Being 'future-fit' means going back to the past!

Recently I attended ‘The Quality Bonus’ conference in Berlin, the second of such events which focuses ‘on [the] education and training of youth workers at national level [and] identifies how to strengthen spaces for synergies, cooperation, and joint reflection on youth work at the European level using the EU Youth programmes.’ [i]

It (of course) forms part of the ETS (European Training Strategy) for Youth Work and whilst the conference had three specific themes, i.e., Education and training for ‘future-fit’ youth workers, Competence-based development approach in education and training, and How can E+ be used to develop education & training of youth work processes nationally, it was probably the ‘future-fit’ discussions that proved the most interesting, at least to me.

This is not because competence-based or Erasmus+ conversations prove any less interesting (although it can sometimes feel like a conversation over well-chartered ground) but anything that focuses on future trends tend to prove distinctive - as much for individuals trying their hand at predicting the future when ultimately, when all is said and done, it’s more often (than not) pure speculation and guesswork. It is always nice however to hear what the views of others are regarding this topic.

It is also somewhat predicated on the idea that there is or there must be steady progression in a particular area if it is to evolve, an accumulative effect (as it were), where (for example), new knowledge builds upon (and enhances) existing knowledge, and being equipped for the future means that you must know (or that you can anticipate) what that future might look like in order to able to respond accordingly. It’s of course understandable why this might be – we would not have had advances in science, medicine and so on, if this were not the case.

Underpinning this further is the ‘must keep up’ notion, where there is a presumption that young people will always be using the latest technologies and gadgets, and for a youth worker to remain ‘up to speed,’ (code for ‘modern,’ ‘hip’ and ‘in-touch’) he or she should know what those new technologies and gadgets are or will be. In recent years, I have seen this more and more become a feature in Job/Role Descriptions for Youth Workers, as they are expected to have competence in areas of digitalisation and the on-line environment.

Equally, there is an assumption that a practitioner needs to know trends, projections, predictions, and anticipated changes that are coming ‘down the line,’ or at least should have some kind of overview of what’s going on ‘out there’ so as not to limit his or her capacity to respond when necessary to do so, or that they don’t inadvertently ‘miss something’ that might lead to a negative impact on those they work with.

Humans have often been a little obsessed with trying to predict the future and there is of course an argument for being up-to-speed, knowing what is going on, and staying abreast of developments. This of course tends to be more a case of staying informed rather than trying to predict what the future will be and how it will look, but equally it doesn’t remove the emphasis on trying to second-guess what the future will look like.

Trying to predict the future of course is nothing new but as Philip Tetlock once famously concluded (after evaluating more than 28, 000 predictions of nearly 300 political experts over a 20-year period) ‘a dart throwing chimpanzee’[ii] would have fared better.

This raises an important question – why do we go through the various rituals (or ordeals depending on how you look at it) of trying to predict the future, when I would contend it’s almost futile to do so, particularly when hindsight inevitably leads us to all too often ask (after a set of unforeseen circumstances) why didn’t we see it coming, and how could we not have known it was going to happen, why were we caught off-guard, how did it happen again and so on?

Essentially, we struggle to predict the future in any reasonable way, and thus we should stop trying to, and just focus on being equipped for what’s in front of us in the here and now. Of course, that’s not to suggest for one moment we should not think about how the future will look but using terminology such as ‘future-fit’ when we don’t know what the future will look like, or in exactly what context the future take place, or even when it starts (and so on) is a little bit meaningless, unless we name it or frame it.

Those in the civic sector, sometimes also known as The Third Sector, and where Youth Work often finds (or locates) itself, tend not to write strategies for the future but only the short-term, normally the next 3-5 years. Of course, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to write a strategy in 2022 for the period 2030-2040, but then again, why even discuss ‘future-fit’ if we don’t name the moment when the future begins?

It is of course a ‘label’ designed to evoke thinking about what the future might entail and how it might look, and what we might need as a profession in ten years’ time but if we are to be ‘future-fit’ then why not actually name the starting point or frame the time-frame, i.e., it begins in 2030 and we work towards that by putting in place structures, processes, training, accreditation, etc so that we can earn our ‘future-fit label.’

But then again, as the Financial Crash, Brexit, Trump, Covid, Ukraine, and Climate Crisis have demonstrated, we’re not very good at dealing with the present never mind the future. Some would argue that’s a very good reason for trying to be ‘future-fit’ but then again, aside from the Climate Crisis, and to a certain extent Ukraine (although there were multiple warnings from some quarters), we never saw the others coming, did we? At least not most of us in any case.

As a Youth Worker (by profession), and with a 30+ year career behind me, what does ‘future-fit’ mean for someone like me, who is already in their 50s? Is there a criteria that goes with this? Will I need to be more physically fit for future residentials with young people, or will I need to develop my capacity for sensitivity and empathy as the question of gender fluidity and sexuality becomes more common in public discourse? Will I need to review my values when working with those young people that express radical right-wing views, or will I have to become more politically minded as politicians continue to fail to deal with climate change? Will I need accreditation in IT if we continue to use on-line or hybrid models of delivery?

Interestingly enough, in youth work, you rarely see any events, be that conference, seminars or training that focus or reflect upon the past as a means of delivery but instead tend to gravitate towards examining practice for the future, the implication or suggestion being, that how we have worked in the past, or even in the current era, would (or might) not be suffice for the challenges that will present themselves in the years ahead of us. If that wasn’t the case, why would we pose the question in the first place – wouldn’t we simply just address the question of being ‘present-fit’?

This question of ‘future-fit’ isn’t one that I have just begun considering as a result of attending the Quality Bonus conference in February of this year. Previously, in February ‘19, I attended the ‘KA2 NOW – Innovation in Youth Work’ conference, also in Berlin, the aim of which was ‘To highlight Erasmus + Youth in Action as a tool to support innovation in the field of youth with a strong focus on Strategic Partnerships.’ There was much good on display in terms of practice, literally and figuratively speaking, and a testament to much of the creativity and imagination that marks out our sector.

However, just as I had said at my talk at Tool Fair XV in Portugal last October, where I claimed that we are on an endless ‘conveyer belt of production,’ blinded somewhat by the need to create ‘product’ in response to what we believe as identified need but also to meet funding expectations from Erasmus+, I made something of a similar point at the KA2 conference when I presented a workshop called ‘Old is the New New.’

I made the point - at least in my opinion – that irrespective of all the various developments within the sector, and regardless of all the tools that are produced, children and young people will still look to (and will ultimately still need what I call) ‘the fundamentals’ of our profession (I will address them further on) and therefore, this notion, concept or idea of ‘future-fit’ is a bit of a red-herring (conversation) in my opinion.

This is reiterated by Kahneman et al who tell us :-

‘….that most judgements are made in a state of what we call objective ignorance, because many things on which the future depends can simply not be known. Strikingly, we manage, most of the time to remain oblivious to this limitation and make predictions with confidence (or, indeed overconfidence)….we show that our objective ignorance affects not just our ability to predict events but even our capacity to understand them….’ [iii]

Normalising ‘future-fit’ is, I believe, somewhat dangerous, not in a threatening kind of way, but in the same way that when people search or long for happiness, it ends up becoming an endless pursuit - something to aim for, something to find, or something to locate - yet it often can’t be found, because we’re never quite sure what it is, or what it looks like. And even if we find it, or when we indeed ‘get there,’ it’s never quite how we imagined it to be. Yet when we do it is often short-lived, tends to prove unfulfilling or somewhat underwhelming and we become less than satisfied with it over time.

I argue these days that if you find contentment, happiness will follow. In the same way, if we contemplate, go after, or look for ‘future-fit’ youth workers, we are in danger of looking beyond what we are now, and what we have done or achieved in the past.

In youth work practice, we often talk about encouraging young people to be in the moment, embrace what they have, to focus on the present, to be mindful of their actions or to practice mindfulness.

We encourage them to take care of their mental health, to breathe, to be still, to observe, all of which is often about concentrating on the ‘here and now’ and to push out unwelcome distractions, or those that bring negativity into their lives. Yet, we don’t often practice this ourselves, but rather choose to think about the future, the ‘what if’s’ as opposed to the ‘what is.’

After 30+ years in youth work, albeit not always directly working with young people face-to-face, but in and around the sector in any case, and as someone who has had to practice some of my learning at home, i.e., raising three children, and now as a grandfather of two beautiful grandchildren, I have come to the view that the notion of ‘future-fit’ as somewhat misleading.

This is not just because of my participation in various programmes and conferences in recent times, but rather a growing realisation over the last decade that fundamentally, humans require the same things. Of course, at different ages, whether as a child, teenager, someone in their 20s, 30s or older, an individual’s needs will differ - this goes without saying - but my experience (lived and observed) has taught me, there are some common supports that each of us needs, irrespective of age.

I believe this more and more with each passing year, therefore reducing the need for ‘future-fit’ youth workers or to even have any real kind of conversation about it, but rather we just need more of what we do and have done well, to acknowledge that and reinforce the qualities that we already have.

I say this also when taking account of the changes and challenges that have been visited upon us not only in previous eras, but also in the modern era. As I write we are slowly trying to emerge from Covid. It has reminded us that we are quite vulnerable and not as clever and as nimble as we thought.

We face a slow demise in the face of the Climate Crisis that is already upon us and if we don’t change our ways, ‘future-fit’ youth workers will not be dealing with things like the behaviour of young people in their youth club but rather responding to environmental crises on their (very own) doorstep.

The war in Ukraine has reminded us, particularly those of us who live in the West, that the relative stability and peace that we take for granted needs more work and can be thrown into chaos at any moment, whilst recent ‘distant’ events such as Brexit and Trump means we live in a world where the ‘old order’ has changed dramatically and being ‘future-fit’ means being all things to everyone, in attempting to try and not only make sense of these monumental events but to try and be ‘on-hand’ for young people when they are trying to make sense of everything. Events such as the murder of George Floyd and the ‘re-awakening’ of BLM also reminds us that the need for Social Justice is greater now than ever.

This requires certain ‘things’ that are not so much about being ‘future-fit’ because they are as much about providing space, time, opportunity, patience, and a listening ear, all these things we have right now.

Such is the change in recent times, and such is the seemingly chaotic nature of these events, that to try and simply be ‘on-hand’ to answer questions or facilitate processes that leads to answers, no job description could ever be written, and no ‘future-fit’ checklist could cover.

Below I outline nine key issues that I believe we face currently and although this list is by no means exhaustive these issues do not require us to be ‘future-fit’ but rather our responses need to be governed by a more humane approach, one that has evolved over time, one that has already proven itself, and is not subject to an emerging ‘future-fit’ narrative.

We are increasingly facing: -

1. A Degenerative Approach to life and those around us - a pervasive and growing culture of individualism, competition, lack of solidarity, growing distrust, endless targets and measurements, misogyny, binary mindsets, and an all too consuming ‘Fix You’ Mentality reinforcing the belief that we’re somehow inherently flawed, ranging from being born with ‘original sin’ to your must eat better, exercise more, think differently, and so on.

2. Growing Isolation and a Disconnect from one another - we are at our most connected yet we have an epidemic of loneliness, which in turn has been shown to lead to major health issues. In addition, we have issues of ‘Safetyism’ where intent no longer matters but rather only the impact of our words and deeds is considered, further nurturing a growing disconnect between people as they struggle to reconcile how to relate to one another without being insensitive and callous, or causing offence, injury and injustice.

3. Increasing Speed and our inability to keep up - once we had the ‘four second rule’ (now reduced to a quarter of a second) where we are (less willing and more) incapable of waiting, but ironically, we no longer have (what has been described as) the ‘mental bandwidth’ to keep pace with change of speed that we crave. Alongside this, we have freely and willingly given away (often without question or concern) our personal information leading to a much more invasive nature from the technological giants that all but govern most of our lives on a minute-by-minute basis.

4. A Pervasive Collective Narcissism - where the ‘Attention Economy’ has encouraged us to put everything online to get a reaction and where our insecurities are exacerbated by a ‘Social Evaluative Threat’[iv] leading not to a genuine growth in self-esteem but rather a misplaced enhanced sense of ourselves, be that entitlement or rights, or our capacity to solve or fix things, or notions that we know better than others.

5. Increasing levels of Stress – people have become more fragile suffering from greater levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide, whilst in equal measure decreasing levels of resilience has lessened our ability to deal with challenge, and to top it off, technology has become so pervasive it is viewed as the main cause of the mental health crisis that began around 2011.[v]

6. Addiction to Screens - Children and young people now spend their lives in front of a screen – studies have shown that more than 2 hours screen time per day can be damaging[vi] whilst screens mean kids can always be in control which raises their level of expectation about things going their way.

7. Dilution of our Mental Capacity – it has become abundantly clear in the modern era that we have access to more information than we could possibly imagine but ironically, there is a general trend of moving away from acquiring deep knowledge. Equally, unparalleled access to information has led to information overload. Herbert Simpson describes this as a ‘poverty of attention,’ which in turns has led to a growth in what can be terms as a ‘Fixed Mindset’ where those unable to contemplate a change in their thinking are locked into a process of proving themselves.[vii]

8. Decreasing levels of meaningful engagement with others – childhoods are becoming more restricted especially for members of ‘iGen’ (born in and after 1995) who have been deprived of unsupervised time for play and exploration [viii][ix] whilst modern disorders are anti-social, e.g., ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), PDD (Pervasive Development Disorder), ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) and SID (Sensory Integration Dysfunction).

9. Illusion Vs Reality – one example is the growing sexualisation of children and young people. Everything from grooming and trafficking to the ‘sex industry’ and marketing and design of clothes, particularly aimed at young females. We still believe in the notion of children slowly moving into adolescence as the period before adulthood, yet adolescence is slowly eroding, the gap between childhood and adulthood becoming shorter and shorter. There is for example, a growing trend in sexual offences being carried out by children, for example, in the years between 2009 and 2012, 4562 minors committed 5, 028 sex offences in Britain, suggesting not only a growing sexualisation of minors, but that for many, these behaviours are becoming normalised.

The planet we occupy is beset with challenges, and we need to think more realistically about what young people really need from us, and what has the greater impact on their learning.

The tools we need are already at our disposal. Rather than think about how we can be ‘future-fit,’ I would argue that we need to focus more on some of the things we already do, and some of the things we don’t do enough of, most if not all of which are listed below, although this list is not exhaustive by any means.

PLAY: kids need to play and need more time for unrestricted play and without screens – this will help them to better equipped to deal with life - address anxiety and stress which will lessen the potential for depression and suicide.

NATURE: proven to aid physical and mental well-being we need to encourage greater connection with nature We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well-for we will not fight to save what we do not love.[x]

STORY TELLING: we do not truly understand until we know a person’s story – ‘we do not know what we are capable of until we hear other people’s stories.’[xi]

EXPERIENCES: we need to focus on experiences – according to two psychologists, Tom Gilarich & Leaf Van Boven, experience trumps materialism. Reports of a study published in 2003 prove that experiencing something as opposed to owning something makes people happier.[xii]

ANTI-FRAGILITY: We have become too protective and so we need to ensure that children and young people are less protected - not in a risk-laden way, where there are clear dangers, but calculated risks, where they learn how to handle those risks and challenges – ‘most psychologists believe that the ability to blend uncertainties, and our emotions, so that we our flexible and multi-faceted is key to our well-being….’[xiii]

CRITICAL THIKING: too many now lack the ability to decipher the information they have access to - we must ensure young people have the capacity to effectively evaluate the wealth of information at their disposal and determine what is true and what is not.

CONTENTMENT: people constantly strive for happiness as an end point rather than aim for contentment – ‘once a certain level of prosperity had been achieved, additional income furnished no further joy…. more than 10, 000 academic papers have been written on the subject.’[xiv]

MUSIC, LAUGHTER & DANCE: We need to listen to more music, laugh more and get up and move more. All the evidence shows that all of these are healthy for us. In her book, ‘Dancing in the Streets, A History of Collective Joy’, Social Critic Barbarah Ehrenreich refers to it as “collective ecstasy.” Ehrenreich concludes that we are “innately social beings, impelled almost instinctively to share our joy.” To quote Brene Brown in her book, ‘after a couple of years analysing her data she learned “laughter, song and dance” create emotional and spiritual connections; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration or healing: We are not alone.’

YOUTH WORKER AS PRACTITIONER: in our relationship with young people, we need to preserve our role which is to be balanced, to present information and let young people make choices and only intervene when individuals are in danger.

YOUTH WORKER AS POLITICIAN: in our role outside our sector, we need to be more overtly political to bring attention to the challenges we face – many of us don’t but we can no longer stand by and watch as ‘the world burns.’ Being balanced in our work with young people does not mean we can’t adopt positions on issues outside of our work but we also need to be able to reconcile potential conflicts – we can’t embrace diversity within our field yet occupy spaces at odds with this when we take our youth work hat off.

FIND THE OTHERS: The ideologues are winning – we need to arrest the slide into a culture war – young people are at risk, particularly through social media, of believing their voices are not being heard, or that they are alone. As Douglas Ruskhoff would say, ‘Find the others. Restore the social connections that make us fully functioning humans, and oppose all conventions, institutions, technologies, and mindsets that keep us apart.’[xv]

To be ‘future fit’ does not require looking into the future and trying to imagine what it might be like, how we should be and what tools we might need at our disposal. I believe that it’s almost a bit pointless even posing the question, or at least focusing any great amount of time on it.

Human Beings ultimately require the same things when all is said and done. They of course need food, shelter, water, sleep and so on, but in our work with young people, and after 30+ years I have come more and more to the realisation that what they need from us largely amounts to the same - presently and in the future - just as what was needed in the past.

Yes of course, they now require things like wifi and the ability to charge their phone these days, and arguably, even the option of putting something on-line about themselves in a given moment, but ultimately not having these will not have long-term effects on their ability to function as a human being, unless of course they are already addicted to their devices, which then presents different issues that need addressed separately.

Below I have outlined what I call ‘the fundamentals’ or the ‘the 6 R’s.’ I believe by practising these it allows us to respond appropriately (and accordingly) to any young person at any time, all of which I believe are as important in the here and now as they will be in the future, but not any more fundamentally unique from much of the approach that I have seen over the years, and of course observed from older more senior practitioners when starting out in my youth work career.

- Reception: the need to be heard, that young people have a voice

- Recognition: the need to be visible, that young people (actually) exist in the eyes of others

- Reassurance: the need to know someone is with them, that someone cares for them no matter what

- Reputation: the need to be ‘known for something,’ that they have value

- Reflection: the need to be able to change course, that they can think and feel differently from before

- Recourse: the need to know that there is a way back, that they can save face without fear or risk that they will be rejected

The only tool we need for this is ourselves. We are the most effective resource. Let’s get away from our addiction to creating tools – physical or otherwise – or thinking about what and how we need to be in the future, and provide those we engage with, with the most effective tool we have – us.

I want to finish on a quote

‘Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness.’

Uttered by Charlie Chaplin, from the Final Speech in the 1940 film Great Dictator, the sentiments expressed could not be more apt almost 100 years later.

Enough of trying to create ‘things’ that we think will serve our community best in the future – let’s just focus on the fundamentals that have served us best.

To be ‘future-fit’ we need to go back to the past!

[i] SALTO-YOUTH - European Training Calendar - 2nd ETS Conference - The Quality Bonus [ii] The Growth Delusion, The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations, David Pilling, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019 [iii] Noise A Flaw in Human Judgement, Kahneman D., Sibony O., Sunstein C.R., William Collins, 2021 [iv] Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research - PubMed (nih.gov) Sally Dickerson and Margaret Kemeny, Psychologists, University of California collected findings from 208 reports of experiments. Dickinson and Kemeny say, the ‘social self’ which we try to defend ‘reflects one’s esteem and status, and is largely based on others’ perceptions of one’s worth’ [v] Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? - The Atlantic Jean M. Twenge [vi] According to the non-profit organization Common Sense Media, teens spend on average nine hours per day on screens, and eight- to twelve-year-olds spend about six hours [vii] Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset: What REALLY Matters for Success (developgoodhabits.com) Dweck, distinguishes between two mind sets those who have a fixed mind set need to constantly prove themselves and confirm to themselves and others their capability [viii] The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt, Allen Lane, 2018 ‘They have missed out on many of the challenges, negative experiences, and minor risks that help children develop into strong, competent, and independent adults…no opportunity to develop their antifragility’ [ix] A study by the University of Michigan comparing results from 1981 with 1997 found that play among kids under 13 went down 16% and much of the play had shifted to indoor activities, often involving a computer and no other children [x] What should we be worried about? Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night, John Brockman, Harper Perennial, 2014; The human/nature divide, Scott Sampson [xi] Not Knowing, The Art of Turning Uncertainty Into Opportunity, Steven D’Souza, Dianna Renner, LID Publishing Ltd, 2016 [xii]https://www.colorado.edu/today/2003/12/09/experiences-make-people-happier-material-goods-says-cu-prof [xiii] The Stupidity Paradox, The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work, Mats Alvesson & Andre Spicer, Profile Books, 2016 [xiv] The Growth Delusion, The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations, David Pilling, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019 quoting Richard Easterlin, Economics Professor, University of Pennsylvania [xv] Team Human, Douglas Ruskhoff, W.W. Norton & Company, 2019