Youth involvement assessment, encouragement, and research participation- Youth Star
Introduction
Youth star was developed in order to assist researchers and practitioners to assess the extent of youth involvement and enhance their involvement through supportive dialogue between youth and service providers. The youth star is for young people taking part in community-based youth projects. It helps to focus on building the confidence and the skills those need to take part and do what they want in life. It improves their communication to get their point across, making better choices or taking part in youth, community, or other activities that they enjoy and which expand their skills or help other people.
The tool ‘Youth Star’ is developed by Triangle Consulting Social Enterprise in collaboration with Groundwork UK. Second edition changes were developed in collaboration with Young Solutions and young people, youth workers, and managers from RYCE (Redditch), Woodrush Youth and Community Centre, Street Games, and Riverside Youth Centre (Pershore).
The youth star is designed to be administered on one to one through collaborative discussion. It is a suite of tools for supporting and measuring change among youth while working with people. It is aimed at young people aged 12 to 21 but may be used with younger or older children or young people if we feel it is appropriate.
Completing the youth star is intended to be a helpful, engaging, and empowering process that stimulates and focuses discussion and provides a useful, shared basis for an action plan and goal setting. It is a flexible tool that relies on the skills of the interviewer using it, as well as on a degree of understanding and trust between them and the young person. The star is designed to be used to have a genuine interaction and complete it collaboratively.
Outcome areas of Youth Star
Interests and activities
Hopes and dreams
Health and well-being
Education and work
Communicating
Choices and behaviour
The journey to change
Change does not happen in one go- it is a journey and it can help to understand steps along the way. Everyone makes changes in their way but the pattern is often similar.
The youth star is built on a five-stage journey to change and the journey of change underpins the six areas are:
Stuck
Considering
Having a go
Working on it
Enjoying and achieving
These stages will be colour coded as well as numbered to understand youth easily.
How does the Youth Star work?
To complete the youth star, one to one collaborative dialogue to be taken place between young workers, peer mentors, or someone else they trust by looking at each of the six scales. Together youth can agree on where youth are in each area. Then mark the number on the star chart and connect the points to create a snapshot of what is working well in their life and what is causing difficulties. This will help them to agree on what areas to work on together. From there youth can start thinking about the actions which they want to take and the support that would help them to carry them out.
Transformation of ownership in the personal journey
Youth need to come back to the star at regular intervals. They can discuss the scales again, agree on where are they standing, and plot a new shape on the star chart. Over time, this will help them get a sense of their journey. This process facilitates youth to see “where they have come from and how things have changed for them” over time. This can help them to view things in a new way- to put the ups and downs of a single week into a bigger picture.
Discussing with young people
This process helps the youth learn and help themselves to reflect on their situation and see it in a new way. Researchers/practitioners can guide the discussion with young people based on their chosen number in the stages of the tool and challenge them or remind them of their achievements as needed. In this process, we need to be more directive towards young people considering the stage they stand on. This process requires good youth working skills, knowing about young people and rapport with them matters a lot. We need to encourage young people with low confidence to see their strengths, and others to be more realistic.
Once the young people complete all the scales, join the points to create a shape. Mark each reading on the star chart and join the points. We need to encourage young people to do this themselves and create the shape. This applies whether we and young people are completing the star on paper or screen, for example using star online.
Recognizing external and other factors
The journey of change focuses on the young person’s societal factors or other conditions beyond their control, which make it harder for things to improve. These may include poor housing, family problems, or lack of education or work opportunities. These also need to be acknowledged and recorded when using the youth star tool. This helps us to identify the gaps in provision and plan future developments accordingly.
Revisiting the young people
It is good to have meetings once every six months. At each review, repeat the process of discussing each of the star areas and agreeing on where the young person is on each scale, preferably without reference to the previous star readings. Once completed, you can show the current and previous readings to give an instant visual picture of change, either on paper or on-screen or using star online.
SAMA researchers experiences and learnings from the Youth Star training
“Youth star training helps researchers and practitioners with the ability to work with young people to strengthen their desire to change and take action accordingly".”
We attended the online Youth Star training sessions and we were joined by other researchers and practitioners from other countries. We felt it was a special training course considering the outcome in terms of empowering our ability to work effectively with youth in India.
The training equipped us with the ability to systematically document the progress of youths and plan provisions to make further progress through collaborative discussion. This training further helped us to map skills such as counselling and motivational interviewing to provide better support to youth in general.
The training was comprised of thought-evoking activities, demonstrations, discussions, and well-versed PPT presentations. We were familiarised with the materials and understood the entire process of using the tool with young individuals. All the practical difficulties while administering the tool and the remedies were discussed in detail, this really helped us to feel a sense of confidence to use the tool for with our own youth advisory board (YAB) on Project SAMA.
We understood that the Youth Star is not being judged or being awarded based on assessment. This is the tool that facilitates positive change among youth through realization. Upon administering this tool young individuals gain the ability to utilize their abilities within them or in their environment and put effort to overcome the difficulties. We realized that the journey of change among youth can be tracked with evidence by this tool. This systematic tool empowers youth to identify the gaps within them and act accordingly. We understood that to communicate clearly to the youth that there are no right or wrong answers in the tool. Collaboratively doing and actively engaging youth in the process is vital in administering this tool.
We understood the dos and don’ts while administering the tool with young individuals such as ‘it is not a test, nor no good or bad readings, but something to work on together. Further, the process of administering the tool with youth and documenting in offline and online modes was demonstrated.
Overall, the training experience was very enriching and engaging as a participant as the sessions were filled with activity-based tasks.