Online Youth Social Action
What is social action?
As a youth worker, a focus of my practice has always been youth participation, and ensuring that young people have a voice and feel heard. One way to do this is to support campaigning on issues that impact them. For three years I coordinated a social action programme for young carers, and now, I have decided to create that space online for home educated young people.
Social action is about people coming together to learn, reflect, understand and challenge important issues within their communities. Each term, a group of young people will meet online to work on a creative social action project together, where they will discuss issues important to them and decide together how to tackle it. These projects can include, creating a social media campaign, producing a podcast, creating a video or publishing your own creative writing. Young people will be supported throughout the process, to explore issues, learning about things that matter most to them, and to engage with decision makers to implement changes. The sessions will be entirely youth led, with the group taking the lead on the direction of their campaign.
The social Action Programme runs in 10 week blocks, with a maximum of 15 young people per group. This is to ensure there is time and space for each member of the group to be heard, and it feels manageable in an online environment. The final output from the project will be very much guided by what the young people want to do, this can include raising awareness, digital campaign, hosting an online event or other creative activities. At the end of each block, we will host an online celebration showcase, where parents/carers/important people in the young people’s lives are invited to attend to celebrate their achievements through the ten weeks.
Throughout the social action young people will improve their confidence in a variety of core skills, including:
Problem-solving
Negotiation
Empathy
Critical and creative thinking
Leadership
Debating
Building relationships with others
Self awareness
Building self esteem
Public speaking
Creative campaigning
The structure of the programme below:
Week 1: Introduction to social action
This session introduces young people to social action, and each other. We’ll play some online games to get to know others in the groups, complete a group agreement, and share what they hope to get out of the social action programme.
Week 2 Choosing a topic and understanding it well
In week 2 we’ll begin to think about the topic we want to focus on. Young people will take part in participatory activities to help prompt thoughts about the issues directly affecting them and the wider community, both locally and internationally. At the end of week two young people will have taking part in discussion activities about issues that matter most to them, pitched ideas for the group to focus on, and voted on the suggestions.
Week 3 & 4: Find out and research
Once we have our topic, it is now time to gather information and research it. This process is very much youth led, and could involve, inviting a local charity to speak on a specific issue, carrying out desk based research, interviewing people in a specific field, or devising surveys to share to gather information. This process enables the young people to learn more about their chosen topic, and to move forward with their campaign.
Week 5 & 6: Discuss and plan
This is the fun bit! The young people share and discuss the information they have collected, and share options of activities they could do, this could include, producing videos, social media campaigns, posters, spoken word, podcasts or pieces of writing or music. They decide who to target for their campaign, and agree of the best method to do so. This will involve compromise and cooperation, so that they can work together to explore ideas to address their chosen topic.
Week 7 & 8: Take action
This is when we get creative and putting our planning into action. These sessions will be entirely led by the activity and topic young people have chosen to focus on, and may include workshops, filming videos, delivering a talk, recording speeches, or designing graphics for social media. These session focus on communicating their knowledge and skills to others, in an informative and creative way.
Week 9: Celebration and showcase of young peoples work
After the sessions, we will host an online showcase for parents/carers and other important people in the young people’s lives. During this event young people will share their work, and reflect on their participation in the programme. There will also be online games (and maybe a quiz!) to keep it fun and engaging!
Week 10: Evaluate
The group will come back together for a final session to take part in reflective, interactive evaluation activities, to help them evaluate their work but also think about skills they have developed on an individual level throughout the sessions. They can also discus “what now?” and ways they can continue their campaigning beyond this social action project.
How do I get involved?
Dates and how to book onto our next block of social action sessions will be available soon. In the mean time, please register your interest, and information will be sent to you: