalancing act was needed, restoring relationships, trust, process, space and time to their proper place in the equation.
For until the scales are rebalanced, the cycles of delusion to which we referred more than a decade ago – our article was called "The Emperor has no clothes" – will continue. Young people at the margins will remain there, disconnected and uninvolved, while politicians, funders, organisations and some practitioners persist with false claims and a mythical ceremony in which the emperor still has no clothes.
Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan