The NYA is delighted to announce confirmation of the members who will make up the Steering Group for our Research Hub.
The Hub aims to bring together all those involved in the youth work sector to ensure that practice, research, policy and funding share a common dialogue. Too often excellent work is going on in any one of these fields, but with little communication. There is much potential research that the whole sector could benefit from and much about youth work that is not understood well, and the Hub is intended to be a vehicle to promote that research and ensure it is as useful as possible.
Ultimately we hope that good research can inform the needs of practitioners, funders and policy makers; and that the good research is informed by their needs also. Another key aim is to bridge the gap between practice and academia by making academic works more accessible and understandable to those who would benefit from the findings.
Given this broad aim, the Group is made up of representation across those sectors, with practitioners also helping to provide a youth voice.
The list of members is as follows:
Funding Bodies
National Lottery Heritage Fund
Practitioners
Sheffield Futures (Louise Ellison – Deputy Service Manager)
Fire Fit Hub (Jennifer Van de Merwe – Centre Manager)
Academics
Tania de St. Croix (King’s College London)
Tina Salter (YMCA George Williams)
Policy Representatives
Office of Children’s Commissioner
Research Organisations
Centre for Youth Impact (Bethia McNeil – CEO)
Oversight of the Hub
NYA
The Professional Association for Lecturers in Youth and Community Work (PALCYW)
To help sense-check, scrutinise and assure the work of the Steering Group we are also delighted to announce a Reference Group of:
–Bernard Davies
–Howard Williamson
–Kaz Stuart
The combined knowledge of all members will be invaluable in helping the Hub achieve its aims.
Lastly, NYA would like to thank all those who have shared an interest in this or submitted applications, as well as to Youth Link Scotland for their help and advice in shaping the initial discussions. There were many excellent applications for too few places, however we will also look to have input from subject-specific experts where appropriate and so there will be further chances for people to get involved in the future and continue your support.