Our Thoughts - Towards A Data Literate Youth Sector

This month, in this long read, the Centre’s Executive Director Tom Burke reflects on how the youth sector can respond to the opportunities and challenges of an increasingly data rich world.
 

It is stating the obvious to say that most work with young people is firmly situated in their communities: the spaces and places in which they live and grow, study and work, worship or just ‘hang out’. Understanding this context helps build the relationships that are critical to engaging and supporting young people. Knowing the spaces of young people's lives is a first step to designing appropriate provision, including specific projects that both respond to young people's expressed wishes and feelings, and act on observed and understood needs.

Traditionally, this understanding was informed by building a picture of the community through approaches like community profiling. We go and review the last census results - perhaps from a decade ago. We look at the inequalities in the access to, and use of, services and spaces. We work with young people to literally draw, walk and map their use of space: where they go, where they feel safe (or not) and why they go there (or not). We would seek out and understand the assets in the community rather than just the observed needs: the rich tapestry of community groups, activists and resources, and the cumulative knowledge and skills that are strengthening the space. We consider how we complement and bolster these efforts and help to productively fill any gaps.

While this is the 'bread and butter' for much community youth work, reflecting our occupational standards and 101 for many entry-level training courses in youth work, practitioners face a changing world in terms of the data - and access to it - that they have to build these pictures.

Youth providers today are working in an increasingly data-rich world with improved access to information about the communities in which they are based and the young people with whom they engage. Once irregular updates to statistics are becoming real-time, more detailed, and within more specific data sets. As more data is collected from diverse sources, it is also increasingly interrelated - being able to mix various strands and see new patterns & relationships or data sets which compliment or depend on one another. We are all working with increasingly diverse communities - ethnically, religiously and in how they define or express their gender and sexuality - and we have increasingly accurate and granular data about the differential experiences of these groups, which highlight inequalities in access and experience. 

These moves to better capture and share data are hardly new: it's been over a decade since data.gov.uk was launched as a gateway to make available non-personal UK government data more accessible. Yet, the pace of change grows with escalating access to and expectations for the use of data. Most recently, late last year the UK Government issued a National Data Strategy that sets ambitions to 'transform' the use of data. A consultation has concluded to consider legal reform following our leaving the EU, including on data protection rules. The most detailed expression of this Government’s stated ambitions - the recent Levelling up White Paper - mentions data 144 times.

This filters into greater expectations on youth providers - and for many, a desire - to increase their use and application of data. To better understand the communities and people with whom we work so we can better design and deliver effective provision.

Yet this shift also brings risks to our work. Risks that data sets are misused or their basis misunderstood, leading to poorly designed provision. Risks that where we don't understand what data can - and cannot -  tell us, and if we are unable to interrogate and understand the data analytically, we mistarget provision or reinforce existing power relations and inequalities in our communities. The risk of overt and covert surveillance of young people that breaches their rights to control what and how information about them is captured, stored and analysed.

There are also risks for young people from youth providers failing to protect their rights on how data about them is used and stored. At the Centre, our work with multiple youth organisations has shown that many lack robust data protection and privacy policies. While the ingredients of an ethical and humane approach to use data are well articulated and indeed common to ethical youth work relationships, are we confident these ingredients are consistently embedded in our organisational policies, procedures and practises across the sector?

At the Centre, these issues are increasingly at the front of our mind. We know the Government's intent. We hear from commissioners and practitioners a desire to better use the data to which they have access. To more deeply understand the things they think they already know. To gain insight into the things they are not even considering (yet). To learn more about who they are and are not reaching. For many, there is also a desire to more confidently interpret the meaning behind the numbers and identify what data can and cannot tell them. To more confidently situate data and effectively weigh this alongside young people's views and the assets in communities not captured in official data sets.

We believe this points to building a 'data literate' youth sector. A workforce able to understand the data they have access to and its sources and constructs; to appropriately analyse and interpret it such that is meaningful to designing high-quality provision that furthers equity and inclusion; to create and collate data transparently and ethically; to communicate with young people and communities how they’re using data and what they’re learning from it. To gain the knowledge and skills so youth work builds young people's own data literacy. To ensure this is done ethically, with practitioners understanding young people's rights and all organisations always respecting them. 

We need leaders and managers to invest in building data infrastructure: the systems to collect and visualise the data, but also the time and skills to analyse and interpret it. A culture that uses data to inform decision making, and transparency as to how data has been used. High standards of how data rights are known and respected, with redress offered when things go wrong. 

We also need to see change from Government, funders, and researchers: collecting and sharing more specific data, more regularly, in a format that is accessible, and which can be visualised and compared easily with other relevant data. For longer-term collection and analysis to show shifts over time and between spaces and contexts. For a legal framework and policy context that always empowers young people and those working with them to manage data ethically.

The young people we work with are probably the most data literate generation ever and will be key partners in this process of change. To shape how their provision uses data about them and help us understand and interpret what the data is telling us and therefore what change we should make. 

In the months ahead, we are seeking to develop new work, resources, and projects that will help bring this to life in a way that helps us navigate the data-rich world we face. As always, we are open to hear your perspectives and ideas on what is – and is not – needed.

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Tom Burke is Executive Director of the Centre for Youth Impact. With thanks to Centre for Youth Impact colleagues Bethia McNeil, Kaz Stuart and Josef FIsher for comments on a draft of this blog.