Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

June 2009 Volume 7(3)

CILIPS Conference: Young people

YAPping in the library

Craig Green describes a successful partnership youth scheme involving library facilities in Glasgow’s Easterhouse which has contributed to decreasing youth disorder.

Nearly three years ago the Bridge opened in Glasgow’s Easterhouse, with all the pressures expected from opening a new service in new arrangements in new accommodation. Right from the start the service was intended by the resident partners (the Arts Company, the Pool, the Cafe, the Library and John Wheatley College) to be open and welcoming to all the local community, young people included.

As with other public library services, the Bridge has a number of PCs available (in this case provided by John Wheatley College: 38 available to the public, 50 in the flexible learning area used in the evening and on Saturdays for young people as part of the College’s Youth Access Programme). And as elsewhere, in the Bridge, internet-connected PCs act as a magnet for young people, bringing both a set of opportunities and challenges for staff.
Young people in the Greater Easterhouse area are as challenging as those living elsewhere in Scotland. Bridge staff in early days were sometimes faced with abusive young people and could even find themselves chasing young people around book stacks (a race the young people were always more likely to win). What we had to work with was that they thought of the Bridge as a ‘cool place to be’ and they almost all wanted access to PCs. We had (and have) a close-knit library/college operation and staff who genuinely wanted the young people to come in... as long as they behaved reasonably. What we also had was a couple of years experience of the college’s Youth Access Programme, led by youth workers working in partnership with teaching staff and community partner staff and including experience of working with some very challenging groups of young people. They knew that while young people are challenging, it’s to be expected and it’s not usually with any malice and it’s not the case for the majority.

The Youth Access Programme was already running in outreach community venues, inviting in young people aged 12+ to use local learning centres and their broadband wireless connections to the college network and the internet, with a variety of partners in different locations. Integration of this experience into the Bridge seemed a natural development.
Young people come into Youth Access sessions to have fun. As they do, they are encouraged to learn, but on their terms. A group of girls using the service recently confirmed that while fun-based, they do learn, and their learning has also helped with IT at school.

Fun can include use of CD-Rom games, with extended choice in the Bridge through a collection partly funded by young people using the service through an application to YouthBank. It can include internet-based games, YouTube and Google Earth. It can include using Bebo, which acts as a powerful incentive to learn how to use image editing and animation software, and as a first step towards realising the potential of social networking software (combined with ongoing discussion about appropriate and safe use).
Young people do also use the facility for internet access for homework and for CV preparation, sourcing college places and so on. Fun sometimes gets boring, for teenagers.

The Youth Access service has sometimes acted as a last opportunity for some young people for whom there had been no alternative but to suspend access to the Bridge. When such young people are asked why they wanted to come back in if all they do is to disrupt, the usual answer is, “for access to the PCs and the company of their peers”. An arrangement for the young person to prove themselves can be made, usually leading to a longer term behavioural improvement. Agreements have generally been based on attendance in sessions supervised by college youth workers in which something will be created (images, film, or music as chosen by the young person), behaviour has been appropriate and library staff can confirm the improvement in attitude.
Over time library staff have increasingly worked in partnership with college staff to support the same young people, and using this interaction to inform service development.

Between August 2008 and the end of May 2009 more than 400 young people have used the Youth Access service, with average attendances of 30-50 in sessions run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, and on Saturdays during the day.

The ingredients for the Bridge experience are: PCs, creative software, staff who remain friendly as well as firm in their supervision and who as a consequence form positive relationships with young people and tutors who can show young people how to use the software they are interested in. The rocket science involved is the habitual use of the sequence ‘please, because, thank you’ - which works as well with teenagers as it does with older people.
In the Greater Easterhouse area police confirm that youth disorder is much less common than a couple of years ago and they cite the varied youth provision as the significant factor (provided mostly by the voluntary sector, with the college service a minority of the area’s provision). Young people who could otherwise get caught up in territorial gang violence mix in the Bridge with others from different neighbourhoods in a venue which remains neutral, and, among other lessons, they learn how to get along with each other outside school. In the Bridge, ‘YAPping’ in the library is encouraged.

Craig Green is Information and Learning Services Manager, John Wheatley College. Craig spoke at the CILIPS conference on 2 June.

View CILIPS Annual Conference 2009 presentations on Slideshare

Information Scotland Vol. 7(3) June 2009

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Last updated: 31-Jul-2009