This straightforward and original text sets out best practice for designing, conducting and analysing research on work with young people. A creative and practical guide to evaluation, it provides the tools needed to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and applied practice. Written by an experienced, erudite team of authors this book provides clear, pragmatic advice that can be taken into the classroom and the field. The book: Provides strategies for involving young people in research and evaluation Showcases creative and participatory methods Weaves a real world project through each chapter, highlighting challenges and opportunities at each stage of an evaluation; readers are thus able to compare approaches Is accompanied by a website with downloadable worksheets, templates and videos from the authors This is the ideal text for postgraduate students and practitioners who work with young people in the statutory and voluntary sectors.

Young people are often at the forefront of democratic activism, whether self-organised or supported by youth workers and community development professionals. Focusing on youth activism for greater equality, liberty and mutual care – radical democracy – this timely collection explores the movement’s impacts on community organisations and workers. Essays from the Global North and Global South cover the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental activism and the struggles of refugees. At a time of huge global challenges, youth participation is a dynamic lens through which all community development scholars and participants can rethink their approaches.

Youth civic engagement efforts have become common across the globe. With the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many have turned to civic engagement methodologies to create opportunities for young people to have a voice in decisions that affect them. With the dissemination of youth civic engagement practice, there is a need to evaluate these efforts to satisfy funders, stakeholders, and participants. As a social innovation, youth civic engagement efforts present unique issues to evaluation and invite innovative and participatory evaluation designs. This volume brings together experienced evaluators, evaluation and youth civic engagement scholars, and civic youth workers to inform evaluation designs for youth civic engagement practice and programs. The book uses the US Center for Disease Control's framework for evaluation process, and explores issues, questions, and choices an evaluator can make when designing an evaluation of youth civic engagement practices. The heart of the book includes case studies written by professional evaluators, evaluation and youth scholars, and youth workers to define issues for each stage and provide guidance for others who want to design a robust, rigorous, and responsive evaluation for youth civic engagement initiatives and practices. The final chapters of the book provide straightforward and clear guidance for beginning to intermediate evaluators when designing and conducting evaluation studies.

Evaluation is an essential element of professional practice. However, there is little in the literature that is designed to help students involve and support young people in evaluating the impact of youth work activities. This comprehensive book explores current thinking about evaluation in the context of youth work and community work and offers both theoretical understanding and practical guidance for students, practitioners, organisational leaders and commissioners. Part 1 provides underpinning knowledge of the origins, purpose and functions of evaluation. It charts the developments in evaluation thinking over the past 50 years, and includes an exploration of ‘theory of change’. Concepts such as impact, impact measurement and shared measurement are critically examined to illustrate the political nature of evaluation. Findings from empirical research are used to illuminate the challenges of applying a quasi-experimental paradigm of evaluation of youth and community work. Part 2 introduces the reader to participatory evaluation and presents an overview of the histories, rationale and underpinning principles. Empowerment evaluation, collaborative evaluation and democratic evaluation are examined in detail, including practice examples. Transformative Evaluation, an approach specifically designed for youth and community work, is presented. Part 3 focuses on the ‘doing’ of participatory evaluation and offers guidance to those new to participatory evaluation in youth and community work and a helpful check for those already engaging. It provides valuable information on planning, methods, data and data analysis and processes for sharing knowledge. This essential text will enable the reader to reconstruct evaluation as a tool for learning as well as a tool for judging value. It provides a comprehensive reference, drawing on a wide range of literature and practice examples to support those involved in youth and community work to develop and implement participatory approaches to evaluating and communicating the meaning and value of youth and community work to a wider audience.

Young people in Europe have been disproportionally affected by unemployment as a result of the economic crisis and a large number of the most disadvantaged are migrant youth, or those of a different ethnic origin, living in deprived city neighbourhoods. This book examines the need for more appropriate interventions aimed at improving the inclusion of young people in the labour market, bringing together theoretical reflections and empirical evidence on emerging innovative policies and practices. Using case studies from across Europe, it asks how effectively innovative interventions respond to the specific needs, motivations, aspirations and strategies of unemployed and vulnerable youth within the contextual conditions of the welfare state and locality. It also provides a new theory of the effectiveness of interventions. As social exclusion remains high among young people in Europe, Effective Interventions for Unemployed Young People in Europe is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners. This book demonstrates where we can look for effective innovative interventions and how these can potentially add up to large-scale social innovation. It is also a crucial resource for academics and students interested in social and labour inclusion measures.

This new edition of A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation brings together work from research and practice to reflect on some of the key developments in the field since the first edition published in 2010. Subtitled ‘Conversations for Transformational Change’, the collection focuses on both ongoing and new discourses that enable us to advance thinking and practice to better understand what it means for participation to be transformational. Featuring all new content, it explores the developments that have been achieved in theory and practice in the last decade as well as the challenges and, indeed, the limitations of dominant participation approaches with children and young people in achieving genuine societal transformation. A key feature of the Handbook is the inclusion of young people as co-authors in many of the chapters. Foregrounding aspects of participation as experienced by diverse groups of children and young people, the book especially illuminates the experiences and perspectives of participation relating to groups of children who face particular challenges, such as displaced children and children living with disabilities and young people from indigenous groups in a range of contexts. The broad spectrum of debates that the text covers will be invaluable in challenging and transforming thinking and practice for a wide range of scholars, practitioners, activists and young people themselves. It will additionally be suitable for use on a wide range of courses including childhood and youth studies, sociology, law, political studies, community development, development studies, children’s rights, citizenship studies, education and social work.

This book provides an account of the experience of a multifaceted system-change programme to strengthen the capacity of Ireland’s statutory child protection and welfare agency in the areas of prevention, early intervention and family support. Many jurisdictions globally are involved in system change processes focused on increasing investment in services that seek to prevent children’s entry into child protection and welfare systems, through early intervention, greater support to families, and an increased emphasis on rights and participation. Based on a four-year in-depth study by a team of University-based researchers, this text adds to the emerging knowledge-base on developing, implementing and evaluating system change in child protection and welfare. Study methodological approaches were wide ranging and involved a number of key stakeholders including children, parents, social workers and social care workers, service managers, agency leaders and policy makers. Since the change process involved an agency-university partnership encompassing design, technical support and evaluation, the book also contributes to understandings of the potential and limits of such partnerships in the child protection and welfare field. Uniquely, the book gives voice to the experience of both agency personnel and academic in the accounts provided. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and practitioners in the areas of child protection and welfare.

Increasingly youth practitioners need to be able to develop, review and evidence their work using a variety of research and assessment tools. This text equips students and practitioners with a thorough understanding of research design, practice and dissemination, as well as approaches to evidence-based practice.