Transcript Dia 1 - Tallinn

”Youth Work – forward, backward or away?”
11 march 2010 Tallinn
”Economic crises and youth work
- Effects and survival strategies
Lasse Siurala
Director of Youth
City of Helsinki
Dr. Lasse Siurala, Director of Youth, City of Helsinki
Curriculum vitae
FORMAL EDUCATION:
-Phd Sociology 1994
- docent 1995NON-FORMAL LEARNING:
-First President of Finnish Karate Federation, Assistant General
Secretary of European Karate Federation, Finnish Champion 1974
OCCUPATIONAL CAREER:
- Researcher, Acting Associate Professor of Economic Sociology
at the Helsinki School of Economics 1975-1995
- Director of Youth, City of Helsinki 1995-1998, 2002- Director of youth, Council of Europe, Strasbourg,
France 1998-2001
- Visiting Professor, University of Minnesota, Spring 2009
-OTHER:
- Married: two sons, one daughter
Outline of observations:
•the effects of economic crises on youth
•the effects of economic crises on the funding
of youth work
•how to justify funds for youth work (during
recession)?
•how is a youth service responding to cuts?
•The effects of economic crises on youth
Both public debate and some experts have maintained
that youth unemployment (1) demoralizes young
people’s attitudes at work, (2) makes them passive and
socially isolated and (3) creates a lost generation.
However, empirical research showed that despite
unemployed young people value work, remain socially
active - both in organizations and during their leisure,
maintain their relations to their friends and their use of
alcohol decreases rather than increases. The fear that
the entire generation would be demoralized, or even
lost, was empirically wrong.
”Young people are finding strategies to cope with the
downturn but more help is needed.”
“Weathering the Recession” British Youth Council report
January 2010
Young people are remaining surprisingly resilient in
dealing with the recession, in spite of mounting debt,
lack of money for leisure and fears over career prospects.
Just under two-thirds said they are still managing to save
regularly. A similar proportion of the 12- to 25-year-olds
surveyed have an ideal career in mind and three-quarters
said they are happy with their current situation, such as a
job or course.
But young people are finding it increasingly hard to
remain this optimistic.
Observations:
•Young people are more resistant to negative effects
of economic crises and unemployment than people
tend to think.
•The negative thing is that we cannot argue for more
funds because unemployment quickly destroys
youth.
•On the other hand, the results show that during
recession young people need youth workers and the
social networks created by youth work to keep the
optimism and to hang on the motivation to find
education, training and work.
Helsinki City Youth Department annual budget ,
gross national product 1990-2009 and
unemployment rate 1998-2009
Käppyrä 1
How to justify funds for youth work (during recession)?
(1) Youth work as a complementary partner.
(2) The expertise of youth work in dealing with
problems of youth
(3) The needs based argument
(4)Youth work is about learning
(5) The proven efficiency and quality argument
(6) The economic rationale
(7) The value based or youth rights argument
How is a youth service responding to cuts?
Strategies to cut down expenses and make the ends
meet
•A Counterattack - The Vantaa approach
•Using the cheese-slicer – applicable to minor cuts
•Facing substantial cuts:
-Making priorities
(Clarifying the key services and future strategies)
-Reducing square meters
-Saving from staff expenses
•Other measures:
-Improving productivity, budget follow-up and
evaluation
-Developing services in the net
-Joint use of facilities
-Partnerships, external funds
The Management Challenge
Kaisu Haapala, Director of Youth, City of Oulu, 21.9.2009
• promote capacity to question existing practices
• encourage staff to make changes
• active orientation to develop services
• changing the scope of thinking from narrow to broad
prespectives
• provide opportunities and resources to renovation
• improve the organizational capacity to face change
resistance
• dialogue, support and co-operative spirit
• raise the ability to tolerate insecurity and stress
• cater for the responsibility on the welfare of the staff
• in change processes the directors are very much alone
– they should also look after their own welfare.
”Economic crisis and youth work – forward, backward and
away?”
ECONOMIC
CRISIS
FORWARD
BACKWARD
-Collapse of youth work Ethos
-Fundamentalism
-Hidebound services
-Brain drain
-Loosing influence in the City
AWAY
-Crystallized strategy
-Adaptability
-Innovative services
-Committed staff
-From isolation to new
strategic alliances
-Assimilation into social work
-Merge with school
THE SPEARHEAD PROGRAMS
• Creating a safe and healthy growing environment
– developing local cross-administrative services
– providing services at the net (Netari.fi, IRC –gallery)
– offering everybody a low threshold hobby/activity
– intensive early prevention measures (youth, social and
health workers)
•
Supporting and empowering parents
– Multi-administrative support for (all) parents
• Promoting participation and social trust
– offering leisure activities and support for 9-12 year-olds
– developing an instrument for interactive participation of
young people for those providing services for young
people
– promoting local youth parliaments
– youth work at the school
• Guaranteeing education and integration
in labour market
– reducing school-dropout
HELSINKI CITY YOUTH SERVICES
Objective:
Promoting active citizenship and empowerment of youth
Stucture:
Department of the City
Resources:
 55 Youth Centres, Youth Information Centre, Cultural
Centre, Domestic Animal Farm, The Happi, Theatre,
Nature House, House of craft and visual arts, Traffic
Education Centre, Youth Centre for Girls Only, indoor
skating hall, 21 outdoor skate parks, two camping
islands, residential education centre, Virtual Youth
Centre, cultural events & contests, etc
 School leave activities
 300 municipal professional full-time youth workers
 Support system for Youth Organisations
 Free for a membership card
 Budget 29 Me (2010)
“Children and Youth Welfare Plan 2009-12”
City of Helsinki
Partners:
Health, Social, Education and Youth sectors in
cooperation with the sectors of Sports and Culture
Objectives:
•Creating a safe and healthy growing environment
•Guaranteeing education and integration in labour
market
•Supporting parents
•Promoting participation
Streamlining principles:
•Priority to basic services
•Cultural diversity as richness
•Combating urban segregation
•Transforming services in the net
ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE YOUTH POLICY
“Youth policy is to create conditions for learning,
opportunity and experience which ensure and enable
young people to develop the knowledge, skills and
competences to be actors of democracy and to integrate
into society, in particular playing active part in both civil
society and the labour market”
Lasse Siurala: “A European framework for youth policy”, Council of Europe
Publishing, Strasbourg
Elements of a successful strategy:
(1) Invest early
(2) Combine social and economic goals
(3) Co-ordinate investment across policy
areas and layers
(4) Improve information gathering and
dissemination to facilitate decisionmaking
Barrington-Leach, Canoy, Hubert & Lerais: “Investing in youth:
an empowerment strategy, 2007
Welfare of children and young people in Finland
A good welfare of the majority
of young people
Positive trends
The successful youth
 higher educational level
 low unemployment
’career missiles’, the media and
cultural stars etc
 the sporty, the cosmopolitans,
 increase of total abstinence
Negative trends
Youth at risk
 increase of poverty in families,
with small children
 increase of child care clients
 mistrust in representative democracy
 health problems: obesity, bad
physical condition, insufficient rest,
depression, binge drinking, allergies,
net-dependency etc.
Child care measures, children in
custody, psyciatric services,
substance use treatment
Safeguarding the welfare of
children and young people - A
holistic view
Social work, support services at
the school, work with families,
targeted youth work, mobile
youth work
Care
Kindergarten, day care,
children’s playgrounds,
comprehensive
education, health
services, youth work,
sports and cultural
services, libraries etc
Beveridgean social policy
Neo-liberal risk-policy
Early
intervention
Nordic Welfare
policy
Basic services
General early prevention
0-6 yrs
7-12 yrs
13-18/21 yrs
’Positive welfare
Policy’
Differences of approaches – tentative observations
(1) The meaning of being young: A guided passage to adulthood
or a phase of its own (adult guidance vs autonomy)?
UP2YOUTH, a European research project funded by EU, concludes
its policy recommendation:
►Recognise youth a phase of its own
► Secure experimenting
► Focus on young people’s reflexivity and participation
► Do not make target group containers
Gisela Konopka:
“Our main task is to let young people learn to make decisions on
their own and trust them, without expecting that they will always
make the right decisions, or the decisions we consider right. We
must let them try” in Young Girls: A Portrait of Adolescence. ”...we
see adolescence not only as a passage to somewhere but also as
an important stage in itself” “Requirements for Healthy
Development of Adolescent Youth”, Adolescence vol VIII, number
31, Fall 1973,
page 8.
WHY DO WE NEED YOUTH POLICIES?
• Young people and their problems must be seen as a totality –
linking services and actors.
• Young people tend to drop in between sectors and transition
phases – guaranteeing co-ordination and ‘seamless transition’.
• Co-ordinated activities are more efficient and cost-effective
than singular ones.
• Lacking representation of young people in decision making
should be compensated by special measures to see to it that
their concerns and expectations are met.
• Youth Policy Plan as Youth Investment Strategy: Early
intervention produces best social return of investments. (See
Barrington-Leach, Canoy, Hubert & Lerais: “Investing in youth:
an empowerment strategy, 2007)