Youthworx 2.0

Youthworx is a Melbourne-based youth media enterprise that assists homeless or ‘at risk’ young people to become media trainees, producers and broadcasters with an aim to reconnect them with learning and employment opportunities.
Youthworx emerged out of a social partnership between The Salvation Army, SYN-FM, a youth-run community radio station, non-for-profit organisation Youth Development Australia and CCI. The project investigates new approaches to social enterprise, which brings third sector welfare services together with the collaborative sphere of community and niche (peripheral) media markets. CCI researchers have investigated the development of the initiative, its rationales and evolution into Youthworx Productions - an entrepreneurial training and employment scheme for disadvantaged youth. The longitudinal research has enabled the research team to track the changes that the program makes to individual young participants as they engage in supported co-creative media work within the emergent Youthworx media culture of quality training and production.

The partnership structure of Youthworx was consolidated in 2010, allowing the program to offer parallel accredited courses in Creative Industries (CERT I-III) via collaborative arrangement with NMIT TAFE and CERT IV via Swinburne University, in addition to open access workshops and Independent Media Training conducted on a one-on-one basis. Core funding from Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) covers Youthworx training salaries. Capital costs are covered by philanthropic and corporate funds (e.g. Mirror Project Funding: Federal Government Attorney Generals Dept Proceeds of Crime Act).

Youthworx Production began operation in mid 2010, providing a small group of young people with paid traineeships in a real-world enterprise that gives them higher levels of skills and employment prospects. Youthworx Productions has received financial support from Victorian and Australian government departments, including seed funding under the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Round 2 Jobs Fund – Get Communities Working program. The social enterprise is focused on the delivery of commissioned media products and fee-for-service media training. This income stream has included promotional and educational DVDs, webcasts, documentaries, artist EPKs, music videos and digital story telling workshops.

Main clients:
Government: DHS
Community: STREAT Social Enterprise, Ladder Project, Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, Multicultural Arts Victoria, Araluen Disability Services, Centre for the Human Rights of Imprisoned People, MOSS (Merri Outreach Support Services)

Progress in 2010
2010 brought Phase II of the research to a conclusion. This involved comprehensive research into Youthworx as an exemplar of media enterprise for disadvantaged young people, its organisational structure as a social partnership, creative pedagogies and social outcomes for the young people involved. We have been using ethnographic methods, including participant observation at Youthworx’s Brunswick studio and interviews.

Research Fellow Aneta Podkalicka has been leading this phase of the research between June-Dec 2010, publishing a number of articles and papers and developing a Youthworx Phase II report. The report evaluates Youthworx’s models of media participation as an intervention in young people’s life paths, drawing on our ethnographic study.

Research team commenced Phase 3 (2010-13) of the research that addresses interstate and international parallels, ranging from the ICE (Information and Cultural Exchange) in western Sydney to SARAI’s Cybermohalla in Delhi and Youth Radio and the One Economy Corporation in the US. These youth media enterprises are examples of entrepreneurial alternatives to formal schooling, which have demonstrated how to assist marginalised young people in acquiring individual and social skills via access to communication technologies, resources, audiences and professional expertise. A series of interviews with key participants and stakeholders across these youth media enterprises has been conducted by Prof Meredyth and PhD student Jon Staley (US-based Youth Radio and One Economy) and by Dr Podkalicka (Delhi-based Cybermohalla).
Chris Wilson, the APAI associated with the project, has been conducting research on youth radio in Australia. Jon Staley, Youthworx Project Manager and ISR PhD student has been researching youth media pedagogies and social enterprise practices.

Plans for 2011
Phase 3 of the research will involve:
1. Operational expansion of the Youthworx program. This includes plans to increase intake through expanded networks; consolidation of Youthworx Production training and employment schemes; development of mobile outreach Youthworx services encompassing mobile studio, editing and online facilities; and expanded collaboration with SYN via TV and online distribution opportunities.
2. Research by the CIs and RF into interstate and international parallel youth media initiatives, building on 2010 preliminary contacts and research.
3. Completion of a series of articles and conference papers by CIs and RF.
4. Completion of several chapters of PhD projects (Wilson, Staley)

Outputs included:
Rennie, E. (forthcoming, 2011). Life of SYN: A Story of the Digital Generation. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. Acceptance date 16/04/2010.

Rennie, E. (in press, 2010). ‘Community Media and the Third Sector’ and ‘Youth Media ‘(research essays). In J. Downing, (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Social Movement Media. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Acceptance date 09/07/2009
Podkalicka, A. & Thomas, J. (2010) ‘The skilled social voice: An experiment in creative economy and communication rights’, International Communication Gazette, 72 (2).

Podkalicka, A. and C. Campbell (2010). "Understanding digital storytelling: individual ‘voice’ and community-building in youth media programs." e-seminar: International Journal of Media, Technology & Life-Long Learning 6(2).
Hopkins, L (in press) “YouthWorx: increasing youth participation through media production”, Journal of Sociology 9 (acc. 2 Nov 2010)

Conference / seminar presentations:
Podkalicka, A. and Wilson, C. Dynamic tensions: ‘voice’ and media ‘community of practice’ in youth participation programs, IAMCR, Braga, Portugal, 18-22 July 2010.

Podkalicka, A. Informal learning, pro-am networks, peripheral markets in youth media projects, Creative Suburbs conference, QUT, Brisbane, 28-29 September, 2010.

Meredyth, D. “Skills without schools?’ CCI symposium, Brisbane, 2010.

Media:
‘Can creative media training help at-risk youth? A question to Prof D Meredyth’, The Age, 23 November 2010.

New Knowledge Generated

a) A rare longitudinal study of the impact on individual disadvantaged young people of access to media production, peer learning and broadcast facilities linked to training and accreditation;

b) New understanding of how disadvantaged young people, over time, can acquire new personal, social and communication skills, given access to media production, broadcasting and ‘collegial pedagogy’;

c) Examples of emergent innovation, showing how it is possible to make effective links between creative industries professionals, community media, and new approaches to social services and social enterprise;

d) New analyses of ‘open source’ organisational cultures in community media, of voice, listening and media participation and of the history of youth radio as a category in Australian media policy.