This morning the International Youth Work Trainers group have been starting to develop aims for the week and begin to come up with questions which need to be posed, and consequently answered, not just by those here in Ireland but also the wider trainer community.

The group began taking part in an exercise where they had a number of ‘appointments’ with other participants to discuss a set of topics to start them on the journey of taking the development of the network forward. Within their appointments they considered things such as personal expectations, how each individual could contribute to the network and what unites them as a whole.

One comment that I heard during the appointments was that this week should be seen as a time to get into ‘the laboratory’ and use this time to discuss and to experiment with ideas and concepts – and the group would be love to hear from anyone not here with us about their thoughts to be fed into the lab.

What are we aiming for?

Following on from the ‘appointments’ the group split into smaller working parties to begin developing aims for the week to give a clear structure for how things move forward. In the discussions there were common themes of…

• Transparency and openness
• Being totally needs led
• Shared or collective responsibility and identity
• Providing coherence or being a route to respond to consultations (such as EU Training Strategy)

While this isn’t an exhaustive list of everything that was discussed, it should give you a flavour of the topics that the group came across, eventually leading them to these aims for the week…

• To create an open networking / learning structure (with clear aims, shared responsibility and transparency).
• Exploring opportunities for taking responsibility for trainers to create identity, voice, rights and supporting pathways.
• To create a professional practice association of international youth work trainers.
• To agree on next steps after the meeting.
• To be ready to propose something to those who couldn’t join us here.
• To find out the identity of myself a motivation to belong to the network.
• To identify the specific purpose of the network and it’s tasks.
• To explore how to ensure diversity within the network.

But who are ‘we’?

One thing that came out of this morning was a lack of clarity over exactly who ‘we’ are as a network of trainers. It was clear to the group in the room that it was also very important to consider those who can’t be with us during this week – and ensure that they are part of the ‘we’ that is being created. If you’d like to share your thoughts on who ‘we’ as a collective network are the group would love to hear from you in the comments below.

Questionnaire Results

The questionnaire created by Buzz has started gathering some data around who else is out there in the wider trainer community and has gathered some interesting results already – although the group are still keen to hear from as many more people as possible so click here to complete it.

You can view some of the early feedback from the questionnaire below…

Don’t forget that you can of course continue the conversation in the comments below and we’d encourage you to do so. There will be another blog this evening to update you further on the progress of the group here in Ireland.