Youth work offers a safe alternative to the potential risks that young people face online. It can also create the right environment to explore the real and sometimes enormous issues that young people are encountering in their online lives.
These are not just bold statements to catch your attention, but a summary distilled from current data insights and qualitative research that shows what makes a difference for young people. As we tackle the overwhelming issues of online harms and the tsunami of anxiety that impacts our young people in today’s precarious world, there’s a data driven argument for investing in youth work in general and digital youth work in particular.
#youthworkchangeslives
We’ve been using that hashtag at YouthLink Scotland since 2012 as a way of drawing attention to the power, importance and relevance of youth work. It encapsulates the essence of why we do what we do…. youth work is human rights work, youth work is preventative work, youth work is about the whole person and youth work is about creating community.
In the same timeframe as that hashtag we’ve come to focus more and more on what is happening in young people’s online lives. And we – both here in Scotland and elsewhere across the world – are seeing strong connections between what happens online and young people’s mental wellbeing. Youth work has a vital part to play in redressing the balance.
Key data: Since 2016, YouthLink Scotland has been estimating a social return on investment of £7 for every £1 spent on youth work. The value of youth work at that point was estimated to be at least £656m to Scottish economy and potentially up to £2billion (Hall Aitken). Similar research in England recently showed a £3.50 return on every £1 spent and that youth work saves £500M.
Youth work creates safe spaces
Young people need places where they can meet together as a community to have fun. They need trusted adults in their lives and they need to be able to explore the issues that impact them online, by having conversations and building trusted relationships. Youth work provides an approach that enables that to happen in a trusted, proven, safe and positive way, both indoors and outdoors, online and offline, starting from where young people are.
This year’s National Youth Work Conference takes place on 27 October, with the theme: Safe Places, Strong Futures. Safeguarding is no longer just about physical safety but also mental wellbeing, digital resilience, and protection from harm in all its forms and the promotion of positive alternative pathways and experiences. So, at this year’s conference we will be focusing on proactive and preventative approaches to safeguarding, ensuring Scotland’s youth workers are equipped with the latest knowledge, skills, and training to support young people effectively. The theme for the conference illustrates how digital is now recognised as mainstream, with online safety being something that’s a top priority for everyone who works with children and young people, not a separate issue that’s only relevant for a few with more substantial techie interests.
Digital Youth Work addresses online harms
Digital Youth Work provides the context for supporting young people to navigate their online lives.
Key data: Our Digital Youth Work research in 2023 showed that digital youth work was 7 times more likely to create an environment to discuss cyber resilience and online safety than youth work in general.
Nothing surprising about that – it’s simply that when youth work has a connection with digital it is more likely that there will be opportunities to chat to young people about digital safeguarding in relation to the projects that they are directly involved in, and more broadly about their digital lives.
By digital youth work, we don’t just mean meeting young people online, although that is relevant. We also mean groups of young people working together on digital projects, developing their digital skills, digital literacy and critical thinking. A great example is the Game Design for Youth Work project where young people worked together, developing their skills to create their own digital games.
We also mean projects that help young people explore the issues in their online lives. For example Quit Fighting for Likes is a campaign and toolkit about preventing violence on social media.
Other examples of issues based digital youth work are the Shameless Youths Campaign, an NSPCC led project that encourages parents and carers, professionals and young people to have conversations about relationships on and offline and Dataknight, a video making project about developing positive approaches to safety and security online, led by LGBT Youth Scotland.
These are just a few of many projects taking place across Scotland at the moment, their reach and impact only limited by lack of resources to scale up successful, proven approaches.
Key data: The digital youth work research 2023 showed that digital youth work contributes to all national youth work outcomes. The outcome most commonly identified as following from digital activities was “participating effectively in groups and teams”.
Going outdoors
We need to be with young people in their online spaces and activities, helping them develop critical awareness around their digital activities. We also need to offer alternatives. Getting young people to disconnect from their devices and go outdoors brings mental wellbeing and balance. It helps them decompress and focus. Youth organisations often have contracts which they develop with young people about mobile phone use at youth work activities – agreements that phones should be put away during an event, or left at home or only used at certain times. These agreements can help young people regulate their phone use, enjoy other activities and focus on building relational connections directly with those around them. They can help young people to think about their phone use in different ways and potentially develop a healthier digital diet.
Key data: 86% of young people participating in youth work said it improved health and wellbeing
With two Scottish schools, Portobello and South Queensferry, currently piloting a ban on phone use at school, there is plenty of thinking going on about the best approaches. How do we regulate phone use and access to social media in a rights respecting way? Read a recent blog post on how we help young people to develop a positive relationship with their mobile phone.
In his book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt says, “In recent decades, America and many other Western nations made two contradictory choices about children’s safety, and both were wrong. We decided that the real world was so full of dangers that children should not be allowed to explore it without adult supervision, even though the risks to children from crime, violence, drunk drivers, and most other sources have dropped steeply since the 1990s. At the same time, it seemed like too much of a bother to design age appropriate guardrails for kids online, so we left children free to wander through the Wild West of the virtual world, where threats to children abounded.”
Youth work can help build resilience, putting some of that much needed play and exploration back into children and young people’s lives.
Acting on the Insights
Last week at the Scottish Parliament, the Children and Young People’s Cross Party Group, was exploring the current challenges that young people face in our rapidly changing tech environment.
The session was data-rich, with compelling evidence from the Girlguiding Attitudes survey, revealing the increasing extent of online harm and sexism faced by girls and young women. Over 2,500 participants, aged 7 to 21, shared insights into the challenges they encounter today, including online harm, sexism, appearance and wellbeing.
Dr Ellie Loose of the John Smith Centre presented findings from The UK Youth Poll 2025
Key data: 14% identified social media as the biggest contributor to feeling anxious. 17% of 16-17 year olds strongly agreed that social media should be banned for under 16s, rising to 27% of 18-24 year olds, and 40% of 25-29 year olds.
Responding to current issues
The Cross Party Working group heard what children and young people are saying about the issues and some great examples of work to develop digital literacy, such as the Exploring Children’s Rights and AI Resources, launched last week by the Children’s Parliament in partnership with the Scottish AI Alliance and The Alan Turing Institute.
Dr Trevor Lakey of Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board shared about Aye Mind, a project which aims to provide information on online harms and the positive use of technology to support those who work with children and young people. Recently the World Health Organisation published a report on the Digital Determinants of Mental Health, feeding into local thinking around what we need to do in Scotland to support young people whose mental wellbeing is being impacted by social media.
Mind Yer Time is another example of a project designed by children and young people from the Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament to tackle an aspect of online safety: screen time! Mind Yer Time was created to support everyone who loves social media and screen time, and is based clearly on an approach that puts children and young people’s voices at the centre.
We need to scale up digital youth work
Five years ago I was working for myself. I’d been running my own business for several decades, writing content and developing websites. As a volunteer youth worker, a parent, and a foster carer, I was becoming more and more concerned about what I was seeing around me and it was that concern that ultimately led me to ‘pivoting’ my career at the start of the pandemic… not just because pivoting was obviously the thing to do in that moment, but because I was experiencing what looked like a mental health epidemic amongst young people.
Through a combination of looking after my own birth children and fostering, I have been parenting teens for about 20 years now. Digital gaming and social media has been part of life for all of that time, but there is a significant shift that’s taken place. It is a continuum, but there is a clear sense of issues being more obvious today and there is also a much greater awareness of harms and potential harms – for me at least, both as the parent of teens and in my role as Digital Youth Work lead at YouthLink Scotland.
The impact of the Covid pandemic together with the ever-increasing pull of social media algorithms and the pressure for young people to engage with each other, with strangers and with harmful content on platforms such as Tiktok, Snapchat and WhatsApp, makes this a pressing issue. Add generative AI to the mix and you have what Children First have already labelled a “children’s emergency”.
Right now in Scotland, we are aware that we need to take action and there are things we can do. Youth work provides a valuable route to supporting young people in their online lives. We have excellent examples of relevant work, but limited resources. Let’s work more closely across sectors to help young people with their mental wellbeing and their digital lives. Let’s scale up the proven, successful projects that help young people develop digital literacy, stay safe online and develop the skills they need to thrive in the digital world.
Hilary Phillips
July 2025