Appointment of assessor signals improved youth work structures

A KEY position, in Government efforts to improve youth work structures, has been filled three years after being planned.

Conor Rowley is to take up the role of assessor of youth work, a position created under the 2001 Youth Work Act.

The job was to have been filled within months of the publication of the National Youth Work Development Plan by youth affairs minister Síle de Valera in August 2003.

Announcing the appointment yesterday, the minister described it as an important step in ensuring a co-ordinated approach to youth work development.

Mr Rowley comes from a teaching background and has worked extensively in the youth work sector. He has also worked in the areas of prison education and addiction treatment work, and most recently worked as co-ordinator of a drugs programme run by the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin’s Crosscare service.

The main aim of his job will be to support the development of good youth work practice through assessment, monitoring and review of programmes and services provided by the youth work sector. This includes a wide variety of youth organisations which work with more than half a million young people, from local youth groups to national organisations such as boy scouts and girl guides.

The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), which has lobbied for many years for progress on the 2003 plan, welcomed the appointment.

“This is a long-awaited step on the road to delivering quality youth work services.

His role will serve to improve the professionalism, accountability and standing of youth work through a recognised assessment process accountable to the minister for youth affairs,” said NYCI assistant director Deiniol Jones.

“Mr Rowley’s appointment will provide a mechanism of ensuring that funds spent on the sector provide value for money and that the sector is accountable to the public and, as a result, to young people,” he said.

The Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) welcomed Ms de Valera’s other announcement yesterday that 21 youth work officers are to be appointed by Vocational Education Committees (VECs). This will give VECs functions in co-ordinating youth work locally and a greater profile and relevance in the lives of the communities they serve.

“After a period of five years, the minister has succeeded in providing a resourcing structure to enable VECs carry out their functions in the context of the Youth Work Act,” said IVEA general secretary Michael Moriarty.