STEAM in Youth Work 2023 - 2024
Year Awarded
2022
Amount
€299,731
- Organisation:National Youth Council of Ireland
Project Summary
NYCI is seeking €300,000 for ‘STEAM in Youth Work’ to extend the capacity of the youth sector to deliver inspiring STEAM EPE and reach new groups of young people. With 382,600 young people and 41,400 staff and volunteers, the sector is emerging as a key player within Ireland’s STEAM EPE ecosystem, particularly so for its capacity to engage meaningfully with our most disadvantaged young people (Begley,2022; Begley,2021; Begley,2021a; Kiviniemi,2019). Yet, there remains a significant portion of the sector that has yet to engage in STEAM EPE, which this programme will target (CEI,2021).
Youth work provides one of the few settings where young people, as active partners, can take responsibility for co-creating programmes in safe, supportive environments (Youth Work Act). It is ideally positioned to support STEAM EPE which fosters engagement, curiosity and conversation amongst a cohort who would not typically engage with STEAM.
Through thirteen frontline partnership projects, and continuous professional development and resource/equipment dissemination for the wider sector, youth workers will:
Co-create STEAM projects with young people to respond to social and environmental issues of concern to them or their scientific and/or creative interests.
Develop partnerships with other funded research/innovation centres.
Create access to STEAM EPE in community-settings, with a particular focus on disadvantaged young people.
1112 training/development opportunities will enable 189 practitioners to deliver in-depth STEAM EPE projects to 9,450 young people within two years. Robust evaluation, practitioner toolkits/resources, equipment kits and events will ensure high-quality, sustainable STEAM EPE practice is rolled out across the sector.