Thanks to the It’s Just Research team at ECS for hosting us on their podcast! In our episode, “Defending the Spirit of Youth Work”, we discuss our recent article Embers and Fragments, on the ghostly aspects of policy making in youth work and accountability. And we also reflect more broadly on our research and the creative, collaborative approaches we tried to take, not only to data collection but also to our writing and our work together. Hope you enjoy listening – search ‘It’s Just Research’ (with the apostrophe!) on your podcast app, or try these links:

Acast

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Embers, and fragments’: social haunting in youth work, impact measurement and policy networks was recently published in Journal of Education Policy. This article discusses elements of contestation and doubt in the context of a policy agenda around impact measurement in youth services. Drawing on our interviews with policy makers, influencers and critics, it combines analysis of a policy network with theories and methodologies of social haunting.

We are delighted to share our first two full-length peer reviewed articles drawing on the data from the research! Both were published over the last few weeks.

First, ‘Capturing the magic’: grassroots perspectives on evaluating open youth work was published in the Journal of Youth Studies in December. This article argues that evaluation encompasses more than measuring outcomes. It draws our original qualitative research with young people and youth workers to argue that evaluation and accountability processes must be practice-informed, youth-centred, and anti-oppressive. While young people and youth workers had often participated in evaluations they found meaningful, some approaches to impact measurement were experienced as too formal, intrusive, insensitive and burdensome. While those of you who know our work will not be surprised by the findings (as we have tried to share these accessibly throughout the study) this article is the fully evidenced, peer reviewed version of the main findings of our study in relation to evaluation in open youth work.

Second, ‘It’s a great place to find where you belong’: creating, curating and valuing place and space in open youth work was published last week in Children’s Geographies. This article focuses less on evaluation and more on the value of youth work, with a particular focus on its spatial aspects. We will write more about this article soon!

Both articles are available open access on the above hyperlinks, but do let us know if you have any trouble accessing them.