“GOAL: to create a country where youth-led social innovation becomes pervasive, part of the culture of schools and has a greater impact on society. In so doing we are helping to develop key learning skills for young people and promote values and understanding around sustainable development, human rights, democracy and inclusion as well as helping to nurture youth entrepreneurship, innovation, wellbeing, voice and participation at local and national levels.”
YOUTH: our aim is that social innovation education will result in engaged and connected youth who are using their voice and being listened to.
EDUCATION: our aim is to have sustained deliberate investment in social innovation education within post primary schools, educators and students demonstrating learning outcomes and value added to school communities and educator training…an enhanced learning environment where innovation, entrepreneurship, social justice, youth voice and participation is celebrated.
SOCIETY: our aim is to enhance our participatory democracy where young people know what they do and don’t do matters. A population capacity around social change and innovation; a resilient population able to collaborate and address the most significant challenges of our time.” [2]
Prior evaluation reports on the Growth Project provide more detailed information (see footnote and links below). [3]
During 2018/19, YSI piloted a Local Community Networks Cluster approach to “upscaling” in Cork with support funding from the Tomar Trust. Six schools worked together in cluster groups facilitated by YSI with the aim of developing a regional approach to building and strengthening leadership in social innovation learning and practice in the region. The intent was to strengthen the capacity of school and local communities to address challenges and build a network of support for social innovation projects. Within the pilot, participating schools collaborated through Teach Meets to share information and learning and hosted local YSI Local Community Showcases to increase student engagement, teacher capability and local visibility. These groups of schools, or clusters, were described as “Communities of Innovation”.
During a second phase of the pilot, during the 2019/20 school year, 7 post-primary schools in Cork City participated involving 224 students within the Social Innovation Action Programme, Senior Cycle (including 2 DEIS Schools). A total of 12 projects were submitted from these schools. During this second pilot year, systems for staffing and scaling the approach in targeted areas in rural and urban Ireland were developed.
Based on the results from piloting in Cork City, additional expansion funding was successfully sought. YSI developed a 3-to-5-year plan to expand its work and further develop an area-based model to grow and embed youth-led social innovation around Ireland. It approached Tomar Trust with this idea and received strong support. The stated goal was to bring YSI to 50% of second-level schools by 2023 through a three-year initiative. The proposal was to recruit 12 local YSI leaders who would adopt a regional development approach through the creation and support of area-based clusters of school communities, each consisting of an average of 5 individual schools. More specifically, the funding proposal stipulated that the local leaders would “…recruit the schools, create the clusters, provide training, build in-school capacity, facilitate shared learning and address local needs, both rural and urban.” Tomar Trust committed 50% funding of the plan to end 2025 on condition of securing matching funding from the Department of Education. The Department agreed to come on board and committed to an initial 3-year term of funding.
The growth initiative benefited from the existing work and funding of YSI. Funding from a variety of other public sources include the Department of Rural and Community Development, Dormant Accounts Funds, Pobal, the Department of Social Protection, HSE, Department of Children and Youth Affairs (*now known as the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth), Cork and Dublin City Councils. The new investment by Tomar Trust and Department of Education, focussing on growth and area development, also benefited the existing core work of YSI. Following a planning year, a stepwise process occurred in which the project sought to increase the numbers of young people, YSI Guides, schools, communities, and other organisations involved with supporting youth led social innovation and the expansion of the network of schools and sites throughout Ireland.
In Year 1 of implementation (2020/21), YSI recruited 5 Local Leaders and one Regional Leader (Dublin City). This complement of local leaders was insufficient in number to fully cover all of the counties in Ireland, and concentrated effort in areas where YSI had the strongest presence (primarily in Leinster and Munster). As of the 2nd year of implementation (2021/22), ten regions encompassing all the counties in the Republic of Ireland were targeted and staffed by a complement of nine local leaders. As of 2022-23, a re-organisation of the regions yielded a complement of eight local leaders distributing their efforts all of the Republic and led by an area development manager. The local leader team remains functional, capable, and experienced as school/community developers, and is more fully integrated into ongoing YSI operations.
The project has been implemented in an iterative fashion such that each local leader recruits, engages with, and support young people and adult facilitators in school and community settings across the country, seeks to build networks within and between collaborating sites, and serves to enhance and deepen the capacity of these settings to enable youth-led social innovation. The core expectation is that local leaders will engage and grow youth-led social innovation through a range of complex and interrelated processes. These include site recruitment and engagement, relationship-building at several levels, assessing needs, mapping communities, making connections, supporting participants, fostering collaboration, advocating, communicating, messaging, and documenting progress (among others).
During 2022/23, the growth effort was led by area development manager Fiona Gomez, who previously had served as a local leader in Cork. It continues to be supported by other programme components within YSI (e.g., the Social Innovation Programme Coordinator, the Learning and Practice Specialist, Education Administrator, Communications Officer, Financial & Governance Management, and Researcher).
What was the impact of the area development initiative on YSI organisational capability?
The area development initiative has served an important role in transforming YSI from a relatively small but dynamic organisation into a more structured and sophisticated operational network of integrated national, regional, and local components. These include a professional support and implementation infrastructure, quality assurance processes, improved systems of reporting and accountability, and an evidence-generating research and evaluation team that delivers timely management-focused information. Through these changes, the organisation has become more ready and capable to implement youth engagement, youth voice and youth-led social innovation to a greater scale. Some of the accomplishments associated with these efforts, as highlighted by its leaders, include:
YSI has revised its organisation structure over the past several years, creating a senior leadership team, specialist roles, a local leader team, and greater clarity in governance functions;
YSI has extensively broadened and strengthened its information gathering and dissemination functions;
YSI has developed its Innovation and Impact function bringing in expertise in research and evaluation and increased its work in delivery of new offerings to young people and educators
YSI has strengthened its use of digital technology enabling more online events at national and local level and the development of a new digital platform for youth access in the coming year;
YSI is now a national body with local presence in all counties in the Republic. It is presently also exploring cross-border initiatives. Its team of regional leaders interact with an extensive array of youth-serving organisations and settings throughout Ireland and have built extensive collaboration networks and communities of practice;
Improved information and monitoring systems facilitate improved programme analytics which enhance understanding and communication, both internally and with government and other stakeholders;
Improved and more thoroughly validated systems of performance measurement and metric to gauge progress are available in collaboration with researchers at UCD and REACH Evaluation.
Evaluation foci include a county-level analysis of growth-related outcome data and an exploration of qualitative aspects of local leader interactions with respect to the activation of youth, amplification of youth voice, the integration of young people’s ideas and thinking on local services and policies; and the strengthening of networks, connections, and capacity.
What changed and what has been learned about growth and expansion through the work of the local leaders?
The stated goals of the project for growth were twofold: 1. to increase the number of YSI programme participants at Junior (now Ignite) and Senior (now Activate) levels (e.g., schools, students, Guides), and 2. to broaden and deepen the use of social innovation within participating settings such that youth-led social innovation becomes more firmly embedded and sustainable.
Quantitative growth outcomes and learning
In a separate section of this report, quantitative information about patterns of recruitment and retention outcomes over a five-year period associated with the initial goal are summarised. The data show that despite the challenges of the Pandemic and the significant changes to school environments, the engagement of school and community site remained relatively constant throughout this period.
However, it is also noted that the initiative did not meet its stated goal of substantially increasing the number of participating school sites, and it has become clear that the Junior Action (Ignite) programme has decreased in participation for several reasons. These include long-term effects of the Pandemic, increased competition for time and resources at this level, school-based stressors, challenges in fitting the programme into curricular requirements, and related vulnerabilities. At the same time, due to the increase in participation in several other programme areas, the total number of participating young people has increased significantly over the past five years.
Additionally, beginning with targeted efforts in 2022/23, the number of community organisations participating in YSI programmes have significantly increased, in part due to several “pilot” efforts. These have shown that YSI can grow in a variety of settings, not just in schools, but also must adapt its offerings to the unique characteristics and circumstances within those sites (most especially the specific needs of the learners).
Qualitative growth outcomes: What makes a difference?
Research on change and innovation implementation suggests that common methods to promote adoption of new ideas and strategies often result in failure (i.e., they do not lead to sustained implementation). This occurs because these methods are deployed in relative isolation absent a change management process. Such useful but insufficient strategies may include dissemination of information (research, practice guidelines), training (no matter how well done), implementation by edict or policy, and implementation without changing supporting roles and functions.
In contrast, research suggests that what is required to knit together ideas and innovations in a sustained manner is relationship development that results in systemic and lasting change. In the organisational change literature, much has been made of intermediary organisations (such as YSI) that reside outside of traditional service delivery systems (e.g., schools, health services, community organisations) and support adoption of innovations. Evidence suggests that change emerges and is sustained most effectively through close interaction and consultation with these outside "purveyor organisations" which are staffed by highly skilled relationship-based professionals.
The National Implementation Research Network describes purveyors as “…a group of individuals representing a program or practice who actively work to implement that practice or program with fidelity and good effect.”[4] Their research on stages of implementation and the activities that make a difference in taking programmes and practices to scale makes clear that effective purveyors have advanced skills in relationship-building, training, and coaching. [5]
As defined by the Minnesota Center for Professional Development, [6] relationship-based professionals practice in the following ways:
“Coaching: A person with known expertise and skill in a specific area offers assistance to a person(s) in identifying and achieving skill development.
Mentoring: A respected, experienced person partners with a less experienced person to support and nurture personal and/or professional growth.
Consultation: A person facilitates the resolution of specific work-related issues pertaining to individuals, clients, or programs.
Technical Assistance: A person with specific technical/content knowledge provides information to address an identified need.”
YSI is a purveyor organisation and these are the precise relationship-based skills exhibited by local leaders in area development activities, which are structured around four animating themes: 1. activation (youth engagement), 2. amplification (youth voice), 3. integration (youth involvement), and 4. networking (making connections & building capacity).
This section will summarise what has been learned about growth from the perspective of core elements of the work of local leaders,
Bringing energy and enthusiasm - rejuvenation
Unsticking processes
Finding new resources
Logistics and supports
Training and modeling for Guides
Connecting people with one another
Connecting YSI with what is occurring at the local and regional level with broad YSI activities
Representing, standardizing, monitoring YSI in the regions
Targeting resources in regions
Finding and capitalising on opportunities at local level
Recognising moments,
Building bridges to communities
Innovating with new settings and circumstances
Eyes and ears
Cross-fertilisation of social innovation
