Commissioned by the UK Home Office, the Positive Futures Case Study Research Project focused on Positive Futures, a national sports based social inclusion programme.
“Positive Futures is a national sports based social inclusion programme aimed at marginalized 10-19 year olds in the most deprived neighbourhoods. Managed within the Home Office Drug Strategy Directorate and delivered locally by a range of agencies, including local authorities, charities, sports clubs and crime reduction agencies.”
The research is a great starting point for anyone wanting to find out more about sports and Social Inclusion.
Recently I have been using the National Youth Agency’s website to research some background into Government Policy in the area of Youth Engagement. The site is a really good place to start with links to a range of useful information.
TALK is the very new “social computing system for Local Government”.
“It’s here to support your projects, communities of interest and working groups by providing spaces where you can collaborate on wiki pages, write a blog or learn more about initiatives that are happening across the sector. TALK is about the people who make the sector work. It’s about bridging the knowledge gap between authorities and projects and it’s about learning more about your colleagues.”
TALK is a mix of articles, discussions and resources; and certainly seems to be an interesting initiative. Whilst the service is very new, as more and more local government thinkers participate, it seems set to grow into a valuable resource.
We have been working to develop ideas for using mobile communications, particularly SMS in youth engagement. One key issue faced by the Fire Service was keeping up continued communication with the young people who participate in a variety of courses, after the courses have ended and they have moved onto other things. The Fire Service is in a position to offer followup courses, or potentially work experience and offers more general support to the young people they have got to know well. Can SMS be used to maintain contact? Will it work better than writing letters or sending emails?
We have implemented and embarked upon a new project recently to answer these questions. We’re using a simple online SMS sending tool to send SMS to groups. Following an initial training period with staff, we’ll be trialling this system and sending regular SMS communications to people on the courses as they start their journey with the Fire Service. We will be publishing our findings and learnings here.
The Connect Youth website is a great place to start researching European projects; Connect Youth is the UK national agency for the Youth in Action Programme.
“Along with the European Commission, our aim is to help young people discover Europe. On our site you will find information about Youth Exchanges and Youth Initiatives; European Voluntary Service, Youth in the World and Youth Support Systems.”
As well as information on all the various Connect Youth programmes, there is a useful database you can use to search for potential project partners.
(Image: http://www.connectyouthinternational.com/)
Our Youth Engagement research has recently lead us to “Ruckus“, an initiative by the National Youth Agency. Ruckus is a free online magazine for young people, who can read the latest issue on the site, or by subscribing via an email mailing list.
Ruckus brings a range of great editorial to, and by young people; the latest edition covers “Girls in Rock Bands”, “Being a peer educator” and takes a serious look at Graffiti Art. Young people can also submit their own articles or ideas via the Youth Information Site.
Published on
11 May 2007 in
People.
The OurOpenSpace project is very new; we’re just at the beginning of our journey. And as we embark on research, creation, innovation and dissemination in the world of Emerging Technologies and Youth Engagement, we’d like to introduce ourselves; the project team.
I’m Katie Lips, a Social Media Evangelist and Creative Technologist and I’ve been working with Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to explore emerging technologies and how they can be used to enhance, and to innovate in youth engagement and non-formal education. So far, we have embarked on a series of micro projects which we will discuss here on this blog.
My interest is as a technology user, blogger and as someone who uses Social Media tools and communities on a daily basis. I work on a range of projects exploring leading edge technologies for my company Kisky Netmedia. In previous roles, I have also devised and lead national technology projects in the education sector, having worked with online diaries and with video projects by young people, way before blogs and YouTube were household names.
I have been researching a range of related projects which I will blog about here, and my aim for this blog is to create a collaborative ideas space where anyone working in the field of Youth Engagement can learn about related projects, and share their ideas and experiences. I am particularly excited about this project and working with the forward-thinking team at MF&RS.
