The
three main activities of the project
were:
1.
National
and regional seminars
Seminars and visits were held regionally
and nationally in England in order to
consult with youth work practitioners,
development and environmental educators,
and policy makers. The seminars identified
examples of good practice and some of
the challenges involved in introducing
sustainable development approaches into
education programmes and organisations.
This process helped to develop thinking
about sustainable development and youth
work, promote and share the concept
of sustainable development, and highlight
good practice and its application.
This also led to the
development of a model
of sustainable development emphasising
its relevance to youth work.
2. Youth work training
Research was carried out to identify
how sustainable development issues
could be incorporated into the initial
professional
training for youth
workers in England. This involved
a comprehensive review of the National
Youth Agency (NYA) endorsement criteria
for initial training course curricula
for the professional youth work qualification
in England and Wales. In addition,
a review of an initial training course
identified how sustainable development
could be included within the programme.
Comments and suggestions on how
the existing criteria could incorporate
sustainable development within it
were then presented to NYA's Education
and Training Standards (ETS) sub committee
in February 2003 and were received
positively. The wording of the endorsement
criteria has now been amended to reflect
the interconnected and global nature
of society today.
Find more information about training and
download a copy of the full report.
The project also produced
activities
and approaches to training
for sustainable development and youth
work. These were piloted through training
workshops at Groundwork UK National
Youth & Community Work Conferences
2001 and 2002 and with local authority
youth services including the Metropolitan
Borough of Dudley and the London Boroughs
of Camden and Southwark. The training
aimed to stimulate sustainable development
practice and to test out relevant
training activities for wider dissemination.
The DEA is also working
to incorporate Open College Network
accredited training unit(s) on Sustainable
Development and Youth Work as part
of the existing youth work training
it offers.
3. Web initiatives
The Project has supported the creation
of a searchable online database of
youth work resource packs and information
for sustainable development as part
of the National Youth Agency's information
services. Global
Resources is now online and lists
contacts for organisations and over
150 resources.
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