Are you a youth worker/artist using digital technologies in your practice? Would you like to learn more about the social impact of your work?
Young Evaluators Workshops will be touring around Scotland between February and May 2018. Join our Young Evaluators Army - together we can amplify young peoples' voices and (hopefully) make the evaluation process super fun (!).
Social media, digital storytelling, podcast, film, animation, gaming - are you using any of these tools to enhance your youth work projects? If so, how do you measure the impact of your work? Majority of the digital youth workers I interviewed last year, told me that their evaluation practice is often "externally imposed and govern" and "boring". Others told me that it is quite difficult to measure the social impact of both youth development and digital technologies, after all some of the outcomes might differ.
So, have can we make the evaluation process meaningful to us all -young people, youth workers and funders? I SAY: let's involve the young people...
The information that I gathered from the digital youth workers community in 2017, suggests that young people (as active participants of digital projects) should be able to have they say when it comes to measurement and analysis of their social impact.
That is why, I'd like to invite young digital enthusiasts, experts and makers to work with my as co-authors of my research project.
*Although, I won't be able to add you as co-authors to my PhD, I intend to co-publish a case study or a paper together...#fingerscrossed
What will we get out of it?
How are young people going to benefit from the project?
If you know some of my pre-academia community work, you'll know that project participants are always at centre of my work. Also, in the context of my doctoral research, I want to ensure that young the workshop is youth-centred and youth-led. The workshop should take about 2-3 hours and I'll make sure to arrange times and venues according to young people's abilities and needs (+ pizza will be provided, gluten-free & vegan options too!)
What about the ethics and confidentiality?
Having worked with youth groups, I am aware of the challenges and rewards this type of work might bring.
Please note, that I'll do my best to empower young participants to take an ownership of the sessions and will provide them with a safe space to share their views and ideas.
To explain the consent process , I created a little presentation covering the purpose of my doctoral research project and the structure of the possible workshops. Feel free to flick through the slides below (this might not work on your mobile - sorry). If you can't find the answers or information you are looking for - please get in touch :)
Happy to have a chat, feel free to send me a message and will get back in touch as soon as I can. Thanks and I hope to work with some of you in 2018.