ENGAGE Project

Tim Davies and I were invited to deliver a 1 day training course for the ENGAGE project

which is a continuing professional development programme for European youth workers &

school teachers at the Bristol Watershed http://watershed.co.uk/engage/


Objectives of the ENGAGE European project:

To explore and understand this new ICT-enabled culture and explore how web 2.0 and

social media tools can help extend and enhance their practice. Delegates will test and

develop new approaches that use digital tools to help sustain young peopleʼs positive

engagement with each other and European society.





ENGAGE participants will:

1 Explore and develop innovative approaches to youth work that use digital tools to

help extend and sustain engagement with young people

2 Develop skills and literacies to become effective digital communicators and content

producers

3 Visit inspirational projects that use accessible communications technologies to help

empower young voices and meaningfully engage youth as active European citizens

4 Work together to develop applications and solutions that will support the

engagement of young people who face social, economic or cultural obstructions to

active civic participation





It was great fun getting to know each delegate, learn how they use current social software

and explore future aspirations. It was interesting to learn about the different attitudes to

ʻonline privacyʼ and ʻonline personal identity/expressionʼ. Some european countries are

very strict about sharing personal and private data while other countries were less

stringent about personal content being shared through social software.


We spent the morning exploring how young people use social software and learn how this

may differ in different European counties. We explored how to link a facebook profile to

flicker, e blogger and youtube. Also how to use the various functions on facebook;

customizing privacy settings (albums, videos and content), creating friends lists and best

practice to ʻbrandʼ and ʻpromoteʼ a profile/group/page.


We spent time reviewing safeguarding considerations when using social software tools to

facilitate and enable young peoples online engagement and participation. Then learning

the measures, tools and procedures that can be put in place to ʻreduceʼ and ʻminimiseʼ

these online risks. Additionally we reviewed youth work values and how to establish a

professional presence through social software tools.


I would like to thank every delegate who attend the session for participating in each of the

sessions. I learnt a great deal and now have more ideas to explore.





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