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From helping young people navigate their online lives, to helping create the tech superstars of the future, digital youth work is more relevant than ever! Let’s meet our three amazing finalists.
Outstanding youth work empowers and enables, encouraging young people to speak out on the issues that matter most to them. It inspires confidence. It ends in positive change.
Wishing to explore issues around risk and consequences in the context of LGBTI+ issues, cyber resilience and substance abuse, the young people at Youth Highland developed ‘a living digital platform’ in the form of a role-playing game – creating a safe space for players to provide support for one another, share lived experiences and have a collective voice.
Underpinned by CLD and values of Inclusion, self-determination, collaboration, lifelong learning and empowerment, Where’s Your Head At? Peer Education has empowered young people to change the physical world around them through campaigning for a gender-neutral toilet in a local high school.
One young participant Eden commented: “The gender-neutral toilet was our main project. Even if it took us a few months to get the toilet in the school, it was an amazing task, and we are incredibly happy to have a gender-neutral toilet in the school. We hope that this will help the students who don’t feel comfortable using female or male toilets.”
Using the game as a platform for community-building and empowerment, Youth Highland’s young people have gone from digital consumers to creators, right through to changemakers.
With over seven years of evidence to back them up, the Citadel’s Old’s Cool Intergenerational Project is living proof of the value in digital & STEM when it comes to bridging the gap between a community’s young and older members.
By creating digital intergenerational activities based around shared storytelling, the group has unearthed untold riches of local history through a series of interviews with Leith’s older members of the community. By working with Archaeology Scotland, young people have been able to capture these unique experiences and immortalise them in a custom set of Citadel Leith Top Trumps cards.
Beyond providing vital connections between generations in the community, the project has also helped young people disengaged with formal education to improve their communication, digital skills positive relationships and attainment – at the same time combatting social isolation and loneliness.
After participating in the group, Logan Spiers said: “Before I came to the Citadel, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to go to college myself. Before coming I didn’t know anyone. Old’s Cool and chatting to the older people has given me so many friends.”
Recently, the group’s achievements were even recognised in an intergenerational practice handbook, released by Japanese publisher Sangaku. From Leith to Kyoto, Citadel’s digital & STEM offer continues to bring people together!
It’s all about the content! Say what you want about content, and you’ll be speaking Angus Youth Media Team’s language. The project supports young people to create award-winning multimedia material in the Angus area – by young people, for young people.
Whether it’s covering local events, giving personal accounts of life experiences, or exploring complex youth issues such as living with disabilities and the impact of alcohol use, Angus’ young creatives are on the scene to satisfy your content needs.
Gaining hands on experience of writing, filming, editing, recording podcasting and designing content for all manner of platforms, many of Angus Youth Media Team’s members have gone on to pursue careers at STV and BBC – breaking down traditional barriers to employment such as rurality, visual impairment and different learning styles.
Former leader of the Angus Youth Media Team Barry McKay suffers from chronic fatigue, and said: “I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most creative, most thoughtful, most kind and empathetic young people in the county.
“I have only been with the Angus Youth Media Team for just over a year, but it has been a year of immense growth in my social and practical abilities. I wouldn’t be nearly where I am today without this team.”