Youth work… the mystery and magic. What could an evidence base for youth work look like?

Cowle, Tracy (2025) Youth work… the mystery and magic. What could an evidence base for youth work look like? Doctoral thesis, University of Cumbria / Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This thesis offers a narrative approach to considering what youth work is, what does and does not constitute youth work and what are the key components that need to be present to legitimise the work with young people as youth work. It questions if youth work even exists in an agreed and definable form and a definition is offered. I have explored and challenged the notion of youth work measurement, curious to understand if youth work can be measured at all, pondering, ethically should we even seek to measure impact and can we ever be sure of the impact of anything on the lives of young people. Specifically addressing the questions: what is youth work’? What is impact, in relation to youth work? Should impact be measured in an ethical way congruent with the principles of youth work? How can we measure the impact of youth work? Participants were either youth workers or worked with young people and respond to questionnaires, interviews and a focus group. A narrative enquiry was used to gather data from books, journals, participants, my own practice and I present this thesis as a story, told in everyday language, honouring the stories I have been privileged to hear. The original intention was to create a ‘tool’ to measure impact, ultimately the tools created are the processes of demonstrating the causal relationship between the youth work activity undertaken and the outcomes and outputs that can be perceived or measured; the stories young people tell ‘fills the gap’. This story tussles with many aspects of youth work, the mystery and the magic alongside measurement, evidence and how best to capture impact, the challenge that emerged is how to record the impact without altering the dynamic and intention. Through reflective practice, review and participant engagement this simply distils to the notion that if youth is to be measured and the impact captured, that it must not jeopardise the relationship between youth worker and young people. Youth work is somewhat mysterious, unique in the individual interactions, but there is the need for a known understanding of what the profession seeks to achieve and the underpinning values and principles. There is indeed magic, this is evident in the stories of those involved. I offer an informed definition of youth work which contributes to the existing literature and that it is the story from practice that fills the causal gap between the activity or intervention and the impact, without the story we cannot know if there is correlation.

Item Type:	Thesis/Dissertation (Doctoral)
Departments:	Institute of Health > Social Work, Children and Families
Additional Information:	Tracy Cowle, Senior Lecturer in Children, Young People and Families, University of Cumbria, UK. Thesis submitted to the University of Lancaster for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, word count 73,977, July 2025.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	22 Aug 2025 13:33
Last Modified:	23 Aug 2025 08:00
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/9003

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