Making Youth Work Work: A Toolkit - Section 4

SECTION 4 - Youth work practice is assessed and monitored

Youth work takes place in so many different locations, and at times when young people are free to take part (usually in the evenings and at weekends), and for many organisations, managers are not regularly in place to observe and evaluate practice. Professional youth workers are expected to be ‘reflective practitioners’ and should be adept at reviewing their own practice: but this should not be at the expense of external scrutiny from managers and others. This section highlights some of the methods used by youth work providers in the South West to assess and monitor practice.

Many local authority youth services base their assessment processes on the criteria used by OFSTED to judge youth work in the inspections undertaken before 2008. There are 4 areas to consider:

• The quality of young people’s engagement and achievement
• The quality of youth work practice
• Resources and curriculum
• Leadership and management

Youth work is no longer inspected in its own right by OFSTED, but the criteria in the OFSTED framework, especially those relating to the quality of young people’s engagement and achievement and youth work practice are still relevant, and are included here. Also included is the framework for internal inspection designed by Wiltshire Young People’s Development Service, the system for management observation of youth work used in Cornwall Council, and Somerset County Council's Standards for group work and transitions.

To see Section 5 of the Toolkit, click here