This fellowship, undertaken by independent research consultant Cristina Bacalso, will consolidate existing learning and develop new capacity within the Digital Youth Work Research Hub and is designed to maximise policy impact at a moment where UK and other governments are considering questions of risk, exploitation and vulnerability for young people online.
The digital youth work within the DYWRHub has already made significant contributions to shaping UK policy and this fellowship will:
- Consolidate existing work on digital youth work
- Frame this within an emerging policy and practice environment
- Extend the reach and critical mass of the DYWRHub by working with new organisations
- Explore sustainable approaches to collective work, through emplaced working and network consolidation
Cristina will rotate around three organisation who each approach digital youth work differently:
- YouthLink Scotland, who work directly with digital youth workers
- Space Youth Services who work directly with neurodivergent young people
- Articulate Hub who work directly with both digital youth workers and care-experienced young people.
In this way the fellow is the lever and mechanism to drive sustainable shared practice, seeking to embed new practice within each organisation during Cristina’s tenure (one month per organisation) in order to maximise impact. As the fellowship develops, good-practice guides and how-to mechanisms will be built and shared, creating critical mass around change as well as building new practice and knowledge networks between the organisations. These networks, in turn, will begin to function as sounding boards, critical friends and accountability structures, ensuring both continuation and support beyond the life of the fellowship.