Creating Community Conversations - Gallomanor

How are young people using Social Media

I missed the UK Youth Online unconference at the weekend.  Well done to Tim Davies for pulling it off.

How are young people using social media?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social networking youth)

Steph Gray shared these findings from research commissioned by DIUS.  It's notable for a couple of reasons:

1. it's useful research that provides robust figures rather than anecdotal evidence
2. he's posted it on SlideShare.net which means that I can pass it on to you without either of us being at a conference or visiting a corporate government site and wading through a bunch of press releases to find it.

Thank you Steph.

Volunteer? Do us a Favour

It seems the well-intentioned agency V has realised the Volunteering is off-putting.  (Why oh why did they not work that out before spending £000's branding themselves as V?)  66% of young people thought so.  Whereas 80% of young people have done favours for others. Therefore they are launching a new campaign called Favours.  And the

"projects on offer through V address issues that resonate with the individual interests of young people, such as music, design, art, sport and fashion."

At last.  Recognition that most people don't volunteer for the sake of it, they do things because they are interested in doing them and don't expect to be paid for doing so.

Well done. Finally.

(h/t CYPNow)

Gangs aren't like what we thought

Just in time for the government's new youth crime plan, comes fascinating research from Manchester University, who've taken the trouble to work closely with young people involved in gangs. What they've found challenges the picture normally painted of gangs, suggesting that the police approach is 'fatally flawed' and risks pushing young people into the arms of gangs.

The researchers (lead by Judith Aldridge and Juanjo Medina), found that gangs were not highly organised drug-dealing operations.

"In reality, gangs are loose, messy changing friendship networks less organised and criminally active than widely believed with unclear, shifting and unstable leadership."

(Podcast, and Guardian coverage here)

Know your limits

That's the name of the latest Home Office campaign to reduce binge drinking amongst 18 – 24 year olds, but it could equally apply to advertising.  Looking at the murkiness beyond the glare of the window, the agency really should have employed a specialist window dresser.

A pair of TV adverts launched on Tuesday night during Big Brother appropriately depicting a young man and woman getting ready for a night out by spreading puke in hair, ripping clothes, banging heads and kicking hi-fis. Not a badly executed ad, but I question the efficacy of using TV advertising to influence behaviour of people whilst they are under the influence of something else. 

I was told that online was going to be a big part of the campaign.  So far all I can see is the "viral" video which has been viewed plenty of times but has attracted some criticism in comments.  A website for the campaign and any sign of the posters promised is lacking.

I can't see this working.

In Sweden they took a different approach. They realised that telling young what not to do whilst drunk was not going to work.  They accepted that for most people drinking alcohol was fun but that drinking too much wasn't.  So they produced guides to getting drunk, but not too drunk.  Cards were handed out telling people how to identify signs of getting to the optimum levels of inebriation and gave advice on how to stay at that level rather than going beyond into oblivion and beyond.  What a superb idea.  Acknowledging the truth and giving the young people the choice to take the advice in a mature way.

A 15 year old told me recently that he'd once gone out and downed a bottle of vodka , but it left him so sick that he doesn't drink that much vodka any more. He found his limit.  He didn't need someone telling him what it was.  Perhaps if it had been Absolut it would've had one of the Swedish guides attached and saved him a hangover from hell.

In the traditional of Ideal Government, wouldn't it be better if (WIBBI) the money was spent enforcing the licensing laws which forbid a pub selling drink to someone who is already intoxicated. [Licensing Act 2003, Section 141]  Local authorities are responsible for issuing licences to serve alcohol but as far as I am aware they are loath to withdraw licences from big chains because they cannot afford the legal fees when the big chains appeal.  If a community wants to stop anti-social behaviour caused by a bar then the council should have the confidence and ability to remove the licence.

I asked Lydia Fitzpatrick from the Home Office team just how many licences had been revoked for serving intoxicated customers in the past year.  Perhaps she could also clarify how many fines were issued under Section 141 of the 2003 Act and what percentage that represents of estimated incidents of binge drinking.  She promised to get back to me and since online is going to be an important part of the campaign I guess she'll pick up on this post and give us an answer in the comments section.

PS I know the picture is so dark you can't see the display.  I said to the team behind not to worry because at night, when drinkers are around, it would be more visible.  I was told that at night it would shut down because they didn't want to get in drinker's faces???  But the good news is that the displays will be made available to Local Authorities if they want to use them.

UPDATE:  There is a microsite at: http://wouldyou.direct.gov.uk.  No interaction, nothing downloadable, not contacts information, but there is a site.

Only 29% of youth workers have access to social web

Tim Davies has co-authored a report for the National Youth Agency about Youth Work and Social Media (pdf, 811kb).  It is an interim report so I hope someone accelerates the funding and allows him to press the pedal to the metal and get it finished because if only 29% of youth workers are able to access social media in a work setting they are seriously hampered in doing their job.

Social media was blamed for for some of the suicides in Bridgend and with report after report highlighting the dangers of networking sites, I find it amazing that 71% of youth workers can't access these sites at work. 

Web search promotes suicide?

The British Medical Journal has published (behind a payment firewall) a report saying that suicide is promoted on the web.  There are the usual calls for Internet Service Providers to

"pursue strategies that would maximise the likelihood that sites aimed at preventing suicide are sourced first."

Paul Canning has written at length and incisively about the story.  He points out his searches on suicide, and how to commit suicide generally don't encourage the act.  He also points out quite rightly that instead of complaining the charities should be doing what they can to promote the supportive sites.  Just like I have done with the links in the sentence above. 

Incidentally, Marjorie Wallace of Sane hasn't got a leg to stand on.  Search for suicide on the SANE website (click on image below) and you simply get a bunch of research and lobbying.  Not the page they have produced to help prevent suicides.

UPDATE:

The British Medical Journal has now released the full report.

Young offenders ask - what causes young offending?

I've come across this lovely little research project from the Violence Research Group at Cardiff University. Basically, academics investigating youth crime involved some of the young offenders themselves, getting them interviewing the academics who study the phenomenon and film it. I'll let them explain.

As far as we are aware, no one has given a young offender the opportunity to question academics on their theories of behaviour, crime and so forth. This seems somewhat amiss, as very often those with the greatest insight into behaviour are those who engage in it. Moreover, it is quite possible that such an exchange might yield important insights for both parties (and others).

They are not technically perfect (I think the sound is a little better in the wmv versions) but these are some nice little films. Although I have to say that I would have liked to hear more about the young people's reactions to what the academics were saying.

I agree, clowns ARE scary

Some children's hospital wards are decorated with 'fun' images of clowns. This is supposed to cheer up the patients and help healing, etc. Then someone thought of actually asking the young people what they thought.

It turns out that they thought clowns were sinister and odd. And really, who doesn't? There's a reason why Stephen King's It was voted the scariest programme to ever appear on TV, by readers of the Radio Times.

But the real point is, how much of a difference it makes to actually ask the young people themselves. One of the researchers pointed out, "As adults we make assumptions about what works for children." Or, (for my obligatory plug I'm a Councillor plug, I know you saw it coming), as Cllr Philip Smith from Mansfield said, when asked what he'd learnt from taking part, “we don't know as much as we thought we did about young people's views”.

If you ask the people actually affected by something, they may say something you didn't expect and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run.

(although, in this particular case what sort of sadistic hospital managers didn't think clowns were sinister??)

National Care Leavers Week - Sheffield LifeSwap

We've been talking with Sheffield City Council for a few months about running LifeSwap.   During National Care Leavers Week on October 24th 2007 five Care Leavers from Sheffield and five senior officers and members from the council will take a photo every hour on a mobile phone camera and send the pictures with captions to the LifeSwap site.  A snapshot of those ten lives will build over the day and if our previous experience is anything to go by a fascinating contrast in lives will show.

But that is just one small part of the effect of the event.  Sheffield are putting as much into and getting as much out of the preparation for the event.  A group of young people are responsible for organising the event.  They will decide which care leavers and which council people will take part.  The Corporate Parenting Panel of councillors have shown a lot of interest in signing up to the idea and it's raised lots of questions about what their role and responsibilities are towards Care Leavers.  Deciding to run LifeSwap is acting as a catalyst to generate awareness about children in care even before the event has taken place.

Which of course is going to be needed when the June 2007 White Paper, Care Matters: Time For Change comes into effect.

School students making the news

I saw an old friend at the weekend and got very excited when I heard about her new job. I'd like to draw everyone's attention to this absolutely brilliant project by the BBC. It's called School Report, and Year 8 students (12/13 year olds) got the chance to make their own news and 'broadcast' it via the internet. Stories included interviews with Blair, Cameron and other political leaders, a boy who successfully campaigned for subsidised bus fares, and the threatened deportation of a young asylum seeker in Glasgow.

In a way, it's like I'm a Councillor about the media, instead of local government. Of course, the media is an important part of an effective democracy. School Report is all about empowering young people, showing then that they can set the agenda and giving them a voice.

School Report's national News Day was on March 22nd, but the project is ongoing - new schools can register and students can add content all year round. I heartily recommend getting involved to any English or Citizenship teachers reading this. They've got loads of lesson plans and stuff to make it easy for you.