Blog

Youth work is effective in the short term and its positive effects can be felt over a lifetime. Recent research continues to affirm its value in helping young people thrive, stay safe, and engage meaningfully with their communities. But to unlock its full potential, youth work must be better integrated with other sectors - especially education.

What research says about the effectiveness of youth work

Research by the Centre for Young Lives found a positive correlation between participation in enrichment activities and increased school attendance.

Meanwhile, our Youth Provision and Life Outcomes study, commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), revealed that there is a clear association between participation in youth provision and positive short-term outcomes relating to physical health and wellbeing, pro-social behaviours and education. There is also strong evidence that these short-term outcomes are sustained over decades and, compared with non-participants, people who attended youth clubs continue to score more highly for several of these indicators of wellbeing. 

Youth work is also cost effective. By helping young people to connect with education and to manage the transition from adolescence to adulthood, UK Youth found that for every £1 invested in youth work, the return to the taxpayer is estimated between £3.20 and £6.40.

What our recent research says about the interactions between youth workers and schools

Given this context, it’s logical that youth work should be closely aligned with schools and colleges. These institutions are often the first to identify young people in need -whether due to safeguarding concerns, mental health challenges, or risk of exclusion. Youth workers can play a vital role in re-engaging these young people and preventing them from becoming NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training).

Our recent research explored how youth workers interact with other youth work providers and sectors, including education. We ran a series of six case studies where we asked youth workers about their networks and then talked to some of the people they mentioned about their networks to create diagrammatic snapshot of connections. We also delivered an online survey of 296 youth workers and allied professionals, with a follow up single question survey of youth workers across the country. We found that youth workers are well connected locally and often act as key intermediaries between young people and support services. However, when we looked specifically at education, several important themes emerged.

The quality of connections between youth workers and schools vary. On the one hand we were told about excellent communications with, for example, a rapid response from a school to a safeguarding issue that meant it was resolved within two hours. On the other hand, 24% of youth workers surveyed stated that there were some organisations or sectors that they used to interact with but no longer do, including comments that youth workers no longer have interactions with all schools in their area. 

Youth worker engagement with education is comparable to other sectors, not stronger. Survey evidence showed that youth workers most frequently interact with other youth workers, followed by the education sector. Those interactions were primarily to deliver regular services, such as delivering weekly youth-led activities on school premises. For other types of collaboration - like sharing information, referrals, multi-agency meetings, and professional development - education is not more prominent than healthcare or other sectors.

Youth Workers want change: 39% of youth workers identified education as the sector most in need of improved partnership working. They highlighted the importance of schools in identifying young people who need support and called for stronger collaboration.

What might start to make a difference?

Youth workers acknowledged barriers to interacting effectively with schools such as tight budgets, staff turnover, and the wide-ranging responsibilities already placed on school staff. Some suggestions for improvement nevertheless could start to make a difference. 

Firstly, parity of esteem. Youth workers are highly trained and experienced professionals but often feel that their skills are undervalued or dismissed.  Recognising youth workers as essential professionals, alongside teachers and social workers, would be a good start and this could be promoted through shared modules in initial training, or co-delivery of professional development.  One of the case study areas that featured in the research said that their multi-sector Partnership Board deliberately hosted meetings in partners’ premises on a rotating basis to ensure they all see each others’ culture. 

Close working of multi-agency teams in schools to identify young people facing challenges, and build early-intervention and preventative strategies to support them and their families. Too often support for young people comes when they are at a crisis point, but such events do not arise spontaneously – there are often warning signs that support is needed. And part of a support response could be youth activities that connect young people with their communities and families through involvement in youth clubs and other activities.

Improving data sharing. One youth worker said ‘ we [youth workers] often work in isolation because there’s no clear way to share information between schools, social services and healthcare – everyone is working on different systems’. Sharing sensitive personal data has to be done responsibly and securely and caution about doing it wrong can affect what data people feel they can share. Data sharing is also complicated and needs clear leadership and investment but this is something that is being explored by some local and combined authorities and could make interactions between sectors both more efficient and more effective.   

Close working with youth workers to share information about activities in local areas.  In our recent ‘Barriers and Enablers’ research young people said they valued information about what was on in their area when it came from people they knew and trusted – especially schools. They also said that they would be more likely to consider participating if they met providers in person in school first  before going to a different youth club or other space. 

To sum up

Youth work delivers proven benefits for young people and communities. But to maximise its impact, there should be stronger, more consistent connections between youth workers and education providers. Partly this means more resource – but it also means different ways of working to create more activities and opportunities that help every young person thrive.