engleski

Survey on Impact of Youth Information and Counselling

The results of the survey are very positive about strength of impact of youth information and counselling services on youth lives, but also provide a strong background for further improvement of functioning of these services. The users of the youth information and counselling services believe very often that the work of the services have impacted positively their lives. They are very often satisfied with the information received from the youth information and counselling services and would recommend to their friends to use them. Young respondents indicated diverse areas where they received help from the youth information and counselling services, still there are areas in which respondents did not receive much help. The question appears if this is because they did not search for help about the specific topic or rather they did not think they could receive help about some areas of their interest. Youth information and counselling services are more effectively reaching the youngest age groups of young people. They seem to be most often users of the services, more often perceive information as reliable, they claim to receive most help from them, even if they also have not been using the services so long and have not made as many contacts with the services as the older age groups. The offer of youth information and counselling services appears to be less attractive to those of older age, or those with higher education degree, they are also less trustful towards prospective support e.g. in case of looking for work, or perceive information provided as less reliable. The youth information needs to reconsider how to reach the oldest group of young people and to what extent this is an important target group for their work. Further insights will be needed, as the results show that age is the characteristic that most often differentiates the opinions in the survey, among others, on information accessibility or on information preference. It would be interesting to run the research about young people aged 25-29 not using youth information and counselling services to see what support and what information they might expect from these facilities, if any. Youth Information Centres appear to be the most successful in information provision. In many aspects of the following study, youth information centre’s users appeared to be most satisfied – they are most satisfied with the information received from such facilities and e.g. they are most often sure that these centres can support them in need, such as in case of looking for work. Furthermore, information provided through YICs are considered more often as reliable compared to the information from other sources. One reason why the YIC are successful might be very high importance of face-to-face contact to youth information users, which in fact is realised through such services. Face-to-face approach was the preferred method for receiving advice or information by the respondents of the survey. Even if the Internet is becoming most often used source of information for young people, young persons in our study prefer the persons, face-to face contact for obtaining information. The search in Internet is the second preferred option. The study revealed that the person-to-person contact is also a guarantee of reliability – young people judged information from centres and youth workers, or even from parents and other young people as more reliable than information received from the diverse media (including Internet). Interestingly enough, even if Internet is not perceived as reliable source of information and half of researched young people believe that it is difficult to judge information available on the Internet, it is second preferred option in receiving information. This indicates how important is to improve young people’s skills in judging the correctness, reliability and accuracy of information obtained online. Already, the knowledge of young people that this information might not be reliable is a good step in learning how to use Internet sources efficiently, but the youth information and counselling services should provide more learning opportunities for young people about the usage of on-line information. The positive outcome from the research shows that young people usually use services for extended amount of time. This would indicate that the services are important and useful at different points of their lives. What have to be assured is the constant inflow of new persons into the youth information system, as it seems that once persons enters s/he stays in and continues to use the services. Moreover, persons who use services for longer are also more satisfied with them. This finding can be interpreted in two ways: only those who are satisfied stay longer in the ‘system’ (dissatisfied persons might have dropped out from the system beforehand and this is why the study does not reveal their opinions), or, the youth information and counselling services demand time to be appreciated by young people (for example it might take time to really recognise by workers what are the real needs of a young person). In the light of such results, youth information services need to make sure that the users will be taken care of in their first contacts with the services, so they do not drop out from the services. Rural areas appear as an important areas where stronger impact can be expected from the youth information and counselling services. Young people from these areas noted more often that these services improved their lives and that they create a sense of assurance that they will be able to find necessary information if needing it. On the other hand we noticed that young people from smaller towns and rural areas in smaller number replied to the survey what can imply that they are less often using youth information and counselling services – this is why it is critical that more efforts are put in creation and promotion of such services outside big cities. Furthermore, the personal contact with professional youth information workers can be provided to young people from the rural areas using diverse communication tools. This is why phone contact was indicated as important more often compared to other groups by the group of young people from small towns. Possibly also other innovative solutions, such as private chat rooms with youth workers, could be a way to reach young people in the localities with no functioning youth centres. It would provide them opportunity of the personal, individualised contact with a youth information professional no matter their location. Young people received help on diverse topics within youth information. Employment and housing, international mobility, violence and relationships in the family and with friends were the areas where the information was evaluated as least easily accessible for young people. Still, even if information on education and training is perceived as rather easily accessible, young people in all age groups and of all socio-professional statuses stress the need for more information on education and training. More, the group of unemployed youth chooses it as a priority area (before employment). Widening the outreach is also important from the point of view of further development in this youth policy area. Even if the youth information and counselling services seem to reach mostly young people in education, or working, as well as connecting both activities, it also appears to reach rather successfully young people who are looking for work. It can be foreseen that this group might be a very important group in the future work of the youth information facilities, as youth unemployment appears to be a very burning issue in many European countries. Youth information and counselling services might appear a support system for those young people who cannot find work besides the official employment services. What is interesting is that respondents who are unemployed are mostly in need of more information about education and training, leisure and free time, while employment comes at the third place. That shows that youth information and counselling services can feed the diverse needs of the group of youngsters looking for work, as it does provide support not only concerning the employment but also other areas of young person’s life. The group of young people who are not working, nor studying, nor looking for work also appears as a group which needs more attention from youth information and counselling services – they need to be attracted to the services offered by these centres. The holistic individualised approach of youth information centres might be a good tool to engage these young people into active participation in society. In conclusion, the research has confirmed the important role of youth information and counselling services in provision of reliable and multi-thematic information tailored to the needs of each individual, but also in providing young people with more skills in evaluating information they have obtained. Youth information centres besides their daily job in information provision constitute also an important point of reference for young people, giving them sense of information safety – after having known the youth information and counselling services young people become more assured that they will find necessary information in case of need. This is an important background for young people who make life decisions in today’s world where multitude of information more often hinders access to it, rather than make it easy.

Youth; information; counselling; youth centres

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