15 February 2011

Working with vulnerable young people in Slovakia and the UK

The University of Dundee will tomorrow (Wednesday February 16th) host an international event bringing together participants from Slovakia and the UK to explore how researchers and those engaged in community youth work can work together to develop understanding of young people’s experiences of issues such as poverty or social marginalisation.

The event is being held at the University of Dundee as part of a series of Knowledge Exchange events, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, on the linkages between community-based youth work and social research. It involves researchers, practitioners and policy-makers from the UK and Europe.

The symposium explores the opportunities - and the challenges - that emerge when social researchers and community youth workers, who deal with young people in often very challenging contexts, seek to work together.

'With increasing focus on the 'real-world' impact of research in universities, questions of how more ‘academic’ work can be of relevance to young people and people doing youth work are of increasing importance,' said Dr Fiona Smith, Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Dundee.

'From the point of view of practitioners in community work, there is an increased demand for evidence of the effectiveness of their work leading to what Graeme Tiffany, from the Federation of Detached Youth Work in the UK, calls the ‘necessity’ for collaboration with researchers. Yet, because they may start from very different perspectives, these collaborations can be challenging - but also very rich and rewarding.

'At the centre of these discussions is the core question of how young people’s own voices can be heard and their perspectives used to find new solutions to improve their lives in their communities.'

The event will hear from speakers from the UK and from Slovakia and will explore how researchers and community workers can learn from experiences of collaboration in both countries.

Event programme:

Community youth work and social research: opportunities for collaboration

16th February 2011, 1-5pm, Baxter Suite 1.36, Tower Building, University of Dundee

Speakers:

• John McKendrick (Glasgow Caledonian University)
  'Is 'everybody's business' young people's business? Reflections on the role of young people in tackling their child poverty, marginalisation and deprivation in Scotland'
• Graeme Tiffany (Federation for Detached Youth Work)
  'Detached youth work and social research: from conviviality to the modern day necessity for collaboration'
• Matej Blazek (University of Dundee) and Petra Hranova (Civic Association Ulita, Bratislava, Slovakia) along with Miroslava Lemesova (Civic Association Ulita/Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia)
  'Complementarity, blending or detachment? Reflecting on dual positionalities in the youth workers/social researcher collaboration in Slovakia'
• Lorraine van Blerk (University of Dundee) - Discussant

Background on the project:

'Community youth work and social research - knowledge transfer, informing policy and further opportunities for collaboration'

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Knowledge Exchange Grant

Today's event is one of 4 events in a wider project on the linkages between community-based youth work and social research, involving researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in a novel collaboration between Slovakia and the UK. It builds on long-term cooperation with community youth workers in Slovakia which has researched lives of children from a deprived urban area in Slovakia (undertaken by Matej Blazek, University of Dundee). Working with a community centre for children and young people, this aimed to develop detailed understanding of what young people experience, what the importance is of community youth work in that context and – the focus of this project – how the researcher, community-workers in Slovakia and the young people themselves can collaborate to create improved outcomes for young people in their lives.

Funded by the current ESRC Knowledge Exchange project, and building out of this work, we are holding a series of four events which aim to increase the awareness of the linkages between research and community youth work in Slovakia and the UK (and to exchange ideas between these two countries) and to train youth and community workers in Slovakia in approaches which allow the voices of young people in marginalised communities to be heard more effectively by those working with them in their local area but also among decision-makers.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
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