A Youth Information Centre run entirely by young people themselves is located in the village of Castleblakeny. Co Galway. Tess Martin looks at stories of young people and faith which often don’t make the headlines.
Youth Information Centres do what they say on the tin. Located around the country, they provide a free and confidential service to young people, parents, teachers and youth workers on a wide range of topics. These include rights and entitlements, employment opportunities and training, welfare benefits, and more. The centres are funded annually by the Department of Education and Science.
Peer-run project
In the village of Castleblakeny, north-east Co Galway, they’ve gone one better by setting up the first – and so far the only – peer-run version of the project which is provided in the school by the students themselves. It was the brainchild of Liam Moroney, chief executive officer of Youth Work Ireland Roscommon & North East Galway.
The youth service has long had a great relationship with St Cuan’s College, Castleblakeney, a co-ed secondary school with approximately 400 pupils. An unused cloakroom was identified beside the library, and during the summer holidays, parents and pupils fund-raised for the necessary renovation and decorating to convert the space to a Youth Information Point. That was ten years ago.
Today this service is an important and integral part of the school, to the benefit of many hundreds of students, either as consumers or volunteer officers. The school service is supported by Roscommon’s Information Outreach Manager, Sinéad Fallon and Youth Information Coordinator, Nicola Moran. Sinéad describes how it works:
‘We choose Fifth Year students because they have the necessary maturity. Each September myself and Nicola come in to talk to the Fifth Years about the service and invite applications. They fill up application forms and are called for interview just like any job. Whether they get it or not has nothing to do with academic ability – we look for people able to work as part of a team. During the interview, some people realize it may involve a bigger time commitment than they thought.
‘We choose ten people who receive four days’ training. This comprises how to source information, filing, dealing with queries, compiling statistics. It is necessary to record everyone who uses the Information Service for the Department of Education statistics. We have a software programme which manages this and we show them how to input.
‘The biggest part of the training is about communicating with the public, including dealing with complex queries. Confidentiality is a core issue. The students know not to disclose if people come with personal queries, other than come to us within this code of confidentiality if they need help or advice on how to respond.’
Information Point
The Information Point is open each lunch hour, and is staffed and open to facilitate each year group who want to access information during a free class period. The Information Point students also run the school library which contains reference books and fiction.
Information is available on fourteen designated subjects, including accommodation, careers, education, employment and training, tourism, travel, social welfare, law, justice and finance. The service is used extensively by Sixth Years looking at life beyond school, and by Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) students doing projects on health and career-related subjects.
‘Through the PLC students, through families, the service reaches into the community. You could have an older brother or sister wanting to give up smoking, for example, and asking if we have a leaflet about that. We have!’ comments Sinéad.
Current issues
Each year the students run a number of projects. This year they decided to do something on bullying. ‘It came from the young people themselves through the bullying they saw on Celebrity Big Brother last year. They wanted to figure out what constitutes bullying. If someone is talking about you behind your back, is that bullying?
‘They discovered that while there is information for parents and adults, there isn’t much for the young people themselves. So the students produced a little booklet defining bullying, explaining the different types, and giving advice and information about what to do if you feel you are being bullied,’ says Sinéad.
Another project last year looked at going abroad for the school outing in that new rules have been introduced about how passport photos should be taken. ‘They put up photos over the school, some taken incorrectly illustrating what was wrong, and others taken the way the passport form now requires. They are very inventive, full of ideas themselves,’ says Sinéad.
‘The young people make all the decisions in the Information Point. It is their project and we guide or advise only. We visit the school once a week to meet them, and they know they can text or email either of us at any time.’ The volunteers also have the support of liaison teacher, Deirdre Fallon. Each year the group fund-raise to freshen up the area, buy books for the library, and update their IT equipment as necessary.
Invaluable experience
Sinéad Fallon believes the project is particularly valuable for the volunteers themselves – as comments from some of last year’s officers would seem to support:
‘It was great having a place to go to that didn’t feel like school, and we provide a day service to other students. I would definitely do it again.’
‘I learned a lot from helping people with career choices. I found it helped me a lot when trying to figure out courses for myself. I understand them much more now and can answer questions off-hand.’
‘The fact that I have made it on the Y.I. Point and that I can always say that I was an Information Officer and nobody can take that away from me, is a great feeling and makes it all worthwhile.’
Sinéad says she particularly looks forward each September to meeting last year’s Youth Information officers. ‘You can see how much they have grown up and matured. While I know growing up is part of their life, we know this work does impact on them and they learn a lot from it.’
Recently Nicola met someone who had been at the school six years ago. He talked specifically about his time as a youth information officer and how much he got from it, not least helping him to find his way round the reference section of the university library, she says.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (December 2007), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
