Youth work triumphs in Covid’s ‘perfect storm’

TRIUMPHING over adversity in a difficult operational year under the cloud of Covid-19 and providing a springboard to support young people in 2022 were among the themes considered by a gathering of youth workers at a novel and ‘inspirational’ venue in Cork.

Youth workers from across Cork city and county gathered for a training and wellbeing event at Fota Wildlife Park organised by the Youth Services section of Cork Education and Training Board (CETB) which marked a change from the annual indoor forums of recent years.

During the event, the lockdowns, restrictions and curtailments during Covid were described as ‘the perfect storm’ in terms of impacts on the welfare of children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, by Special Rapporteur for Child Protection UCC Professor Conor O’Mahony who told those attending that ongoing work is required to deal with the fallout.

A behind the scenes educational tour was given to 70 youth service personnel by Fota staff, while an arts workshop facilitated by Cork Creates co-ordinator Davy Dummigan gave the workers ideas for work with their young people. Attendees were also informed of developments in apprenticeship services by Gillian Cannon and a motivational address was given by Ber Browne, both of CETB.

“Cork ETB is very conscious and proud of the fantastic work done by youth project staff during the Covid-19 lockdowns where youthwork was prioritised by government as an essential service. We wanted to provide an opportunity for those at the front line to reflect on those efforts but also to help motivate them for the year ahead when the impact of restrictions will continue to become apparent,” explained Youth Service Development Officer Mick Finn.

“We took the opportunity to present the inaugural Youth Project Recognition Award to a group – Foróige Charleville – that had shown particularly creative innovation and resilience in providing services to their young people over the past year and rewarded them with a wellness sail training project for staff and participants. We want to highlight the message that youthwork is crucial and that the people delivering it need to be recognised.”

CETB FET Director John Fitzgibbons said that providing youthwork staff from across different services – funded and supported by CETB – with the opportunity to “step out” and reconnect after a very challenging and difficult 19 months for everyone was a very worthwhile exercise.

“Tribute has to be paid to the work done by the Youth Services through these difficult times to support and maintain engagement with young people who were additionally disadvantaged by the impacts of Covid 19,” he told the participants. “While a critical element of the engagement with young people was to support the mental well-being of this cohort, we cannot forget or overlook either the importance of supporting and fostering initiatives to ensure the mental health and well-being of the people who delivered services at the front line.”

Mr Fitzgibbons described the choice of the Wildlife Park in Fota as the venue for this gathering of Youth Services staff as ‘unusual but highly successful, indeed inspired’. “The natural surroundings and facilities, as well as the engagement with the Park staff contributed significantly to a very positive and successful event.”

Special Rapporteur for Child Protection, Conor O’Mahony pointed out that the Covid-19 scenario had affected disproportionately young people from disadvantaged backgrounds but that the work of the youthservice sector would be crucial in developing service responses from their experiences.

“We had a situation were children were out of school for long periods and some of the most vulnerable were forced to stay in unsafe home environments, with limits on contacts from social workers and others…it was the perfect storm,” he said. However he added that there have also been learnings and positive developments to draw upon from the period in terms of advances in child protection: the introduction of the ‘one house’ service delivery model in dealing with traumatic events for children; the development of specialised child and family courts with specially trained judges; as well as the first substantial review of the Childcare Act (1991). “It’s important that the reality on the ground is fed to the policy makers,” he said.

CETB is planning to follow up on the event with a mental health promotion grant scheme for its participant UBU projects as well as continuing wellbeing training for workers. “We intend to provide a grant scheme to fund counselling and therapies for our young people across our 31 UBU funded projects which will enable them to provide such supports at the coal face in the city and county. Youthwork staff will also be selected for WRAP training which will enable them to deal confidently with the emerging needs demands of the young people they work with,” Mick Finn explained.

He thanked the YS staff for the ‘considerable’ job of organising the logistics of this event and the Fota staff for facilitating the event. “Fota is fantastic resource for the region and was a huge loss while closed. We had previously held training and workshop events at Pairc Ui Chaoimh but could not do that this year with the indoor restrictions: the Fota venue afforded us safe space to provide motivational talks, presentations and a wellbeing element for the 70 who attended. It is a perfect venue with the bonus that people using it are supporting the ongoing work of the charity.”