Last week the Evangelical Alliance published a report titled 'Young People Matter' suggesting that teenagers contribute around £300m each year to the economy through voluntary work. Between September and December 2008, they surveyed around 700 14-18 year olds and found that 45% of young people regularly volunteer once a month, and 80% donate money to charity. Interestingly, there seems to be a strong link between faith and volunteering: Almost 40% ...

Tim's written a really helpful post about confidentiality in blogging as a response to one workers' concerns. His list has some great tips for how to balance your writing without revealing too much about particular individuals or situations. Here are a few of the points: Share general points of learning, not specifics Whilst I often ...

After flicking through Google Reader earlier, I realised that I never posted about the upcoming Youth Work Online Unconference on 11th July. It's called Connected Generation 2009 and will be held in the same Central London location as last years event. Best of all, it's still FREE to attend! UPDATE: After posting this, I realised that ...

Children & Young People Now magazine have launched a couple of online surveys about youth clubs opening at weekends. One is aimed at youth workers and the other at young people. If you have time, why not take the workers' survey, and then pass on the young people's survey link to any young people you are in contact with. The youth workers' survey is here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB2299VXHB7S9 The young people's survey can ...

Back in October, we set up an online text message system for communicating with the young people who attend our activities. Many schools now use these types of systems that integrate with their databases to send messages to parents of pupils, but there are also many simpler services available for smaller organisations. To see a range ...

Image courtesy of Sketched Out One of the things I love about working with young people is the unpredictability of it all. A perfectly rational conversation can suddenly take a sharp turn and you end up in some random and amusing place with no real idea of how you got onto the subject! At our church group the other night we were ...

A dressing-up game with a great twist: ice! Numbers: 10 or under. If you have many more, play as teams where they nominate a player. Suitable for: Ages 12 and up due to the physical nature of the game. Preparation time: At least a day in advance (for freezing the clothing). Venue: A large room or small hall. Safety First: The game can involve some physical pushing and shoving, so take care and set some clear ground rules first! Equipment ...

UK Magazine Youth Work Now has launched a FREE section of their website dedicated to resources for youth workers. Essentially, it is a round-up of links and articles from the magazine collected into one place and organised by themes such as alcohol and sexual health with more to be added soon. Go take a look at www.cypnow.co.uk/youthworkresources ...

The following is a short article I wrote that was published in Youth Work Now Magazine (A supplement of Children & Young People Now) last week. In addition to the print copy, it can be found on the CYPNow website here. Sometimes it's best not to get involved Workers need to be available to young people, even if they are not ...