NYA and YEF Annual Conference 2025 - Jon Yates message

Summary

In his address at the NYA and YEF Annual Conference 2025, Jon Yates, CEO of the Youth Endowment Fund, emphasized the critical role of evidence and relationships in youth work. He shared poignant personal reflections and alarming statistics about youth violence, highlighting the significance of trusted relationships with youth workers like Sandra, Tim, and Al from his own experience. Yates narrated a compelling story about a failed intervention program in a New Jersey prison to illustrate the importance of rigorous evidence in formulating effective strategies to prevent youth violence. Despite the sometimes 'boring' connotations of the word 'evidence,' Yates argued passionately that it is crucial for all adults committed to safeguarding children’s lives, urging the audience to embrace evidence-based approaches and cherish the impactful relationships fostered through youth work.

Highlights

• Jon Yates highlights the importance of evidence in youth work, despite its 'boring' reputation. 📚
• He shares his personal connection to youth workers who impacted his life positively. 🧒
• A failed prison intervention program underscores the need for proper evidence to avoid harmful outcomes. 🚫
• Yates stresses that adults owe it to children to rely on evidence to ensure their safety. 👩‍👦
• Statistics reveal the gravity of youth violence, urging action and accountability. 🚨

Key Takeaways

• Youth safety requires clear understanding and evidence of effective strategies. 🔍
• Relationships are fundamental in transforming young lives. 🤝
• Belief in a program isn’t enough; evidence is crucial for success. 📊
• Statistical insight is vital for addressing youth violence effectively. 📈
• Listening genuinely to young people can shape impactful actions. 🗣️

Overview

Jon Yates delivered an engaging and insightful talk at the NYA and YEF Annual Conference 2025, focusing on the critical importance of evidence and relationships in the realm of youth work. Interspersed with personal anecdotes, Yates made a compelling case for why adults have a duty to utilize evidence-based methods when it comes to strategies involving youth safety.

Through his storytelling, Yates relayed the story of a well-meaning but ultimately detrimental intervention program that took place in a New Jersey prison, which surprisingly ended up having the opposite effect of its intended purpose due to lack of evidence-based backing. This served as a cautionary tale, illustrating why belief and good intentions aren't sufficient without robust evidence to back them.

Additionally, Yates shared statistics about youth violence that painted a sobering picture of reality for the audience. He passionately argued for the need to embrace a data-driven approach and the indispensable impact of nurturing relationships, drawing inspiration from his own formative experiences with youth workers like Sandra, Tim, and Al.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Personal Reflection on Youth Work The chapter is an introduction and personal reflection by John Yates, the Chief Executive of the Youth Endowment Fund, a unique charity established with government endowment to ensure children's safety.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Disturbing Statistics on Youth Violence This chapter discusses the importance of youth work and begins with the speaker expressing enthusiasm about engaging in discussions surrounding youth work. The speaker reminisces about their own youth workers, Sandra, Tim, and Al, and prompts the audience to recall influential youth workers in their own lives, noting how common it is for people to have specific individuals who played a significant role in their youth.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Raway Prison Program The chapter titled 'Raway Prison Program' reflects on the significance of three special individuals in the narrator's life. These individuals are valued not just for their advice or humor, but primarily for their consistent presence and support. The narrator highlights a contrast between these cherished personal connections and three unspecified negative statistics: '50, 500, one in'. The chapter seems to juxtapose personal, qualitative relationships against impersonal, quantitative data.
• 04:00 - 07:00: The Importance of Evidence-Based Approaches This chapter emphasizes the need for evidence-based approaches to tackle violence affecting children. It provides alarming statistics about children being victims of knife or sharp object attacks, with 50 children losing their lives and 500 being hospitalized annually. Additionally, it notes that every year, half of the teenage children have altered their behavior due to fear of violence. The statistics underscore the importance of employing strategies backed by data and research to effectively address and prevent such violence.
• 07:00 - 08:00: The Value of Relationships in Youth Work The chapter discusses the pervasive impact of violence on children, challenging the misconception that it only affects others. It highlights that one in two teenagers have altered their behavior due to violence. It prompts the question of what actions should be taken to address this issue. The chapter also mentions Raway Prison in New Jersey as a notable location, though the discussion in the excerpt is incomplete about its relevance.

NYA and YEF Annual Conference 2025 - Jon Yates message Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 It's it's really nice to be here. I'm I'm John Yates. I'm the chief executive of the Youth Endowment Fund. Um which is a weird organization. It's a it's a charity born with an endowment from the government. Basically a check of money. Um why? To try and get really clear about what works to keep all of our children safe.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Um I I I'm so delighted to be thinking and spending time with you championing youth work and being here today. I I don't know who what you think of when you think about youth work. I think of Sandra, Tim, and Al uh who were my youth workers uh when I was a a young person. And and I suspect a lot of us just if you can think of if you've got a similar person in your mind, just raise your hand. Like lots of us will think of particular people and I I think about
• 01:00 - 01:30 what was it that made them so special to me and it was sometimes that they gave me good advice. It was sometimes that they um uh were uh quite funny. Uh and it was a lot of the time that they were secretly organizing stuff I didn't notice. But more than anything it was that they were always there for me. Um and that's what made the difference. Those are three people who I like very much. These are three statistics I don't like very much. There 50, 500, one in
• 01:30 - 02:00 two. Every year 50 children lose their lives because of being attacked by a knife or a sharp object. 500. Every year 500 children end up in hospital for the same reason. One in two. Every year, one in two teenage children say that they've changed their behavior in some way because they're afraid of violence. One in two. I I think often we
• 02:00 - 02:30 think that violence is something that affects other people's children. It doesn't. It affects all of our children. One in two teenage children saying they've changed their behavior in in some way. And I think it's really hard to hear those statistics without saying, well, what do we do? What do we do about it? There's this um prison in uh New Jersey. Some people have heard me talk about this called Raway Prison. Um which is a kind of remarkable place. And it's
• 02:30 - 03:00 remarkable for the group of men who were in that prison. And they they called themselves the Lifer group. You can probably imagine why you might call yourself the Lifer group. These guys were on life terms. They'd committed really really serious offenses. And they said to the governor of the prison, "Look, we want to do something positive for our life. We want to give something back. Let us contribute in some way." And they said to the governor, "Look, we wish someone had told us when we were young how our lives were going to pan
• 03:00 - 03:30 out. Let us talk to us as young people." And the governor, who was a very sort of forward-looking sort of progressive sort of person, said, "Let's let's try and do this." And so they worked with local schools and they worked out who are the children whose lives are starting to go off the the wheels a bit and they got them to come and visit these men and the men told them their stories. They said look this is what went wrong. This is what happened. Don't do what we did. Don't let happen what happened to us and the children left the prison and they were interviewed and they said that is
• 03:30 - 04:00 amazing. That's made a difference. It changed the way I think. That's and the program started to spread and it grew until it was happening in prisons right across the United States and in an amazing sort of crossartisan way. It started to be championed by Democrats and rep hard to imagine now right Democrats and Republicans until 50,000 it really grew 50,000 children a year were going and visiting and listening to stories and they started to make a film so they could really understand what was going on and they made a documentary about the
• 04:00 - 04:30 program and it won an Oscar. It won an Oscar in 1978. You can look it up. Best documentary. This program was an amazing thing. And then someone said, "Look, let's get the proper proof to show the impact it's having." So they did a thing called a trial, a randomized trial where they got half the children went into the prison and half didn't. And they just followed them up to see what would happen. And they got proper proof to show that the program made a real difference because it did. It had a real impact. It made children 25% more likely to
• 04:30 - 05:00 commit acts of violence or crime. 25% more likely. Money was being taken out of people's pockets in taxes to pay for children to be damaged. And what's hard about that story is the people who ran that program really believed in it. They we can hear the story now and you may have guessed where it was going but that's because we've heard about the research in through some story somehow. They didn't know that they really believed in what
• 05:00 - 05:30 they were doing. The other thing is they really listened to young people. The children said this made a difference. They didn't just ask one. It wasn't token. They didn't just go to meetings and say hey we should listen to the voices of young people and children. They actually did listen to the voices of young people and children. And they told them it was great. It wasn't until someone actually did a proper trial that they worked out what was going on. And and I have a rather one of the reasons I'm so keen that we're here and wrestling with this
• 05:30 - 06:00 word evidence. Evidence is such a bloodless word. It sounds like everything I don't want to get out of bed for. I want to get out of bed to change people's lives, to give people meaning and purpose, to let people flourish. I don't get out of bed for evidence. But here's the thing. We're the adults and we don't get to say it's not is it's okay not to be interested in evidence anymore. Then if you're an oil exec, you don't get to say I'm not that interested in the evidence about climate change. You don't get to say that. If you're a tech bro or a tech
• 06:00 - 06:30 sis, I don't think you should get to say I'm not interested in the evidence around mental health. And if you believe that part of what you're about is trying to prevent children getting involved in violence, if you believe part of what you're about is keeping children safe, I don't think we get to say we're not really interested in the evidence, even though it's a really boring, bloodless word because we're the adults and we owe it to children to find out how we keep them safe. And sometimes what the evidence
• 06:30 - 07:00 says is uncomfortable. When it tells us that short-term mentoring programs don't have much evidence behind them. When it tells us that people going in to do assemblies in schools, even if they're talking about their own personal lived experience, there's actually no evidence behind that approach. when it tells us that short-term two-hour training programs on trauma-informed training may tick your trauma box, but there's no evidence that actually really helps. That's hard. But
• 07:00 - 07:30 we're the adults, aren't we? So, we've got to deal with it. But there's one thing to encourage you. There's one thing the evidence, that bloodless word again, is really clear on. Relationships really matter when it comes to children's lives and all of our lives. Relationships really matter. And I think if great youth work is about anything, it's about relationships. That's why I'm so thankful to Al and to Tim and to Sandra.
• 07:30 - 08:00 And that's why for all of you in the room who care enough about youthwork to be here, it's why I'm incredibly thankful to you. Have a wonderful day. It's great to have you here. Thank you very much indeed.