20th Anniversary Conference

On the 3rd Dec 2009, the RYWU held its 20th anniversary conference entitled ‘The Future for Youth Work’.  The conference was attended by 70 people from across the region and feedback on the day has been very positive.  The day was chaired by Tom Adams, director at the RYWU and started with two keynote presentations from Tom Wylie and Tony Gallagher. Tom Wylie is the ex-chief executive of the National Youth Agency and gave an excellent presentation on his thoughts about the current state of youth work, challenges facing the profession and implications for future direction. Tony Gallagher is the National Adviser on Youth Matters at Ofsted. Tony’s presentation focussed on the outcomes of recent evaluation and survey work which Ofsted have been carrying out into youth services and integrated services nationally. Tony’s presentation highlighted the main positive contributions which youth work is making to integrated services, but also the highlighted the challenges ahead.

At the start of the afternoon session Leon delivered a presentation on national perspectives and personal reflections which outlined some of the key issues from national partners and presented some of Leon’s personal views on current challenges and issues for the future.

As well as presentations, the event also provided a series of workshops for attendees. The four workshops were:

• Developing a World Class Youth Workforce in the North East – Ivan Wintringham
• Commissioning Youth Work – Chris Ford
• Challenges for Youth Work ‘A Managers Perspective’ – Peter Davies
• Affirming our Value Base in Youth Work: Opportunities and Ethical Challenges – Sarah Banks

The workshops were well attended and generated high level of discussion and debate. Facilitators were able to share information and also highlight issues which were later shared with the rest of the conference attendees.

In both the morning and afternoon sessions discussion areas were built into the programme. The morning session was entitled ‘Where Are We Now?’ and discussed current challenges and issues in youth work. The afternoon discussion session was entitled ‘Where Do We Go From Here’ and highlighted some of the future challenges and issues for youth work and youth work professionals. Issues from the two discussion session formed part of the discussion wall, and will be included in the final conference report.