8 Steps to Inclusive Youth Work

How will you build best quality inclusion practice into your youth work settings?

Everyone has a different starting point on their journey to ensuring and promoting equality and inclusion.

We’ve made the process as easy as possible for you, with a range of supports you can use, whether you are just starting to think about this work or looking to better measure and communicate the good work you are already doing in the area.

Below you’ll find the 8 Steps toolkit, as well as audio and visual supports to help you get the most out of the 8 Steps.

  • the 8 Steps to Inclusive Youth Work toolkit, with easy-to-follow steps, will help you understand – and create – responsive, inclusive and diverse youth settings
  • our limited series podcast, where youth work practitioners share their stories and values and bring the 8-steps to life, and
  • 3 accompanying posters beautifully designed for us by Ashwin Chacko to help you better communicate the key themes of the 8 Steps in your setting!

Get started: the 8 Steps toolkit

This updated resource includes:

  • Tools and templates to support your inclusive youth work
  • Examples of inclusive practice from 16 youth organisations
  • A checklist of key indicators for assessing your equality and inclusive youth work
  • Self-reflection sections that will guide your responsive, inclusive and diverse youth work practice
  • Context sections that explain each of the 8 Steps through a social justice and responsive lens

Share: the key messages from the 8 Steps

Download (or get your hard-copy of) 3 accompanying posters beautifully designed for us by Ashwin Chacko to help you better communicate the key themes of the 8 Steps in your setting.

The 8 Steps to Inclusive Youth Work supports youth organisations in 3 ways. It guides you to become responsive, inclusive youth work practitioners by:

Looking Out

Setting inclusion into the wider context so that you better understand the nature of exclusion and inequalities – we call this the Looking Out, it’s the big picture stuff.

Looking In

Bringing a reflective practice approach to inclusive youth work – what do we bring to our work and how can we bring our best selves? We call this Looking In.

Fostering Change

Looking at our practice – we introduce a range of indicators on inclusive practice. We call this Fostering Change.

Listen: bringing the 8 Steps to life

Welcome to our 8 Steps audio series! Here youth workers share their experiences of inclusive practice to give you an insight into how the 8 Steps can work in your day to day practice.
rhona

In our first interview we meet Rhona Dunnett, speaking about her experience at Youth Theatre Ireland, the national development organisation supporting youth drama practice. Rhona speaks about developing an evidence base to identify the needs of young people and their response to the findings of their review.

In our second interview we meet Cristina Iancu from Retold Narratives who works as a freelance youth worker in creative practice. Cristina speaks about Step 8 – Monitoring and Evaluation. But first she tells us about her work and her values.

In our third interview we meet Gina Halpin, from Youth Work Ireland’s national office. Youth Work Ireland is made up of 20 Youth Services who engage with over 76,000 young people. Gina tells us about a project they worked on designed to amplify voices that have been largely unheard.

Get your copy of 8 Steps to Inclusive Youth Work

Access the tools you need to plan and build best quality equality and inclusion practice into your youth work.

Order your free hard-copy version of 8 Steps to Inclusive Youth Work. Bonus: Copies of the 3 accompanying posters beautifully designed for us by Ashwin Chacko are also included!

Department of Children Equality Disability Integration and Youth