Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I welcome John D'Arcy, director of the Open University in Ireland; Gabi Kent, Open University senior knowledge exchange lecturer; Stephen Hughes, "Learning from 'Why Riot?'" co-researcher, St Peter's Youth Centre; and Dáire Owens, replacing Colm Fanning. You are welcome here. Those are all we have to introduce, so thank you very much for being here.

I advise members that three other co-researchers are in attendance in the Public Gallery and may swap with those on the panel in order to answer specific questions. You are all very welcome to the Justice Committee. There is a wee bit of change with me being here. This is my first meeting as Chair of the Justice Committee. You will have known Joanne Bunting, the previous Chair, who was very interested in your research and your project. Without further ado, I invite you to make an opening statement.

Mr John D'Arcy (The Open University): Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, colleagues. I thank you, Chair, and Committee members for the opportunity to brief you on our "Learning from 'Why Riot?'" research project.

The Open University has at its heart a mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. Since our establishment in 1969, we have worked with people and communities across Northern Ireland to make that mission a reality in order to benefit citizens wherever they live and wherever they work. Our impact is greatest when we work in partnership. For example, we work with all six further education colleges, the Alliance for Lifelong Learning, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and many of the main employer organisations as well.

The work that we will describe today is a unique project in which our partners — youth groups and young people — have co-created the content and the learning approach and done the research collaboratively with us to understand the impact that the programme has had on the lives of young people. Members will be aware that the Open University has a long history of working within the criminal justice system. For example, we are the prime provider of higher education in the Northern Ireland prison estate, and we support the role of lifelong learning to enable people to reach their full potential.

The Open University also has a long history of working with communities that were deeply affected by the past and by ongoing violence, where we believe that education can be an empowering tool for individuals as citizens and future peace-builders and change-makers. The "Learning from 'Why Riot?'" report centres around an educational intervention called "Why Riot?" that was co-created by Dr William Mitchell from the ACT Initiative and the Open University, initially working with eight young men from the Shankill area in the aftermath of riots in 2021. The online resource that was the product of that collaboration is available on our OpenLearn platform. To date, that has been accessed by over 140,000 visitors since its creation. There are 1,400 learners enrolled on that programme. They are not just from Northern Ireland: they are from across Great Britain, Ireland and further afield.

In discussion with youth practitioners, many of whom are with us here today, we felt that, from a practical point of view and from an experience point of view of our youth worker colleagues, a face-to-face approach might be more appropriate, given the challenges facing youth workers and youth groups of engaging with young people who might benefit most from a programme like this. The research findings in the report offer insights into the ongoing impact of the legacy of violence for young people in Northern Ireland but also, more important, effective ways of supporting the most marginalised young people through educational interventions. Of course, that aligns with our commitment to be open to all and our mission to deliver education that transforms lives.

That is a brief overview from me to set the scene. However, with your permission, I will ask Gabi, Stephen and Dáire to give you a little more detail about the programme before we take your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK.

Ms Gabi Kent (The Open University): Thanks, John.

As John outlined, we had that resource, and we know that it had many — 100,000-plus— users online, but how might it be useful for the young people whom we originally tried to reach? Those are young people in communities affected by the history of violence and areas of multiple deprivation and young people who were not, for example, going to school or had disengaged from social services and every other connection. We set up the "Learning from 'Why Riot?'" action research project, which ran for 18 months. We had five partners: the Education Authority (EA); two Education Authority partners, the North Belfast Area Project (NBAP) and the East Belfast Area Project (EBAP); Lagmore; St Peter's Immaculata; and Alternatives in south Belfast. It was a north, south, east and west Belfast collaboration. Its intention was to bring together people from different and diverse backgrounds, with different methodologies and approaches to delivering youth work.

We wanted to understand whether "Why Riot?", which was created with young men from the Shankill, could be used in other contexts and how. We wanted to determine what outcomes and impacts might take place through delivery for young people and, importantly, how we might measure that. That was a really important point that was central to our approach. Part of our co-design at the very beginning was to look at what we might measure as change. What is the impact that we are looking at for the young people? We moved away from short-term outcomes and any existing outcomes-based evaluations, and we came up with a 10-point meaningful change framework that looked at things such as belonging, critical thinking, respect — including self-respect — aspirations, peer culture, safety and attitudes to violence, not at whether their engagement with violence had ended but at their attitudes towards and understanding of violence.

You might argue that those are soft measures, but that was our framework. It was chosen because the youth workers felt that those 10 indicators would give us a sense of the kinds of holistic change for those young people that would lead to longer-term impacts in their lives and, hopefully, for their wider community. Our starting point was to throw out what is and to look differently at it and think about what was needed as well as what, experts on the ground felt, was important to measure. That is how we looked at measuring.

As you will, hopefully, have seen from the report, the main headline from our evidence, confirming the work that has been done by people using public health approaches, for example, is that youth violence is, of course, a social and public health issue and not just a criminal justice issue. Underpinning it are issues of social and structural inequalities, which are a key driver in young people's behaviours. We looked at the other drivers of youth violence that came out of the evidence. The unmet needs of young people was a key issue, including things such as emotional safety, belonging and so on. Alongside that is the context of violence, which is about what drives young people's engagement in violence. Stephen will speak to that shortly, because he is the expert on the ground.

Importantly, we also looked at what was effective — how "Why Riot?" worked. It works by fostering young people as thinkers and change-makers. It enables young people to make their own decisions. It does that through a context of safety and security that is provided by delivering "Why Riot?" in youth centres and community-based locations by skilled youth workers who do meaningful work over a long period and build relationships of trust with the young people. We had five very different groups and 60 young people, 40 of whom completed. The greatest trajectory from where they started, where we did a baseline, to where they ended and because they engaged was among the young people who were most marginalised at the outset. Those were the kids at the interfaces who had dropped out of school or were struggling in many areas. It is an effective early intervention or gateway programme. It cannot solve everything, because, as we say, youth violence is a social issue and needs a broad, joined-up response. The programme can, however, have a significant transformative impact on young people's lives. As I said, it does so by addressing needs.

The other point that I want to make is that our research found that there was a need for long-term, flexible and responsive programmes. I say that because the longer you engage with young people, obviously, the greater the impact. We started this thinking that it would be a three-to-six-month research project, but we gave the youth workers the freedom to tell us what was needed. We were a bit naive, thinking that it would be a short-term programme. "Why Riot?" is technically meant to take 12 weeks maximum or 12 sessions. It took between three and 12 months for people to deliver. They came back to us and said, "We have to adapt to young people's needs. They have different learning needs, and we need a lot of time for these young people". Time is important. Dáire will pick up on that, explain why it is the case and talk about his experience of it in his work in Lagmore.

The other key point, which John mentioned, is the importance of having front-line youth workers and outreach workers as youth development partners, not as emergency services stepping in when things reach the acute stage. The evidence demonstrates the value of long-term developmental work through outreach to bring in young people, develop and support them over time and provide follow-on pathways. It is not a short process or a quick fix. It needs time, dedication and support.

The final point goes back to the notion of youth violence being a broader social issue and not just a youth issue. It needs a joined-up response, and one of our main recommendations is about co-creation. I draw on our experience of working with our partners and the importance of starting with people who are experts in this context and co-creating a joined-up response in Northern Ireland to how we want to tackle and address the issue of youth violence.

I will hand over to Stephen to talk more broadly about the context of his young people.

Mr Stephen Hughes (St Peter's Immaculata Youth Centre): Thanks very much, Chair, for giving us this opportunity. I am just a youth worker. I work in St Peter's Immaculata youth centre in the lower Falls. We were interested in becoming involved in the project because of what we had seen manifesting as violence in our young people. At the moment, we see it particularly along the Shankill Road interface and at RISE, the Broadway and Village interface. We had been trying to resolve that for a long time. Since the riots began in 2021, we had seen a consistent number of incidents. We had, I think, 138 incidents last year on the north and west Belfast interface. In our work with the police and with local community groups and residents' associations, we had tried to find effective responses to violence.

Violence in Belfast needs to be understood. One of the specific benefits of the research was finding that, although we have a legacy of political violence, there are ongoing social issues shaped by structural inequality. Conflict theory highlights how historical divisions of power and resource were entrenched into sectarian violence, while social identity theory explains how rigid group identities sustain mistrust and hostility. More recently, the public health perspective has framed violence as intergenerational and rooted in trauma, poverty, segregation and exclusion, showing how societal conditions can create environments in which violence thrives.

Socially, violence manifests itself in multiple ways. It is beyond sectarianism, paramilitarism and community intimidation. It presents acute challenges in relation to domestic and gender-based violence, as you are well aware. In the North, we have a huge femicide issue and more-than-above-average domestic violence rates that are not being considered. We also have systemic factors that are manifested in some of the violence that we see. We have poverty; segregation is still a big issue; there is social deprivation; and unemployment remains concentrated in communities that have been significantly affected by conflict legacy issues.

I will go off on a bit of a tangent. Carnegie came here in 1903. He was a Scottish industrialist who made a load of money in the United States. On his visit to Belfast, he decided that he wanted to effect some change in the three most impoverished communities. He built three libraries that opened in 1904. One of them is in Donegall Road, in the Village; one is in the lower Falls; and the other one was on the Oldpark Road. Some 120-plus years later, we are still talking about social disadvantage and poverty. There are structural and systemic issues that remain a challenge for us.

The report tells you all about violence. What I am trying to do is make this personal, and I want to talk about the young people with whom we engaged. Our work with William Mitchell to create the programme was a very inventive and creative way to respond to the violence in 2021. It was a potential response and intervention to the continuing violence, and it has proved effective.

I want to talk about the change in some of the young people. The change, for us, was a specific, targeted intervention by street workers. They are detached youth work staff who are on the street and can see the numbers of young people and the key leaders who are involved in interface violence. We created a targeted, specific group of young people to be the people we wanted to work with. Those young people had disengaged from the community. They were excluded and isolated and, as a result, hated their own community, but, after the programme, as the research proves, something changed. We engaged them over a two-year period. The difficulty for us was building the trust and getting a relationship with those young people. What happened? Suddenly, they stopped gathering on the interface. They had somewhere else to go and something else to do. They engaged in the workshops and in the conversation. Dialogical youth work is critical. It is about being able to have young people develop trust and a relationship and then progressing through issues like identity, community responsibility, civics — all those things. It was slow at times, but it eventually worked. The impact is that violence has been reduced at that interface. Those young people stopped getting involved in sectarian violence.

The relationships across the divide were also helpful. Every one of those young people, bar one, moved to a cross-community programme called the Ambassadors programme with Townsend Street youth centre on the Shankill. That was an 18-month-long programme. They travelled together and built relationships. Some relationships went beyond friendship; they got girlfriends and boyfriends. What happened was that attitudes changed, behaviour changed and they gained new skills and knowledge. We ended up with young people re-engaging with school. One young person who had been excluded from school was re-engaged, mentored and supported, and he completed his GCSEs last year. We had others who went on to work. Granted, it was part-time, but they were in employment.

The most important aspect for us was the attitudinal change. The hate that, they thought, they had to have suddenly dissipated. The understanding and knowledge of what sectarianism was, what it was doing to our communities and what it was doing to the old-age pensioners who live around the interface was significant, and that changed the behaviour. Suddenly, we ended up with a group of young people moving through to leadership. We are working with a second contingent of the "Why Riot?" group now, and two of the young people from the previous group are involved in mentoring and supporting them. They all moved through to our global service learning programme and our leadership programme. They completed qualifications with the youth centre. Movement and progress happens, but the impact is that we have a changing citizen, a changing response on the interface and a changing understanding of what violence does to you personally as a young person and to your community.

The report has been absolutely huge in helping us understand the longevity that is required in developing, delivering and assessing this work. It also gave us a different assessment tool and a different reporting tool. That then supported what you now see as the "Learning from 'Why Riot?'" report. Every one of the groups involved in the research — the peer researchers were all youth workers, some of whom are sitting behind us in the Public Gallery — said that the change had been significant, but, more important, it is now evidenced, and that is the success for you. It is something that can be repeated and invested in the future.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you.

Mr Dáire Owens (Lagmore Youth Project): On the back of what Stephen said, it is clear to us that the approach to addressing youth violence must go beyond short-term fixes or reactive measures. We need sustained investment in prevention and intervention. The first and, perhaps, most pressing recommendation from the Open University study is the need for long-term engagement. Youth problems are not to be solved in isolated interventions. These are individuals with complex lives who require consistent ongoing support. Whether that is through mentorship programmes, employment schemes or emotional support networks, we must invest in developing lasting relationships with our young people that will navigate the challenges that they face.

The research points to socio-economic disparity, educational underachievement and systemic exclusion as key drivers of youth involvement in unrest. To truly make a difference, we must focus on addressing those root causes. Programmes that provide educational support, vocational training and mental health services should be integrated into youth engagement efforts to give young people a sense of hope and opportunity. Another important recommendation is the need for community-based interventions. The "Why Riot?" study emphasises that the best results come from the programmes that are designed and led by the communities that they serve. Local organisations, schools, law enforcement and community leaders must work together to create a unified approach that addresses not just the individual needs of the young people but the wider social factors that influence them.

One of the most striking recommendations from the "Why Riot?" study is the importance of involving youth in the solutions to the challenges they face. When young people are given agency and ownership over the programmes that are designed for them, they are more likely to engage meaningfully and take responsibility for their actions. Involving young people in the creation and implementation of youth-centred interventions ensures that the programmes are relevant, engaging and effective. The urgency of the recommendations cannot be overstated. The Open University's research shows that the current state of youth disillusionment and disconnection is reaching a critical point. Youth violence and unrest are not an isolated problem but a growing threat to social cohesion, stability and public safety. We are at a crossroads. If we fail to invest in long-term youth-focused interventions now, we risk the consequences of continual social fragmentation and instability. The emotional, economic and societal costs of reactive measures, such as policing and imprisonment, are much higher in the long term than the proactive preventative work that the "Why Riot?" programme recommends.

The "Why Riot?" programme findings from the Open University offer a clear path forward, a path that centres on long-term investment in youth engagement, community collaboration and addressing the root cause of violence and social unrest. If we are to protect our young people and ensure a peaceful and just society, we must make a sustained commitment to support them. That is not just a matter of social responsibility; it is an investment in our collective future. I urge the Committee to take the findings of the "Why Riot?" programme seriously and commit to implementing the recommended strategies. Let us invest in the future of our youth, because, when we invest in them, we invest in the future of our society.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you very much, Dáire. Does anybody else want to comment before we go to questions?

Mr D'Arcy: Thank you, Chair and Committee members. I know that it was a slightly extended introduction to the report, but we felt it was important to hear the voices of Dáire and Stephen in particular on the impact. We are happy to answer questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you, and thank you for bringing your posse up. There are a lot of people here.

The first question from me is this: where has "Why Riot?" succeeded where your typical boxing coach or football manager has failed?

Mr D'Arcy: If we go back to the start, we were approached by William Mitchell and Stephen on how to engage young people. That was the secret, and it has not been a quick fix or an Alex Ferguson "hairdryer" treatment. It was about listening to young people and finding out what would make a difference for them. The very first part of the course was developed by the eight young men working closely with William. There was co-creation from the earliest stages, and we took our time with the programme, although there was great online usage of the course very quickly. When Stephen and Dáire and colleagues started work with the five groups, we took our time to embed it with the well-established youth groups. The groups took the time to reach those young people. Was that not the longest part of the journey, Stephen?

Mr Hughes: It really was. Chair, all the organisations that you mentioned do sterling work and all have significant outcomes in areas such as health, social and life skills or diversionary understanding — keeping the young people occupied. The young people in the interface areas and the groups that we engaged with for the research are not those young people; they were the young people who were most isolated, excluded and vulnerable, and they were easily caught by — I will not call it "recreational" responses because it was not recreational; there was a definite political agenda to some of the rioting — a response or manifestation of the young people's isolation and vulnerability. The programme did not engage young people who were already involved in positive developmental opportunities; it targeted young people who were consistently on the interface, involved in social unrest and, on occasion, violent. The difference was that it was a targeted and specialist intervention. Our job as youth workers is not to be an emergency response; we become involved to provide contextual safeguarding. It is about keeping young people and communities safe; it is about ensuring that those young people do not damage one another or the communities.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): The outcomes were assessed using the meaningful change framework. Can you explain the nuts and bolts of the framework? Are the longer-term objectives robust enough to withstand a catastrophic event that triggers rioting in certain areas?

Ms Kent: I will pick up on the first point about how the programme is different. Critical thinking is at the centre of the programme, dialogue and using the dialogic processes. Sports and other programmes are important to engage people, but we are nurturing thinkers and giving them the choice to make independent decisions. We do not say, "Don't riot"; we ask them to think about why they are rioting and to make a choice for their independent self, particularly in the context of social media influences and a lot of external negative influences on young people's lives. There is a lot of noise. We give them the tools and skills, alongside a structured programme, which provides safety and meets their needs, so that they can make choices and become future leaders and thinkers. You are investing in helping young people become thinkers. We are not doing something to young people; we are enabling young people to make choices for themselves, and that is what makes the programme different.

Could you repeat the question about the meaningful change framework?

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Yes. The outcomes were assessed using the meaningful change framework. What are the nuts and bolts of the framework? Will the scheme be robust enough when a catastrophic event takes place that will entice people onto the streets?

Ms Kent: We do not know, but I might hand back to Stephen and Dáire for some thoughts on the longer-term impacts. The framework is in evolution. We are in the process of making it a more replicable and usable tool beyond our initial project. It is partly a case of "Watch this space". At the moment, the framework has 10 indicators that include critical thinking, belonging, attitudes to violence, aspirations, confidence in education and learning, and measures that go from very low to high along a spectrum. We looked at all of the data in each location and then adopted a standardised process so that we could measure it. It is a tool that gives you a baseline of where young people are, and you can then see the progress over time. As I said, it is in development. We will definitely come back; we would love to report at a future date on how it can be used when it is fully formed. I will hand over to Stephen and Dáire.

Mr Hughes: Mine is a much simpler response. In youth services and in community development there has always been a difficulty in evidencing growth, whether it be in attitude, knowledge or skills. There is also a challenge in assessing what the longer-term impacts are. A lot of government agencies use outcome-based accountability, which is super, but what change does it actually effect in communities, the people and the place, particularly where I am in lower Falls and lower Shankill, including those interfaces? The rigidity of the research provided us with diagrammatic visuals to show the young people's movement. That was different, so much so that we have now adopted that into our youth work quality assurance systems in the organisation. We are in the process of sharing that with others in the field. That is where we are going. It is not just an academic exercise; it effects change and helps us to reassess what we need to do with the next group. What is the benefit? What positive change has it effected? That is as simply as I can describe it.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): You are affecting young people's lives, and you are providing a better future for them. How could the Executive better help you in that environment?

Mr Hughes: There are a couple of issues. We see the programme as a tool and a mechanism to intervene in social unrest. It is proven as a quality technique. It has proven its impact. It is about getting the government agencies on board. It is not just about a response to social unrest and interface violence but about progress in communities, including enhancing the lives and opportunities of children and young people in communities that have serious and complex barriers.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Poverty, inequalities and deprivation all lead to the environment where young people feel let down, forgotten and alone. If all of that environment were to change, it would help your work incredibly.

Ms Kent: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): What communication have you had with government agencies?

Ms Kent: We are in a process right now of trying to develop the recommendation about co-creating a joined-up response. We hope to kick-start a series of co-creation conversations about a model in Northern Ireland of a violence-reduction or non-violent piece/hub that brings people together and is not just focused on short-term interventions but brings together cross-sectoral issues, such as structural inequalities and social inequalities. We have had some support from the Commissioner for Victims of Crime, and we have been in conversation with some other people. We would love the support of the Committee as we try to push those conversations forward to get something concrete out of the process. That is on a high level.

On a lower level, we talked this morning about how, although Northern Ireland is a wonderful testing ground for lots of ideas, it is not always the best at embedding, rolling out and scaling. When there are such interventions, how can we support youth workers in doing that, rather than doing it piecemeal? Stephen is running another "Why Riot?" group, which I met last night. They are amazing young people, but they are not even at the point where they are ready to start the course. You are doing that in between bits and pieces, cobbling together tiny bits of funding here and there just to make it happen because you know that it works. It should not be like that. You have a group, which you mentioned, with which you could do the work, but you do not have the funding. There should be the support to say, "It is long-term, two-year funding. Yes, go ahead. There is an issue here, and you can work with those young people. You have time to adjust to their needs. Carry on." It is about how we can get the programme like this which youth workers can deliver where there is need.

Mr Hughes: There are lots of little pockets of really great work that has been taking place. In St Peter's, we have been using non-violence for many years. Farset International intercommunity group between the Shankill and Springfield Road is delivering on non-violence as a hub. Another is the Youth Justice Agency's strategic plan. There is the Taking Boys Seriously project at Ulster University; Siobhán McAlister's work on human rights; tackling violence against young women and girls; Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC); and PEACE PLUS. All of those pieces are out there, but they are almost in silos. One of the big asks for us is of how we bring all of that together. Adele Brown from the Department has been an ambassador for that for many years. How do we tackle interpersonal issues and all of the community-based and contextual stuff? Youth Work Alliance recently produced a paper on contextual safeguarding around social unrest, and that was a really impactful way of looking at it. What we are hoping for and selling to the Committee is recognition of the need for something that brings that together. We have taken groups to Glasgow, Rotherham, Cardiff and other places to look at modelling this work, and I think that we can create something different. We can create something better. John, I am sure that you can speak to the research that you have undertaken on reviewing those.

Mr D'Arcy: As a UK-wide and Ireland-wide organisation, the Open University has seen what has happened in Scotland in particular. There are models that we could bring in here, but the innovation that Stephen and others have co-created here is a model that could be exported outside Northern Ireland.

In answer to your question, I think that it is about that joining-up piece. We have been encouraged by the response that we have had from MLAs so far. We launched the report a couple of months ago, and your predecessor as Chair, Joanne, came up to us afterwards and said that we needed to be in front of the Justice Committee. We will be with the Education Committee next week and the Executive Office Committee in due course. We are having a conversation with the Education Authority. We are keen to share the findings.

It is a good compliment that people such as Stephen talk about the robustness of the research. It is different, and it is taken over a longer time because those young people are special in needing that extra nudge and that extra encouragement to start a course, because they might have had a bad experience in school or whatever. The encouragement from the Committee will be essential to us in having other conversations. It is about joining things up. That is the key thing.

Mr Baker: Thank you for the report and all the work that you are doing. I should declare an interest, because I have worked with many of those who are in front of us on the streets in Belfast and have seen the great work that they have done, particularly thinking back to the riots of 2021, where many of the youth workers who were standing there were doing so as volunteers. Many of them were not being paid to be there but were reacting to a situation that was arising and did not want to see young people with criminal records or anybody getting hurt. If it was not for them, to be truthful, that event could have really escalated.

That leads me into my question. Stephen, you have already touched on this. Is the current funding that youth workers and clubs, particularly those in the community and voluntary sector, have to apply for fit for purpose when it comes to hard-to-reach kids? You need to be on the street to engage with them. Has the EA moved away from those types of interactions, restricting youth workers in that regard?

Mr Hughes: There is a changing funding environment with youth organisations. Some may say that it is an evolution of how organisations or government agencies fund groups. We have a tendering process now; we have specifications; and we have Northern Ireland tendering systems online. All of those systems are probably an evolution of political systems. For us on the ground, though, it has changed things. For example, we have a couple of organisations across communities in Derry/Londonderry, west Belfast, north Belfast, Portadown, Lurgan and north Down that the Department of Justice funds through the Department of Education and through the Education Authority down to us. You fund the tackling paramilitarism programme (TPP), now called the "Executive programme on paramilitarism and organised crime" (EPPOC). The Department of Education funded work called the "Engage" programme through the Education Authority. In west Belfast, where I was, the programme worked with almost 100 young people who were under threat from paramilitary organisations or had been abused or violated in paramilitary attacks. This year, the Department of Justice removed two thirds of that funding, and we now have one member of staff left in west Belfast to work with those young people. Projects have been closed down in Lurgan, Derry/Londonderry and other places as a result of those funding cuts. That has changed some things.

One significant issue has been the change in the Education Authority's funding away from street-based work. Street-based work is a critical intervention for the most isolated young people. Like every youth centre, we have a load of young people who come and engage and benefit from youth services. That is not what street work is about; street work is about getting out and reaching young people who are not engaged. That is what has worked really well. That change in the funding environment has implications in communities. I have concerns about the movement away from specifically targeted interventions. As I said, those who are not engaged, those who are isolated and most vulnerable and have the most complex issues will be lost in the system. What we are saving here, we will pay for somewhere else.

I will just give you an example. In west Belfast, the number of young people being incarcerated are down significantly over the past 10 years, and that is a significant saving to the Department of Justice in incarceration rates, justice rates and policing costs. If we take away the preventative and reactive services, you will pay for it in some other way. More important for us, as youth workers, is that we end up with young people with more complex barriers and tight limits on their potential.

Mr Baker: That leads into my next point about the great programmes that are no longer there. I will be a bit parochial, because I know west Belfast. We had a good detached team that worked for a number of years and had significantly good, evidence-based outcomes. It cost a couple of hundred thousand pounds. I cannot remember exactly how much, but it was a small pot of money in the grand scheme of things. Since that was cut, are you feeling the impact of the loss of that across west Belfast? I remember that you could pick up the phone, and there would be someone there. I am not saying that they had to be used as an emergency response, but there was that early intervention that young people could trust — the young people who were hard to reach and maybe could not get into a youth club or were out of school but would very much listen to a youth worker before they would listen to a police officer.

In my community, it may not be interfaces that I represent in my wee part of the world, but, recently and by pure chance, it was youth workers — one of them is sitting there — who picked up on young people arranging a fight through social media. It would have had a sectarian element to it because it was going to be two kids from different communities. That could have quickly created an interface in a place that never had an interface.

How do we use the great work that you are doing to make the case for the need for those interventions? We need that detached work to happen and to be funded as part of all of that.

Mr Hughes: The peripatetic team that you are talking about, Danny, was closed on a Friday night. It cost £150,000 per year to run that team of five people. Holy Trinity had the lead for it in west Belfast. It closed on the Friday night, and, on the Saturday night, sixty thousand pounds' worth of damage was done to Translink facilities on the road. That is the most obvious example of what happens when those services are not there.

Going back to your point about interface issues, Danny, a lot of what we see on the interfaces is young people saying, "He kissed my girl" or, "He texted my mate" or, "He put me up to it". There is a lot of toxic masculinity and machismo there, which is normal in growing up. The police do not want to put young people into the justice system. They want there to be a developmental and educational response. To be fair, the chief inspector in west Belfast would tell you that youth services save her £40,000 a month. There are clear budgetary consequences, but there are also significant consequences for communities and the lives of our children and young people. That is where we are coming from, although I know that you have fiscal responsibilities as well. In answer to your question: yes, it can be helpful.

Mr Baker: I have one more wee point, Chair, and then I will be done.

You said that you will be at the Education Committee next week, so I will follow up on some of the model that has been taken up by the Education Authority.

My last point is on the rise in racism. I am not saying that racism will replace sectarianism, but it is building in communities. I would like to gauge where young people are in relation to that. From social media, I see that it is older ones who are involved in driving disinformation. How vulnerable are some of our hard-to-reach kids who may fall into that in parts of Belfast and further afield?

Mr Hughes: Power, oppression and discrimination is the underlying theory embedded in all of this. The manifestations of violence that we see are all outlined in the report. The report articulates how the "Why Riot?" methodology can help young people through self-awareness, critical self-reflection and taking responsibility for decision-making not just for themselves but for the community that they want in the future. It proves that the methodology can be used in a variety of situations. Do not get me wrong: it is challenging. It means that we, as youth workers, have to be more analytical and insightful. More important, however, we are giving young people ownership over their communities. When you enable young people and they suddenly realise that they have that power, their decision-making changes, their attitude changes and so does their behaviour.

Mr Baker: Thank you so much.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Before I bring Connie in, I am mindful that there are people in the Public Gallery who may want to contribute to answers. If that is the case, they should not feel restricted in any way — they should come up; there is a spare chair.

John, I will come to you as to who, you think, is best placed to answer the questions.

Mr D'Arcy: That is kind of you, Chair, thank you.

Ms Egan: Thank you for coming in today. I am especially impressed by the work that the youth workers are doing on the ground. My question is not a million miles away from the point that Danny made. The report came off the back of riots at interfaces in 2021, but the riots that we have seen across Ireland in the past year or two have had a different element: racial motivation. When you talk to young people about that, do you find that the methodology still applies? I was interested to hear that you went to other parts of the UK to talk to youth workers to see how it could be used: can we get a bit more information on that?

Mr D'Arcy: The fact that more people from outside Northern Ireland are accessing the course online is testament to the generic value of the conversations that it enables youth workers to have with young people, Connie. As a university, we need to take that further across jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. I will hand over to Gabi, Stephen or Dáire to get into the specifics.

Mr Owens: You asked how applicable the programme is to racism. As we said, the programme is about empowering young people through critical thinking. A lot of the work is single-identity, with young people from one religious, ethnic or community background. It is about providing them with the tools to think before they make actionable decisions and get themselves into real trouble. It could work in a race context. I have seen that in working with the young people. The programme is not just about green and orange; it is about the decisions that the young people make and their ability to make up their own mind and not just follow the herd.

Ms Kent: Exactly. It is translatable and transferable to other contexts. As Dáire said, it is about critical thinking. It also explores different perspectives. Those are classic teaching tools. I must mention William Mitchell and the co-creation of the programme. It is about community-based critical thinking, education from the ground up and learning how to do dialogue. One thing in the research that struck me — I remember talking to Stephen's group in particular about it — was about empathy. Geraldine McAnoy, one of the youth workers in St Peter's, described the young people at the beginning of the programme as not having empathy. They were also said to be, "Lighting fires to feel the heat". That, again is transferable, because there is a lack of empathy, and there is anger and frustration. The process is partly about that. If young people feel valued, understood and seen, the anger that comes out gets constructively challenged, because they feel differently about themselves. The core issues for young people can be addressed in any context. It is not about sectarianism, as was said. The issues are those of young people in contexts and cultures of violence who grow up without the skills and abilities to navigate them. The process is partly about giving them those skills.

Mr Hughes: It all manifests more systemic issues. The cross-cutting themes of social marginalisation, isolation and poverty are everywhere. The young people involved in the interface issues and the ethnic violence do not have an understanding of their responsibilities or of who they are — their identity — or how they are supposed to be. For many years, especially in the interface areas, we have found that young people just want to be together, but, all too often, when they gather on the interface — Danny referred to this — it suddenly becomes sectarian. We had 168 incidents last year, of which a small number were sectarian. When you help the young people talk through how it looks and what their responsibilities are and get them to understand and take responsibility for their decision-making, in helping them with that dialogical process to work through the issues, things suddenly change. It will be the same with ethnic violence.

Ms Egan: I am really interested in what you, as youth workers, find most challenging when you deliver the course. One thing that alarmed me about the most recent riots is this: with social media, such things are livestreamed, so a lot of young people, along with people who are not young, went out to see what was going on and, perhaps, got pulled into it. Young people are more likely than older people to behave in a certain way and to take risks. I found it horrendous to read reports of parents taking their young people — their kids — to a riot. As youth workers, you can deliver amazing programmes and talk to young people about brilliant things, but, if their parents take them to a riot, that is really difficult to challenge.

Mr Owens: To go back to your question, the most difficult part of the programme is getting the young people through the door and to agree to sit down and have the conversation and then to open the space for dialogue and learning. I credit the Open University for this: the programme differs from others in its long-term funding. It gives the time for the youth workers on the street to engage the young people weekly. That might start with a "Hello" one week. You might get a conversation by week 3. It was the same when we worked with our group in a local park. It took weeks for us to get them to say, "Do you know what? We'll sit down and have a conversation with you". It took us to bring pizzas up to the park and say, "Do you want a slice of pizza, and we'll have a conversation?". It was weeks of engagement that led to the "Why Riot?" programme and the course. The most difficult part of it is having the patience and time, within current structures, to engage young people weekly over a period of, as Gabi and Stephen said, up to 24 months.

Mr Hughes: Patience is the most difficult thing, as well as knowing that there are so many external influences on the young people. We need to take the time. One of the frustrations about youth work and its funding, as Danny asked about, is that they want things done in a 12-week, six-week or summer programme. With complex, vulnerable, frustrated young people, we need to be patient.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Colm has stepped up: come on ahead.

Mr Colm Fanning (Lagmore Youth Project): Apologies. I have a chest infection, which is why I did not jump to the front.

On your earlier point, the programme is well suited to whatever issue. We went into so many issues when we worked with our group, which was all young men. We were looking at intra-community conflict, so these were young men who were not even on an interface. We talked about sectarianism and how it impacted there. The project that we worked on in Danny's constituency was with young men who were involved in intra-community conflict: they were attacking buses and their own community infrastructure.

After three months of constant engagement to even get them through the door, once we got into the engagement process, we were up against the multitude of issues that those young men face. They talked about gender-based violence and what influences them on social media. They are bombarded with those things constantly. One of the things that shocked me most was the young men's attitude to ethnic minorities and the rise in the numbers of ethnic minorities. We said, "In our community, we do not have a huge ethnic minority". It goes back to the other issues that young people face, such as defending their community. They think, "What is my role? Is it my role to step up?". We had an opportunity to talk to those young men. We asked, "Why are you here? What do you do? What is your role in your community? What is your community to you? What does it say about you, as young people?".

A massive thing that our young men — he has nipped out for a second, but Dáire might have mentioned it — talked about is how the media portrays them. It is always negative. One of the processes that we went through in the programme was to look at what the media say about young people in their community. It took them to go back through four years of information before they got to a positive news story about young men in their area. They were shocked by that. At the end of the programme, they said, "We want to continue this, but we want to call our new programme the 'Usual Suspects', because we are normally called the 'usual suspects'". At the end of the programme, they went about trying to change that and put out a positive news story about young men in their area.

We looked at attacks on ethnic minorities, gender-based violence and intra-community conflict. The programme really stretches the boundary. It is structured, but it is also open for young people to come in and have a conversation. We had conversations about the real things that were affecting them at that time. There was a broad range of topics, depending on what those young people were involved in or what they were looking at. The programme is really adaptable to the race riots that are taking place. It will continue to help community groups across the UK to have an impact on young people in respect of the major issues that affect them and their community.

Ms Egan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Eamon, do you want to come in now, or do you want to keep your powder dry?

Mr Eamon Feerick (St Peter's Immaculata Youth Centre): I am OK to come in. I will reiterate some of the stuff that has been talked about. It is also about understanding that one of the core elements of youth work is voluntary participation. Young people choose what they do and do not want to be involved in. One of the things that we really enjoyed about working with the Open University was the flexibility and adaptability of the programme in meeting the needs of young people, rather than simply doing something to reach an outcome. That tokenistic element was not there. It was about making a meaningful change to the trajectory of the young people's lives.

One of the unique things about our group was the fact that not all of them went on to complete the programme. That allowed us to assess the needs of those young people and provide an alternative method that would better suit them.

Meeting other needs that are out there is not just about "Why Riot?". The foundation of the programme allowed us to help young people to ask, "Why me? Why my family? Why my community?". It changed the way that they think by adding a more critical element to their decision-making process.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Very good. I will bring in Patsy. Patsy, thank you very much for your patience.

Mr McGlone: Thanks very much to all of you for your valuable work, which has been made clear today.

I looked through the report to see whether it mentioned an issue that there has been in the past. You touched briefly on external influences, Stephen, and that is mentioned in the report. We have read newspaper reports — it has happened before in our history — of manipulative extremist organisations using young people, especially those who are vulnerable, as cannon fodder and putting them out there. Those young people are then the ones who are left with the criminal record or jail sentence. Did you establish any evidence of that? It has been reported in newspapers. Did you find evidence of how to extricate people from that influence, if it exists?

The growth in racism was touched on, because it is not just interface riots that are happening. Across the world, we see the growth of racism and the hatred of anyone who is perceived to be different or, as it might be better to say, portrayed as such. How do you see yourselves broadening your work into that area? Could that benefit us? It may even create precedent in other areas. This morning, I heard the Speaker talking about the growth in racism and extremism in Britain. I heard on 'Talkback' today about things that are going on across the world and about the malevolent influence of social media. Do you have any ideas on that? Those ideas would be most welcome, because I regularly see social media as one of the things that kick people off. It is propaganda, and it has a deeply malicious and malevolent influence on people.

Finally, I was intrigued to see mention of the south Belfast group's use of neurolinguistic programming (NLP). I am interested in hearing where that is going. I have read a wee bit about it, so I am intrigued to hear about the ways that that has been used, please.

Mr Hughes: I will step in to answer the first bit of the question. We are in a changing world. We see the influence of clickbait and social media content that is as outlandish as it can be in order to get likes, because there is profit to be made. It is the biggest influence on our children and young people's lives, and it is totally unregulated. They get access to everything and anything that they want. The algorithm decides what information they get, depending on which social media platform they use. It is a difficult situation.

A good thing that came out of the report and the research is the dialogical approach. It is about being able to sit in a safe space — that is a critical part of the process — that allows young people to have those conversations. All too often, they work through what has happened to them and realise how children and young people are being exploited in the social media world. I am nearly 60, and I do not understand social media — I try my best to stay away from it — but our children and young people live on social media. We do an exercise in the process where we ask them to open their phones. There is a place on your phone where it tells you how many hours per day you spend on social media. Some of the young people were spending 15 hours a day on social media; their whole waking day was spent on social media. A lot of young people are getting messages and information, and there is no one to challenge those and enable them to have the difficult conversations in order for their wee minds to process that. Thrown in with that are the developmental issues of a teenager who is working through what is supposed to be positive masculinity but can be toxic masculinity.

The process is sound if we use it properly and enable young people to have those conversations in a safe space, Patsy. It is proven to work. The problem is that there is not enough of it happening.

Mr McGlone: Are any manipulative external social groups, paramilitary groups or extremist groups trying to use those young people?

Mr Hughes: Everybody will try to use young people. You see it all the time. It is one of the big things that youth work stands up against. People must stop exploiting, stop using and stop violating young people. We will always fight that corner on behalf of young people.

Mr McGlone: So you are saying that they are still at it.

What about the NLP?

Ms Kent: I will pick up on a couple of things. Stephen is exactly right about social media. There is a space where you can talk about it. In the second module of the course, there is a lot about social media. It gives young people tools to understand that they are fed information and ideas that are targeted and that repeats in little filter bubbles. A really nice example was when the youth worker in east Belfast, Scott Boyd, talked about how that enabled the young people to talk about their social media use and how they had been caught up in an issue or a fight that was based on lies and misinformation. It is about landing that real-world experience.

On external influences generally, a theme to come out of our research across all the groups is the tension between who young people are and who, they feel, they ought to be in relation to their communities, the media, their peers and other people's expectations. In the tension between "Who I am" and, "Who I ought to be", getting to "Who I am" is the kernel of the course in shoring up young people's sense of self and identity and being able to make their own decisions.

Colm can talk about that, and I will come back in on NLP.

Mr Fanning: We have seen the influence of social media on the young men whom we have worked with. Those young men were aspiring to be like two influential social media influencers whose content is really toxic. It was only through the process that there was a bit of challenge and some thought put into what impact that was having on the people around them. The young people then started to question themselves and the influencers. That relates only to a small section of young men, particularly around male gender roles. By the end of it, those young men were questioning things and saying, "I never really thought about it that way". It was only through the process that they did that.

One of the big parts of "Why Riot?" is what we have delivered, but there is also what the broader community has delivered. There was an evidence cafe where we had the Executive Office (TEO), statutory agencies, community organisations and youth workers on the ground sitting at a table for an entire day looking at these issues and listening to each other's perspective on how we can make the best impact. The evidence cafe was a massive result. The Youth Justice Agency, the Executive Office and other organisations heard from youth workers on the ground, and youth workers heard the strategic perspective from Stormont. They looked at how different eyes see the same thing but see it differently and tried to get a better understanding of each other's world. A massive learning that came out is that that needs to happen more. It needs to come from the top down to the ground, with both sitting in the same room, learning from each other and trying to develop change.

Mr Hughes: Neurolinguistic programming is one of the normal tools in youth work that we use a lot. It depends on the needs of the group. I know that Brian Armstrong — he is a senior practitioner — used it with his group in south Belfast. A lot of youth workers use NLP.

Ms Kent: NLP is not a methodology of our course. The methodology of our course is dialogue, reflection and critical thinking. We gave people the freedom to bring in or add the methods that they also like to use. NLP happened to be a method that that youth worker liked to use. It is not what this programme does in general. It is up to people what they use, to a certain degree, but the whole programme is much more focused on reflection, dialogue and critical thinking.

Mr McGlone: What about the growth of racism? Could what you are doing be adapted or tweaked to at least mitigate some of the problems, fractious issues and downright hatred that is bubbling over against people who happen to have come to another country to live?

Mr Hughes: It is about contextual safeguarding. It is about ensuring that young people are kept safe and not sucked into any sort of violence. The cross-cutting theme — it becomes clear in the report — is this: why does violence manifest itself? It is always about education. The response is always, "Enable the young people to work through it themselves". You find that they change, if the methodology is right. We have got it right with the programme.

Mr Feerick: It is about long-term investment in an intervention programme. We are talking about some of the most excluded and socially isolated young people, who are very mistrusting, particularly of adults. If we are able to provide a safe environment for those young people — one in which they feel comfortable enough to explore themselves, the community around them and where those opinions and thoughts come from — they will be able to think more critically. They will be able to think about how it will impact on them further down the line, and it will help them to develop empathy and compassion and change their mindset.

Mr Hughes: I do not mean to sound sexist, but we have to understand the stages of development in young people. Our young women mature much more quickly, and they make better decisions and are more compassionate, caring and thoughtful. They assess risk differently from young men. I am sorry about this, but the data —

Ms Ferguson: I am shaking my head. [Laughter.]

Mr Hughes: The young men are a bit slower in that. We need to focus on that to help them through the developmental stages with the least possible impact on themselves and others. I hope that that did not come across badly.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): We have a full house of members who want to ask questions, so I ask you to be tighter with your answers. I would be much obliged if you would.

Ciara, thank you very much for your patience.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you. I declare an interest because, 25 years ago, I ran similar programmes — Wider Horizons and other International Fund for Ireland (IFI) programmes. They were golden tickets for a small cohort of young people, because the funding is always short-term. There is little investment in the research element, so it is difficult at grassroots level.

Congratulations on establishing the relationship with the Open University. The title is fantastic: it is so catchy. Well done on bringing the report to the table. What about next steps?

I am conscious that there are other areas. I know that our youth organisations and community organisations do a lot of fantastic work. The projects are similar to yours, but they are one-off things. They are short-term, because it is so difficult to get long-term funding. You need long-term investment.

Over the years, there have been similar projects, so we know what works. There are toolkits. I know how valuable our youth workers are on the ground, because the answer has come from the bottom up. How do we finally get a cross-departmental approach to switch and focus on the 80% or 90% who do not attend youth centres? Do not get me wrong — all young people should have a universal youth service — but it is about that cohort of the most vulnerable young people in the heart of our community whom the PSNI, housing associations and teachers can identify. We did that; we ran a collaborative project through our IFI funding. We brought all the agencies on the list around the table and had 70 young people, but there were only enough places for 20. That was a golden ticket for a two-year programme, and it was amazing, but it did not have such an integral layout of modules. How do we finally get a cross-departmental approach and redirect investment to where it needs to go? That is my first question. I do not have the answer.

Secondly, measuring success is critical. The social return on the investment in particular makes any Department's ears prick up. Is any work being done on that?

Finally, a lot of our programmes were created in reaction to riots in Derry. That is how people were able to get core funding for two years. However, six or seven years later, we are faced with the same thing with the younger brothers and sisters. You are then trying to chase funding again. There is a lot of early intervention work. The study involved young people from 13 up, but loads of early intervention work is going on.

I am probably rambling a wee bit, because I am really passionate about this. I get everything that you have said, but I am frustrated. Our youth workers and community workers do amazing work on the ground, but it is with small cohorts of young people, and it is so hard to get long-term investment. In my previous job, I ran a programme on tackling paramilitarism, which continues to run. That is good work, again, but it is with a small cohort of 10 people in an area where there are probably 70 or 80 people who need that programme. How do we do it? That is the question. What can we do as a Committee?

Mr Hughes: There are some things that you may know about. John Lynch from the Youth Work Alliance has been leading work with the regional voluntary organisations on redesigning, with the Education Authority, what the Youth Service should do and how it should do it. The regional youth development plan came out yesterday, and there are some really positive pieces in that about bringing agencies together. An inter-agency body has been brought together, and Adele Brown in the Department of Justice has been a great lead and a visionary on how to connect the dots. It is just a resourcing issue. It always comes back to resources.

Ms Ferguson: But that has been the same issue for 30 years, and we know how critical the work is, even more so now than ever.

The only other thing that has not been raised today and that I find when I am out with the youth workers is the issue of criminal gangs and drugs. That is the most scary issue. Our youth workers do not even know the individuals who are hanging around the communities. Before, we knew the individuals and the families, so it was easier to start building relationships, but that is a really worrying trend, and I do not know how to tackle it.

Mr Hughes: We have county lines here now.

Ms Ferguson: That is another level again. That is increasing. Unless there is the intervention that you are talking about today and unless there is sustained long-term investment in it, it will only get worse. I just make that point.

Ms Kent: That touches on conversations that we were having this morning about the joined-up response. We hear about silo thinking, as you said, and about trying to get people to work across Departments and sectors to get the support across the sectors to tackle this as a complex issue. I am hopeful, and your support on what we may call "co-creation conversations" about a joined-up response will help. That is what we are trying to kick-start later this year. We will certainly talk to the DOJ and Adele Brown and others who are doing amazing work in the Department. There are people doing amazing work in other Departments, and there is siloing. We are trying to open up a space where people can talk to each other. We hope that what comes out of that is what is needed here: it needs the commitment, funding and leadership to make it happen. It is a process, but the Committee's support would help us along the way.

Ms Ferguson: The Department of Health with family support and early intervention at a family level is critical for the overall support.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Doug Beattie is online. Thank you for your patience.

Mr Beattie: It has been a fantastic discussion, and it is a fantastic programme. Thank you all very much for what you have done. It is absolutely incredible.

I want to explore something slightly different, because, at times, it feels a bit Belfast-centric or focused on heavily populated urban areas, whereas, elsewhere, it could be different. Even within those areas, it could be slightly different. Danny raised a good point about interfaces being created intercommunity when people fall out with each other, and that is important. I am from Upper Bann. That covers Portadown, Craigavon, Lurgan and Banbridge, and it is different for us in that area. It is not interface-type violence; it is more about young people coming together, taking alcohol and drugs and that turning into youth violence. How do we scale up the programme to understand the different areas and needs? You mentioned that the programme involves critical thinking and getting people to explore those areas for themselves.

Secondly, youths were knocking about in the late 1970s, doing recreational rioting: what is the difference between that and where we are today? Is it still just recreational rioting? When I left school at the age of 16, if you went down the university route, you were seen as a success; if you did not go down the university route, which I did not, you felt a bit abandoned. When you felt abandoned, you were more inclined to be dragged into antisocial behaviour or youth violence or to moving in the circles that create youth violence. In that context, what can we do to address the societal vision that almost abandons people who do not go to university? That is not true of everywhere, of course. How do we scale up the programme to take into account what happens in other places that are not heavily populated urban areas?

Mr D'Arcy: Thanks very much, Doug. Those are really good questions.

On your first question, you are absolutely right: it was a pilot, and it was based largely in the greater Belfast area. However, we have been trying to work together. We put in a bid to PEACE PLUS for a more region-wide experience. Unfortunately, we missed out on the funding. The project was valued and fundable, but there was not enough money in the pot to do that. We continue to look at opportunities, and we hope that today's engagement with the Committee and next week's engagement with the Education Committee will get the ball rolling on having a more Northern Ireland-wide response.

The other point was about the general public's perception of pathways with GCSEs, A levels, university and a job being seen, hopefully, as the one and only route for many people. We need to take forward a much wider discussion as citizens in what we hope to be a thriving society. It is about valuing the different routes and pathways that people take. That might come up during our discussions with the Education Committee next week.

I will hand over to Gabi on the wider reach of the programme. Gabi has had some good conversations with groups across Northern Ireland, and there is a willingness to take the learning further.

Ms Kent: Rioting does not happen just in Northern Ireland. We see it happen in the other nations, and it goes back to the earlier point about the rioting not just being sectarian.

The question about scaling up the programme is the same as the point about funding and embedding ideas rather than just running a pilot. We have not yet run the programme outside Belfast, but we would love to. We would love to find partners who would do that with us, but we have not been able to do that thus far.

There is one other thing that has not come up. It is something that came out of the research, and it is really important in terms of supporting the programme. It is not just about supporting the programme to deliver to young people but about supporting the practitioners who deliver it. We talked a lot about communities of practice. That is essential, because, whether it is in Belfast, in Derry or in rural areas, where youth workers are delivering the programme, there is a wonderful opportunity to share information and to understand emerging issues and themes. Colm mentioned rising racism and xenophobia, and that was happening in all five areas. We only picked up that it was happening in all five areas towards the end of the research because of a gentle, bubbling conversation. If you begin to create a community of practice for people who are delivering the programme, they can be given training and support on the basis of what, we have learned, works and what is most effective. Not every approach is effective. The point of the research was to understand the where and why and what was effective. If we have a training programme to support the people who are delivering and a community of practice to support them, sharing knowledge and information in the delivery, whether in urban or rural areas, we can also develop a picture of emerging issues that would help real-time responses.

I do not know whether that answers your question.

Mr Beattie: It does. What I am getting at is that there are other influences at play here. We have talked about poverty and deprivation, and I see that often. However, we are also seeing alcohol and drug abuse among young people. That takes them down a particular path. If you combine that with somebody telling them at school that they are not going to go to university but down a pathway that will be seen as a failure, you can see how we set children up to fail.

The other point is this: does the programme need to be delivered at an earlier age, so that young people understand things as they get older?

Mr Hughes: It is definitely something that is person-centred, public health-led and place-based. I would say that it should probably be delivered at 11-plus. To me, it is a secondary-school programme. There could be an option to present it as a non-violence response in primary schools. At this stage, we have not put any effort into making that happen, but I see your vision there. That is something that we will continue to explore as we go forward.

Mr Beattie: Thank you. That is brilliant. Well done, everybody.

Mr Fanning: I was going to say that I agree with Stephen. It could be presented as part of learning for life and work (LLW) from an early age when young people are starting at secondary school. The programme could be adapted quite easily for LLW subjects. That is perhaps something that we could look at with the Education Committee.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Would it lose effect if it was in the curriculum?

Ms Kent: It would be a different package.

Mr Hughes: Its intent is to engage with those who are most vulnerable.

Ms Kent: The other thing that we are looking at is doing it as an Open College Network (OCN) endorsed course, so that it moves beyond being just by right, but it gives people something in terms of their —.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I am sure that some of those children do not go to school or did not attend school.

Stephen, you are last but not least. Thank you for your patience.

Mr Dunne: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, folks. It is good to see you again, John, as well.

I have a couple of points. I want to ask you about engagement with the PSNI at a senior level throughout the process and post review. Are you able to update us on that?

Mr Hughes: I am happy to speak to that. Throughout our process and the two years of delivery and at present with our second cohort we have engaged not just with the local chief but with the neighbourhood teams. Our street staff, Eamon and Geraldine, are out on the ground and speak to the teams regularly. We do not just do the proactive education and developmental learning that is in the process; we also do response. All too often, where we work, between the lower Shankill and the lower Falls, because of those walls, when it kicks off, it becomes sectarian. I have to say that, the majority of times when the violence erupts, it is not sectarian. The police understand that. They do not want to put hundreds of kids through the youth justice system. They will be on the phone and say, "Stephen, what can we do here?", and we get staff to respond. Ruth responds on the Shankill end at Townsend Street, and we respond at the nationalist community's end. We normally get a response.

I will tell you a story. The two staff had a phone call from the police one night before the summer, saying, "There are 40 of them in Townsend Street". When the staff responded, they discovered that the young people had lit a fire, but, when the staff engaged from both sides, we found that, although there was a large group and there was a fire, it was a social situation. The wrong thing that they did was to light the fire. All too often, if police engagement goes in there, that becomes something different. That is why we have been so impactful with our street work. We do not need a policing response in that situation; we need a developmental response. We need an opportunity to bring those young people together in a good relations programme, an inclusion programme, a cross-community project or whatever. Working with the police is essential for us.

Mr Dunne: The police very much value that partnership approach. They recognise —.

Mr Feerick: There have been numerous occasions when the police have responded but we have been on the ground, and they have been able to step back and let us go in and engage with the young people. At the end of that, it turns out that the police are not needed, because the situation has totally de-escalated. It is about understanding that not all young people who are at interfaces are there to riot and that young people have the right to socialise in a safe space.

Mr Dunne: That touches on something that some other members mentioned: the riot thing can become a bit of a spectator attraction. Social media has brought it into people's homes. You see it globally. You can see things instantly, even in recent days. It is counterproductive. There is curiosity in that regard as well.

Mr Hughes: We have also been pretty successful with police support in closing down some of the chat rooms that the young people have on Snapchat and other social media sites. That is how they gather. The Belfast group has over 3,000 young people in it.

Mr Dunne: Something can be organised in minutes and seen by thousands.

I have a final question for whomever wants to answer it: what was the most alarming finding in the research for people like you, who are experienced in the "Why Riot?" project?

Mr Hughes: For me, it was the hurt and pain that kids are feeling. When we were working through the process, we began to hear about shame, guilt, embarrassment, frustration and anger. There is a lot of pain in our group.

Mr Fanning: For our young men, it was definitely the way in which the people in the community viewed them.

Mr Dunne: Do you mean post riot?

Mr Fanning: Yes. We are in an intra-community. They were looked down on or felt that they were looked down on by the community. They felt that disconnect from the community, and we knew that. They then articulated how they wanted to change the view of the community in looking at them like that. As they came to the programme, their feeling was, "Well, nobody gives a crap about us anyway". The impactful learning meant that they were able to articulate, "We want people's attitudes to change about us", at the same time as being asked, "Well, what you need to do about your behaviour to effect that change?". That was the big thing for us. Do you agree?

Mr Owens: Yes.

Mr Feerick: I do not know whether it is alarming, but, when some of the young people were talking about the core reasons why they riot, they said that their first engagement with young people from the other side of the community was bricks and stuff being thrown over a wall. They said that, from such a young age, that had such a lasting impact on how they viewed people from the other side of the community. That was disheartening to hear.

Mr Hughes: I will finish on a positive. One of the successes of the process with Open University for us — I am speaking personally — was that we undertook a graduation event. It was a proper graduation: we got them gowned and did it all properly. One of the mothers — the mother of a vulnerable young man of 16 who is a tough, young lad, a kid who does not have a lot of self-esteem or self-worth — said proudly to me, "My son achieved nothing in school, but to get that photograph and to hear him come back and speak so proudly —". That he spoke to his mum so proudly that she felt the need to ring me is what I found absolutely wonderful. It was one of the proudest moments in the process for me. The graduation event — the celebration event at the end — was huge, and it was huge because it was for young people who, all too often, were going to be non-achievers. It worked an absolute treat.

Ms Kent: I echo that about the positive. It is really hard, and there is a lot of difficulty. I was astounded at how the corrosive impact of violence shaped young people's lives so deeply and how all-pervasive it is in concentrated areas and at the impact of poverty as well. However, that was such a joyful event, and the potential to make a difference is wonderful. It was wonderful to be in the process, to see the work that was being done and to see that it is possible to make an impact. I have learned a lot from extraordinary youth workers, including that change is possible.

Mr Hughes: We have to give credit to the eight kids from the Belfast Boys' Model School. Those eight young people, with William Mitchell's help, took that idea and created the programme. All too often, kids get a bad name, but not those young lads. Young Stephen, in particular, who was leading on that, would love to have been here today to get the credit for it. We give credit to him for his work, as the peer group led and drove it and tortured people to make it happen, and to the principal of the Belfast Boys' Model School for allowing the process to happen. It was absolutely superb, because the impact has been way beyond the school and the community.

Mr Dunne: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you very much for your attendance today. I hope that it has been worthwhile for you. Members of the Committee and I have taken a lot out of it. To me, it is about the person being in the centre of it all. No matter what the context or environment, it was the person. It is about the responsibility and where they see themselves being placed in their environment.

Thank you very much. I wish you all the best next week at the Education Committee too.