Executive Summary: Encouraging UK-German Youth Exchanges
Encouraging UK-German Youth Exchanges
Enabling the youth sector When it comes to funding for UK-German exchanges, there are barriers presented by the challenging UK funding environment. Though the situation is not the same in all four of the UK nations, overall, UK youth organisations have a very minimal range of possibilities to access funding for international exchanges. The UK youth sector is also struggling to resource its existing youth work provision. This makes developing new international work extremely challenging for the majority of the sector. It is very unlikely the sector as a whole can commit significant amounts of its own resources to youth exchanges. To some extent Wales is an exception to this, where dedicated funding through the Taith scheme, and a favourable policy environment is currently enabling youth exchanges to Germany. On the German side, this barrier manifests itself as a lack of UK partners and a perceived lack of interest from the UK youth sector. It is generally still expected that German youth organisations will want external funding to support youth exchanges. However there are a range of organisations actively seeking to develop exchanges, who would be well placed to begin developing them with the UK. It is clear that without a dedicated funding programme which covers the full costs of exchanges (including staffing) there will be no significant increase in the number of UK-German exchanges. Alongside financial resources, competences and experience of youth workers and youth organisations may also be an inhibiting factor in both countries. In the UK, there is concern that many youth workers, particularly those newer to the profession, have limited experience of international or residential (overnight) work, and may want training and support to develop this. There is a desire for very practically focused training which supports new youth workers to understand how to organise and deliver youth exchanges in a safe manner. Opportunities for newer youth workers to develop their competences through experiential learning, e.g., by working alongside more experienced workers are also sought. In Germany, there is a similar desire to better train and support young leaders to take on greater roles when organising exchanges – but it is understood that these young volunteers may have limited capacity to undertake extensive training.
Whilst this is a barrier to those young people, attempting to fulfil this need contradicts the recruitment approach sought by youth workers and youth organisations. In order to deliver participatory group-based approaches, youth workers outlined a desire to work with pre-existing groups of young people who were already accessing a local youth provision. In this way, a youth exchange is initiated by dialogue between a youth worker and young people, and the participants behind developing the exchange for themselves. This youth worker based recruitment approach has potential to generate interest amongst those young people who are not actively seeking exchanges. However, young people who are not involved in youth provision, would not have access to exchanges with this method. These young people may be more likely to be reached through online information platforms. Communication activity should therefore focus on directing and referring them to group-based youth provision or exchange opportunities through schools.
Finances seem to be the overriding influence affecting young people’s concerns about UK-German youth exchanges. Concerns about money * was the most commonly identified barrier by young people and financial support during a youth exchange was the most highly rated enabler. Within both countries young people in weaker financial circumstances were significantly more likely to identify that concerns about money would prevent them taking part in a youth exchange than those in stronger financial circumstances. Access to financial support, such as removing participant fees, and providing support for costs for example, passports or luggage, will be important features to making youth exchanges attractive and accessible especially to young people in marginalised groups. The survey suggests that there are some young people actively seeking to ‘register’ for UK-German youth exchanges, using the internet as their principal tool to find them and then being unable to find opportunities.
If an emphasis is placed on working with marginalised groups in any new initiatives, there may be a value to supporting German youth workers on increasing competencies for this. Linked to this, safeguarding and risk assessment requirements of their UK partners are seen to be high. Practical advice and guidance within both countries on navigating this may be needed. The desires in relation to organisation support are notably different between countries. On the UK side there is a desire for intensive infrastructure support by an organisation, institution or agency well connected to the youth sector. Such support might provide in-depth advice on the development of exchanges, enable access to funding, and generally act to encourage the sector to engage in international work. This recognises that many UK youth organisations have limited experience of international work and want close support and encouragement to become involved in their first exchanges. German youth organisations primarily want assistance with identifying partners within the UK and accessing funding for UK-German exchanges. They seek an arms-length approach from infrastructure support and funders, which trusts their organisations to design and undertake good quality exchanges. Development of partnerships between UK and German youth organisations is fundamental to the delivery of exchanges. At a basic level there is a need to establish and make available contacts between organisations in both countries, which can be facilitated through some sort of infrastructure support working in partnership between the two countries. Finding and developing appropriate partnerships also requires the possibility for youth workers in both countries to meet and connect outside of the delivery of youth exchanges. There is strong interest in youth worker exchanges as a tool to address this. These can also play a role in the training of youth workers. Youth workers in both countries identified opportunities for collaborative learning and professional development by learning from each other’s practice.
* Text passages in italics represent terms and phrases from the original survey.
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