What? | Youth Worker | Curious Project 6

Youth Worker

What do you mean by regeneration & renewal?

In the context of working with children & young people Curious Project 6 sees this in its broadest sense:

Physical: The involvement of young people in the development and delivery of their physical environments. for example, designing parks, public art, environmental improvements

Social: The involvement of young people in exploring community and issues affecting communities, what makes a place.

Both these elements will provide a number of outcomes for young people and opportunities for partner to engage and create collaborations.

What are the opportunities to involve my young people in local regeneration?

There are regeneration opportunities happening in a whole host of areas across Pennine Lancashire. Some of these are in targeted areas as part of the Housing Market Renewal Program led by the local authorities and some are opportunities can be found local towns and villages, for example designing a new park or getting involved in clean up activities.

Please visit the ‘About’ to find out more about Regenerate Pennine Lancashire (formally Elevate East lancashire)

This program will create a number of opportunities over the next 10/15 years at a number of different levels and could include:

Get involved in regeneration projects that are already planned or being planned.
Develop their regeneration project ideas from the beginning.
Opportunities to get young people’s thoughts, ideas and opinions into the processes at a local, regional and national level, developing a deeper understanding of the role they can play as young people in the regeneration of their neighbourhoods.
Raise the aspiration of young people to vision a community for them to be proud to live in the future.
Raise awareness of new career opportunities they would never of considered.

Register and visit a list of case studies to inspire you as to what type of projects you could develop.

Who do I contact to participate in these opportunities or develop a project?

With in your local authority area there are a number of partners who have a role to play with in the regeneration process and involving young people in some form will be part of their remit. Below is a list and brief explanation of some of their roles:

Curious Minds delivers the creative Partnership program for Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Merseyside, Halton and Cheshire. They currently work with over 170 schools connecting creative practitioners with teachers and pupils to develop long-term programmes of creative teaching and learning.
Arts Development Officers ADO’s are based within local authorities and support the use of creative methods of delivery and have experience in developing funding bids, working with artists and linking their core program with other colleagues with in the local authority. If you have a project idea, your local ADO will be happy to discuss your ideas. Not all local authorities have ADO’s in place and some are based in leisure trusts that work in partnership with the local authority. ADO’s are support by a national body called the Arts Council England, the North West office based in the Manchester. Areas with in Lancashire County Council also have the support of a County Arts Unit with a team of officers with areas of focus including young people & regeneration.
Pennine Lancashire has a number of Arts Organisations who deliver a wide variety of creative projects across the region and would also help in the development of projects. A number of freelance artists working across the northwest region also work as individuals not directly linked with organisations. Working with an individual artist can provide a bespoke approach working with artists who specialise in engagement in their practice.
Regeneration Officers. These can include a number of roles including Housing Market Renewal co-ordinators, Planning officers and Policy makers. Based with in Local Authorities these officers deal with the day-to-day developments in the regeneration areas and need to engage the community throughout the process.
Neighbourhood & community engagement managers. These roles differ from area to area. In some localities both roles exist and some just have a neighbourhood manager. Community development managers are grass roots workers identifying gaps in service provision in the neighbourhood management areas, neighbourhood managers then work with the service providers to look at ways of changing the way services are delivered to meet local needs.

Register to view the directory in, I’m looking for… and make new contacts.

How can we provide meaningful engagement for hard to reach young people?

What this website offers is an opportunity to enhance curriculum delivery in your unit and provide a mechanism for you to develop new partners and creative projects, which enable young people to feed into regeneration opportunities. Experience of some youth workers has shown that often opportunities for young people to be meaningfully engaged have been missed and last minute interventions through one off consultations don’t really offer meaningful engagement for your groups. How often have you been approach with a questionnaire to aims to gather the views of young people, which need to be done in a week?

This website will aim to increase your knowledge of partners roles and provide a basic steps of project development for you to proactively seek opportunities to engage your groups or help your groups initiate their own projects. Rather than just accommodate a local regeneration officers approach to do a questionnaire with your group in a one off session why not offer to look at how this can be delivered in more creative way using your skills as a youth worker or working with a creative practitioner?

Working in a creative way with practitioners like artists allow for young people to take a journey of exploration in relation to an area of regeneration. The case studies this can include expressing their hopes and aspirations of a neighbourhood they would want to live in through film or performance or really understanding the process of developing a piece of open space through working with architects and planners. The creative mechanisms allow young people to share their voice in arenas, which aren’t particularly youth friendly, such as council meeting and forums. Ultimately working more closely with partners to look at how the process of engaging young people in a meaningful way will offer a unique perspective, which will create a more understood and valued product.

“Creativity develops the capacity to imagine the world differently. We all need an ability not just to cope with change but also to positively thrive on it and engineer it for ourselves”.

What accreditation & careers can young people gain & follow?

There are some established projects, which offer young people the chance to begin careers within regeneration. Register and visit the resources section to find out more about projects like Youth Build.

Working along side creative practitioners on regeneration projects also gives young people the chance to be inspired to think about alternative career paths. One young person on the BIG ART Project initiated his own work experience opportunity at Channel 4.

Volunteering opportunities are increasing through a number of projects including those led by the Princes Trust, working Burnley, but also through a pilot project called Beacon Peer Support Project with Lancashire County Council.

What support or training can I access in this area of work?

Curious Project 6 will also be developing a training program linked directly to this area of work and through the website opportunities will become available.

Register and look out for training opportunities and links to other organisations you can support this

Use the forum to let us know of any training you feel you or colleagues could benefit. Maybe this is an area of work you would like to develop as a lead worker in your district?

How do I know if it has been successful?

There are a number of ways to know you have been successful from formal attainment in school to the personal stories of how young people have moved on through the process of engagement. The trick is to embed systems to capture the evidence, using clear objectives and reflecting through out the journey using interesting ways to collect the information.

Register and see our ‘how to…page for ideas

Curious Project 6