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Youthcomm
Post-16 Citizenship activity at Youthcomm
Youthcomm is an 'Integrated Communications Platform', comprising of 3 main components in which young people can involve themselves as volunteers:
- Youthcomm Youthline, A free, confidential telephone and postal service, offering information, support and resources from the Internet, the Youthcomm Database, and CD-ROMs. In the last few years Youthline has spread across the county and beyond through the creation of several new satellite offices.
- Youthcomm Radio, A 24/7 Internet radio station complimented by various Restricted Service License Live FM Broadcasts. The radio has just been awarded a permanent Community FM radio license from the radio regulator Ofcom.
- Youthcomm.org.uk, a web portal and interactive, online community for Young People which also broadcasts Youthcomm Radio.
The key to Youthcomm's success is the involvement of young people at every level of the operation, management and delivery of the project. Youthcomm aims to offer a quality user led service enabling it to develop according to their requests, needs and aspirations. However a high quality volunteering experience with efficient and worthwhile training programmes lies at its heart.
Youthcomm is about a radical new way of delivering services to young people by their peers. It is a way of capturing the benefits of new technology to extend and complement the provision of more 'traditional' approaches to working with young people. Youthcomm has young people at its heart and can only reach its full potential through their involvement. Challenge is one of the keys to success of the project so far. It has become eminently clear that given a challenge worthy of the commitment of a young person's time and energy they will rise to it and become a vital part of the operation of the project whilst learning new skills and gaining valuable experience at the same time.
Citizenship coordinator's top tips for setting up post-16 citizenship activity:
- Consider your motives! For young people to become real and actively engaged Citizens, citizenship activities should be focused on real needs and issues that affect their lives, not adult needs to achieve targets or address adult agendas (although these may well be addressed at the same time).
- Young people and adult workers must work together - any citizenship activity is unlikely to achieve a truly successful outcome without input and agreement from both staff and young people. Citizenship is a two way process.
- Young people should be centrally involved in all aspects of the structure, planning, representation, management and evaluation of the project. A sense of ownership by young people is essential to achieve success. This might be achieved through co-management of the project by young people and adults. Adult staff and workers should be primarily facilitators of the process.
- Be flexible and willing to take risks - young people work best in different ways. They will also have different ideas, aims and objectives. Staff must be able to listen to and actively respond to these needs. These needs may not be met if there is a pre-existing agenda or structure decided for the project prior to young peoples's involvement. Remember, young people have a voice and workers have a responsibility to listen and act upon what they hear, both within and outside of the project.
- Effective communication between adults/staff and young people, built on mutual trust and respect, is essential to the success of any citizenship activity.
How this organisation could help you:
We are always happy to offer any help and assistance (based on our own learning and experiences) over the phone or email. We would also be happy to invite people to come and look round Youthcomm, and talk to members of staff. More importantly, visitors could speak to the volunteers themselves about how they see their role, and what attributes of the project they feel are the most valuable in terms of their commitment and their own learning. We also have some Youthcomm post 16 Citizenship Educating the Educators resource packs available free of charge. For more information please see also the Youthcomm leaflet on post-16 citizenship activity.
Contact information
Name of citizenship coordinator:
Adrian Newman
Citizenship coordinator’s telephone:
01905 721815 or 07814 720 469
Citizenship coordinator’s email:
anewman@worcestershire.gov.uk
Organisation website:
www.youthcomm.org.uk
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