The most important thing that we need are digital street workers. When I was in college, college students volunteered as street workers to help teens who were on the street find resources and help. They directed them to psychologists, doctors, and social workers. We need a program like this for the digital streets. We need college-aged young adults to troll the digital world looking out for teens who are in trouble and helping them seek help. We need online counselors who can work with minors to address their behavioral issues without forcing the minor to contend with parents or bureaucracy. We need online social workers that can connect with kids and help them understand their options.

If you prefer listening to a presentation over reading a report (PDF) - then you can catch some of the key learning from the Youth Work and Social Networking project in this video from Tim speaking at the Wise Kids conference in Swansea during October.

You can find the Video here. Choose 'Workshop B' from the Playlist, and then select the presentation labelled 'Tim Davies' to watch.

This video also introduces a new way of looking at the workforce development aspect of the Youth Work and Social Networking final report - exploring different youth work responses to Social Network Sites through the stories of four different youth workers.

 I have a concern for misinterpretation by adults over reacting to young people views and opinions.  In my observations and experience we tend to hear and listen selectively however, with written evidence of dialogues and opinions of young people there is the possibility of adults over reacting. 

There needs to be clear consultation, debate and discussion with young people and adults about how the policy and framework will guide young people and practitioners on how to respond to issues of clear inappropriate comments are being submitted - young person/group submitting sexually explicit words, abusive language, racists comments, homophonic comments.

I would anticipate that once comments are removed that an appropriate identified practitioner would contact the young person/group and review the situation facilitating discussion, reflection and learning about their views/opinions and the repercussions on others and themselves.  There is a necessity to promote reflective and critical thinking amongst young people but also adults!

Understanding how to read young people's contributions to online discussions is definitely going to be an important part of any participation work... and as Katie suggests - it involves a developing of literacies for both young people and adults.

Youth Work and Social Media – Research launch  

Friday 26 September 2008

14.45-16.45

Mary Ward House, 5-7 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SN

We are pleased to invite you to a free event to launch the final research report at Mary Ward House on Friday 26^th September, from 2.45 pm. Refreshments will be available on arrival. Directions to the venue are available here

The presentation will cover practical steps that youth services can take to address social networking and open discussion will follow.

If you would like to attend this free event please respond to ritak@nya.org.uk with your:

Name:

Job Title:

Email address:

Contact telephone number:

Spaces are limited so we would advise early booking.

Delegates may also be interested in two other events running immediately before and after this one.

• The Local Government information Unit is running a good practice seminar on social networking and youth participation at the same venue immediately prior to this research launch, at a cost of £110 plus VAT. For more details, see the LGiU website
• On Saturday 27^th September, The UK Youth Online conference is a free co-created event for anyone with an interest in how technology impacts upon, or can be used in, work with under 18s – for more details, see the UK Youth Online website

Gillian is an experienced youth worker who has recently taken over the centre and working energetically to develop it. She joined the Action Research project to explore how Social Networking could supplement traditional youth work activities. Her aims were to build staff capacity, starting with herself, promote the centre and provide an additional channel for communication with young people, both as a group and individually.

With strong support from Jeremy Dennis, Oxfordshire County Council Youth Support Services web Editor, Gillian set up both a Bebo and Facebook profile, although it was soon clear that Bebo was the more promising site for the users. BBL Youth Centre Bebo profile  The young people were interested and several befriended the site, although they weren’t initially keen to edit or contribute to it – preferring rather to comment on the work done by Gillian and Jeremy. Importantly, the majority of youth club members don't have access to computers at home and instead use the computers at friend's houses and sometimes school. There have been delays in getting the two machines ordered for the centre so access was provided through a two hour session at the local IT hub in the same building.

Reviewing progress three months on Gillian feels she isn’t yet using it as she would wish. This is partly because of the limited access to machines which means that young people tend to use the time for immediate personal communications, MSN and email. Time is the other constraint, with Gillian fully busy developing and running the centre. A work experience student jazzed up the Bebo site and Gillian is planning to continue that support through engaging one of the new staff joining the centre (as a part of a pilot on weekend opening). The site needs to become proactive, posting pictures and films of the group although many member’s immediate reaction has been to, “shout and scream and say they don’t want pictures on the web”.

Once the two machines are installed Gillian plans to allow members “open and easy access” so they can come in and use it regularly. Her biggest hope from Social Networking is easier communication. She is clear though that a Youth Work approach is essential. “It’s the same as youth work on the face to face level, you – I – need to build a relationship through the site to a user group”

For example, you could weave key learning about online social networking into:

• Getting photo consent
  Recognising that at many events young people will take and share their own photos. Are these governed by your consent policies? What agreements have you got with young people about taking photos at events and sharing them online?

• Getting to know you activities
  Many groups use a ‘personal passport’ style activity – where group members make posters or put together shields or posters to represent themselves.

  You could model the activity on making a profile... along the lines of a Social Network Site profile.

  This would provide an opportunity to discuss whether group members actual MySpace profiles really represent them, and who they think is looking at those profiles.

• Confidentiality agreements
  When agreeing with a group that discussions will be confidential you may want to include a mention of publishing information online as well – and to agree that nothing from the session should be published on people’s blogs or MySpace pages.

• Campaigning and projects
  When young people are involved in a campaign, a project or in fundraising you could work with the group to create a profile on a social network site to promote what they are working on. You can explore with the group how sharing information online can get attention for a project or campaign, and how building strong local and national networks can open up new opportunities – and you can also work through as a group what decisions you will make about sharing photos or accepting friend requests for your project/campaign profile.

•   Career sessions
  When you talk about job applications and interviews, mention that employers may look up applicants social network site profiles. Explain that young people could make their profiles private, or in the same way that they would aim to present a good image on application forms and in the way they dress for an interview, they could look to make sure their profile would help, rather than hinder, their application.

  You could also talk about how the information friends publish may affect their ‘online image’.

• Social Network Site Name Badges
  Create name badges that look a bit like a Social Network Site profile..

  Get people to wear them

  Talk about how they can help people network and make connections – but how they wouldn’t want to wear them when heading out onto the street

  Use it as an opportunity to talk about privacy settings.
  

Unlike last time we were using an IT suite which didn't block access to Social Network Sites - so we used the opportunity for some hands on exploration of Bebo.com.

I was struck by how much the group managed to learn and explore in just 45 minutes hands-on time. For many workers it was the first time they had been able to sign-up to, and explore a Social Network Site - and being able to use the computer was far better than working with the paper-based Social Network Site models I've used in previous training sessions.

Building on the one page guide Introduction to MySpace I put together a couple of weeks ago - I prepared a more in-depth guide to Bebo which steps a new user through creating a profile, and then exploring privacy settings and adding friends.

You can download the getting started with Bebo guide here.

There are many profiles and groups out there on most Social Network Sites where young people can find out about important issues, interact with charities, and access support and advice. However, many of those profiles are tricky to find - so young people may need a map.

When you're planning a group work session with young people - why not think about creating a list of Social Network Site profiles they could take a look at afterwards? It offers an opportunity to tap into that two hours a night of Social Networking with some positive input, and if offers a challenge to young people to engage deeper with an issue.

Plus - by pointing young people to Social Network Sites, you create an opportunity to talk about Safe Social Networking. The example hand-out below shows how you might link safety and opportunity on Social Network Sites.

Creating your own Social Network follow up handout If you want to create your own Social Network Site follow up hand-out, then the instructions below may help you:

1. Safety First - when young people join a group, or 'friend' a profile, their profile picture, as a clickable link through to their full profile, will be listed as a friend or member of the profile/group. That means their profile could be more easily found - and so it is important to first make sure that the young people you are offering Social Network Site follow-up links to have thought about the privacy settings on their profile.
   
   Once you are happy that they are thinking about privacy settings - there is nothing to stop you sharing links to positive profiles - as long as you are happy that those profiles are run by trusted individuals or organizations.
   
   
2. Find positive profiles - Both MySpace and Facebook run a list of not-for-profit organisation profiles where you will usually find at least one relevant organisation.
   
   On MySpace look at the lists on http://www.myspace.com/impactuk
   
   And on Bebo look at http://www.bebo.com/bewell
   
   On Facebook you will need to use the search feature to look for groups. Search for the name of organisations you know are working on the issue you have been addressing.
   
   The idea of providing links for different Social Network Sites is to 'go to where young people are at'. Focus your efforts on providing links for the places where you know the young people you work with have profiles. You should also try and include one or two website address for those who do not have Social Network Site profiles - as the purpose of the exercise is not to encourage young people to sign up to any particular site.
   
   
3. Create short links - if you hand on a bit of paper with links like this:
   http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1306406134
   not all that many people are going to bother typing the whole thing in. You can shorten links like this by pasting them into a short web address service like http://is.gd which creates a shortcut address which is far easier to type into a browser.
   
   
4. Create your handout - you could use the image above to get ideas about the sort of things to include. Ideally your handout would have a few notes about safety - alongside links and descriptions of what those links are to.
   
   
5. Use the handout - after your group work session.
6. Get feedback - next time you see the group - find out if they looked at any of the sites. Ask about any issues the different profiles raised. Get ideas from the group about other profiles and links that the handout could have included.
   
   

If you do create a handout - why not head over to the UK Youth Online community to share it with others. You can upload it as an attachment to a blog or forum post.

• MySpace
• Facebook
• YouTube