Growth Project Description

The Growth Project combines funding from a variety of sources (as described previously) to expand the reach of Young Social Innovators over a five year period (2019-2024). Following a planning year, which included capacity building within the YSI organisation and the recruitment of a Manager to lead this project, a step-wise process was envisioned in which the project would increase the numbers of young people involved with social innovation in an expanding network of schools and sites throughout the Republic of Ireland.

The core goal of the initiative is for social innovation programmes to be available in 50% of post-primary schools by 2024 by increasing the number of schools where YSI programmes are available and then, within these schools, increase the numbers of students who participate, embedding social innovation as part of the educational process.

The mechanisms by which this planned expansion would occur emanated from a social innovation local leader structure through which local efforts and capacity would be supported, self-supporting and sustainable networks would be created and enhanced, shared learning and reflective practice would be encouraged, and peer support would be available among schools, educators, and students. The “technology” for establishing the structures to support these goals and activities was created and extended based on the learning from the Tomar-supported Cork pilot project.

More specifically, the expansion activities were planned to occur in an iterative fashion such that each region-based local leader would recruit and support groups of schools, establish three “clusters” of self-managing schools (approximately five schools per cluster), and then grow the number of participating students within each cluster of schools. It was also envisioned that alumni students would help to strengthen a culture of engagement in social innovation over time.   

Thus, in Year 1 of implementation (2020/21), YSI recruited 5 Local Leaders and one Regional Leader (Dublin City). It was anticipated that by  2022-23, funding permitted, YSI would recruit 12 Local YSI Leaders, creating four regional teams of three, in effect nationalising the Growth Project.

The chart below shows three-year projections for the Growth Project, constituting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the initiative. 

A broad conceptualization of how the work would progress is shown in the figure below, emphasizing that initially the focus was on designing and testing the expansion model, followed by growing and evidencing, then scaling and building capacity, and capped by reflection and legacy by Year 3 (2023).

During 2020/21, local leaders, were deployed in local areas in Leinster and Munster, based on a feasibility analysis conducted by YSI, as pictured below.

The local leaders who conducted the project during 2020/2021 have remarkably diverse backgrounds and interests, including teaching, developmental studies, nutritional science, research, economics and policy, social care, sexual health education, adolescent group work, health promotion, history, mental health, amnesty, refugees, environmental law, and related areas. All had worked in human service settings for several years prior to taking up their present positions, including internationally. The breadth of experience and talents amongst the group was a considerable strength, in that their diversity of perspectives led to thoughtful and productive interaction as the work progressed. Over time, their collaboration coalesced into a source of considerable mutual support and resilience as the work became more challenging in the context of a highly disjointed and disrupted academic year.

Local leaders were assigned explicit regions (described in more detail below). It was recognised that each region would have unique needs that would require the work to be carried out in a flexible and region-focused manner such that it would be shaped and modified as events progressed. Regions differed considerably in geographic size, demographics, number of schools, community organisation, and a range of other features. These differences presented unique problems and opportunities within each region.

During 2020/21, the Growth Project was administered by the Education Manager (Karen Kelly) and supported by other programme components within YSI such as the School Programme Co-ordinator, the YSI Training Specialist, the Education Administrator, Financial & Governance,  Management, and Research and Communications Departments. Local leaders were initially trained over a three-week period by the Education Administrator, and other YSI staff on the YSI programme model, reported on a weekly basis to the Education Manager and kept data for all their activities, including a communications tracker and weekly progress reporting.

The core expectation was that local leaders would be engaged in adding new schools and building local community networks through a range of complex and interrelated processes, to include school 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 many others). To say the least, these were ambitious aspirations within a broad and complex vision of how YSI could “upscale”.

As will be shown in the remainder of this interim report, remarkable achievements occurred under the most adverse of conditions during the worst of the Pandemic year. What emerged was a clearer set of ideas and strategies for how to promote sustainable growth at the national level and a functioning and experienced team of school-community developers now poised to act on what they had learned. Planning is underway for the upcoming year and it will be informed and guided by these experiences.

The following sections of the report describe what transpired during the past academic year within the targeted areas, with a focus on key aspects of implementation. The report suggests what progress has been made toward goals and explores convergent themes that may have implications for planning as the initiative moves toward a national perspective.