Apparently everyone has dreams - its just that some of us don’t remember them. That’ll be me then! I have no idea what I was dreaming about last night but first thing this morning I was thinking up loads of ways that values have changed in our society recently (within my memory anyway) and how that must have an effect on young people (and their parents) - for example:

No doubt some of you who’ve been around a bit longer have seen much more change - how do you think values will change in the next 10 years though?……..

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Tags: age, Society & Issues

I posted up a load of these a year ago but never realised a load more were released a month later. You can see the full list of short animations about the various articles for the UN Rights of the Child here

There’s a simplified version of what the articles are in this post. There’s the odd one I don’t really get (if not for the title!) as the message is a bit vague (like the one with the donkeys!!?!) or its been badly produced, but the majority are brilliant. I’m not sure ‘favourites’ seems appropriate given the topic but here’s a select few that I think are well produced.

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Tags: age, campaign, child rights, Films & Social Media, Participation & Citizenship, prejudice, social media

Heres a short film about the making of  ‘Hectors World’. You can see the Hectors World films on the thinkuknow website, set up by the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre.

Whether theres any plans to create something similar aimed at young people I don’t know but I always think its a good strategy to target children as young as possible for stuff like this so that it becomes second nature. The thinkuknow site also offers a downloadable ‘Hectors World Safety Button’ that ’swims’ in the top of the screen and if a child sees something they don’t like they can click the button which will cause the screen to be covered ‘until they get some help’. What the likelihood of a child using that button is I’m not sure as I’m pretty sure its in most childrens nature to be curious about everything!

The buttons only for Windows OS which seems a bit sloppy (can it be that hard to do the same for Macs & Linux?!)

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Tags: age, Education & Skills, film, innovation, social media, social networks

I hadn’t heard of ‘Beatbullying’ before but had a look at their new website which you can find here

Slightly annoyingly on most pages on the site a video automatically plays of some person or another talking about bullying (especially irritating when you see the same film several times as you navigate through!)

What I couldn’t find on the site was a definition of what bullying actually is. There are descriptions of things to look out for that may indicate if a child is being bullied or is a bully but I couldn’t find anything to define bullying.

I’m interested because it seems like one of those terms that gets thrown around that we all know is a bad thing - but what is it?! I do wonder too where the line is between unnaceptable ‘bullying’, and behaviour that actually its quite important for children & young people to learn to deal with?

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Tags: age, child rights, Resources, Society & Issues

There were some good discussions over on UKYouthOnline about developing policies for interacting with young people online.

In particular there was a debate about whether youth workers should separate their personal social networking profiles from their ‘professional’ persona’s (and profiles) that they use to interact with young people professionally.

Well over in the US theres a proposed law to make it illegal for school teachers to have ’social networking friendships’ with children and young people. CNN has an article online including an interview with a teacher who does use a Myspace page to allow students to contact him.

The proposed law has come about following fears that ’social networking sites are breeding innapropriate behaviour between teachers and students’. In the CNN article an Education Lawyer says that having clear professional boundaries are important “You’ve got to establish it from Day One and say, ‘I’m not your buddy, I’m not your friend, I’m just your teacher.”

I wrote something similar in ‘What Makes a Good Paid Youth Worker‘ - that relationships with young people need to be on the basis of what you can professionally offer them - not just ‘friendship’. But of course social networking is all about how many ‘friends’ you have and now that services offer to show how many of your email contacts are registered with them it means that any person you’ve had email contact is likely to easily find your profile.

Of course you don’t have to accept ‘friend requests’ providing you can get over the fear of causing offence! I’m not quite sure what I think about this yet - on the one hand some good clear rigid guidelines could work fairly well, on the other hand there is a point that its similar to saying if you work in an area you can’t also be seen to socialise there.

Actually that reminds me of a situation I found myself in when I first started as a ‘Youth Development Worker’ on an estate. I also played for the local cricket club and through one of the players I became friends with somebody who invited me for a meet up in their house which happened to be on the estate where I worked. I did attend, only to discover it was his parents house and his little sister was a regular member of one of my youth clubs - she wasn’t there but I did wonder about how weird it would have been if she’d been at home while I was getting drunk with her brother and his mates in the back garden!

For youth and community work the boundaries will always be a bit more blurred than teaching but it will be interesting to follow what happens in Missouri and whether or not it has any impact over here.

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Tags: adults, age, dyw, innovation, Innovation & Technology, prejudice, social media, social networks, Society & Issues, youth work, youth work 2.0

Tristan Donovan wrote an interesting Opinion piece that you can see here. His original question was

• Are we getting older sooner or staying young longer?

I thought it interesting anyway because I think maybe the answer is both. Often I’ve wondered whether children “grow up” too fast, I also sometimes question if youth work may even hasten this with so much emphasis on ‘empowering’ young people.

In the rest of Tristans article he discusses how proposed restrictions on under 18 year olds seemingly contradict the campaign for 16 year olds to be able to vote. I’d agree that it would…… that is if you agree with the premise that you should reach a magic age and then all the entitlements of adulthood are yours. On the otherhand you may argue there should be a gradual transition of responsibilities - in fact perhaps there already is if you look at this post showing the different ages at which young people gain legal responsibilities.

Although reading through that list doesn’t give the impression that it was planned to be a system to support young people to take on increasing responsibility until becoming a ‘full adult’ - instead it looks more like people randomly deciding ages they think may be suitable for certain things.

Arguably this is also whats happening right now - on the one hand theres the camp that argue young people should be able to vote at 16, and then there are those saying 18 year olds are not yet capable of drinking alcohol responsibly or purchasing knives etc. Nobody though seems to have taken an overall view and said what is the best process through which we can support young people to take on all of these responsibilities, and in what order or priority are they handed over to them?

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Tags: age, child rights, politics, prejudice, Society & Issues, youth work

Apparently in Scotland they’re about to announce that under 21 year olds will be banned from buying alcohol from off-licenses - you can hear the news item over on BBC

I’ve noticed for a while in supermarkets they say you have to prove your age if you look under 21, and recently there were suggestions it might become if you look under 25 - but you still have the right to buy it if you can prove you are 18.

I think it would be interesting to see a poll for 16 - 25 year olds to ask how many would want the right to buy alcohol at the legal age and how many would like the right to vote at 16 and compare the results!

Actually I’m listening to that BBC interview as I write and somebody’s just made the point that its ‘absurd’ that people old enough to vote won’t be able to purchase alcohol. It seems to be yet another inconsistency in deciding at what age young people actually become adults. Although of course its already accepted throughout the world that you don’t need to be an adult to have sex (see this post).

So soon the running order in Scotland for taking responsibilties will be:

• Have Sex
• Vote (a couple of years later)
• Buy booze from the local shop (3 years later)

Actually now it makes perfect sense - I can see that in Scotland soon no young people will be drunk so they won’t have irresponsible sex and they’ll take a greater interest in politics! Or has nobody noticed those drunk kids in the park on Friday nights aren’t actually 18 anyway?!

Having made the comparison between wanting to vote and wanting to drink, I wonder for how many people they felt the first time they were legally allowed to drink in a pub was their transition to adulthood and how many felt it was their first vote?

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According to ‘V’ a recent survey by them found that 70% of 16 - 25 year olds say they are “negatively perceived by the public”, and of the 3000 that took part in the survey 60% think this is unfair (which to me seems a surprisingly high amount that think it is fair?!) The survey also found that 49% of young people “believe young people do things which justify this negative opinion”.

Besides recognising the behaviour of some young people doesn’t help their image, others to get the blame include celebrities (apparently Amy Winehouse topping the bad example list which is in conflict to the findings of a poll last month when supposedly she was voted as the “ultimate heroine among the UK’s youth!), and in the words of V’s Chief Executive “This survey reveals the growing gulf of understanding between the generations which is leading to young people being unfairly tarred with a negative image.”

Over on the CYPNow Forums Neil asks “How very sad. As a Youth Worker, it is really disappointing to see that nothing has changed. What have we got to do to change this image of our YP?”

Both comments seemingly assuming that because some young people feel that they are perceived negatively by ‘the public’ they actually are. This feeling by young people of (more…)

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Tags: age, positive images, prejudice, Society & Issues