Learning and Development in Working with Young People - Essay Example

Part Main features of Madcap people Describe Madcap Madcap is a centre with projects that involves youngsters with ideas to express and things to do but lacks the means and abilities to accomplish them. The centre helps in modeling what young people already have an interest in by giving them a means of achieving them. Madcap achieves its objectives through informal learning system where young people go to learn and exploit their potential without following a specific curriculum. It serves the interests of the youngsters from what they already have in mind without imposing anything to them on what they are to do. Therefore, Madcap main idea is to assist these groups of young children by allowing them to explore themselves and put their ideas into practice and things they want to achieve by giving them the opportunity (Steve, Madcap Sequence, 7). Practices and Work There are a number of practices involved in this learning centre as it comprises of different young people with diversified interest to pursue. Because of this, the youngsters work in music projects on their own as the learning centre gives them support towards achieving their ideas. The workers help them in building confidence to enable them cope with their ideas and realize the value of their own ideas. Thereafter, the workers leave them to allow them exploit the opportunities. The workers role is to give them the opportunity and assist them with minimal help towards realizing their ideas. Similarly, the youngsters undergo gauging to make them have insights of what they are involved by shedding more light into their own projects (Steve, Madcap Sequence, 7). This is a practice meant at ensuring that youngsters develop insights and understand their projects more so music to better their values and outcomes as well as to bring what is good about it. Madcap is concerned with recording music produced by the youngsters. It offers the available support to its youngsters to enable then listen and produce their music to meet their objectives. From the scripts, James came to record his music by recording it with the help of Steve who is one of the workers responsible for their training (James, Madcap Sequence 1). The role of the worker is to ensure the availability of recording equipments and facilities. Therefore, the main role is played by the youngsters in ensuring they achieve their dream from the assistance got from workers. In Madcap, the workers are not judgmental, and this aims to promote their talents by encouraging them to doing what inessential for them. Creativity of the youngsters is promoted in the projects in the initial stages, as they are kept smiling and feeling the sense that their ideas have values. Youngsters also role out the plans, which outlines what is taking place and ways of achieving them. This may comprise of different activities besides just completing the project offered by the learning centre. They also give the centre the details of the purpose of what it they want to achieve from their projects. Their goals may be to develop a compact disk (cd), live performance or just to set lyrics and the centre helps them towards achieving (Steve, Madcap Sequence, 7). Madcap provides assistances to youngsters in different activities that they have developed interests. It empowers the youngsters on how they can develop their talents, come up with raw ideas, and help them achieve. The project discourages duplication of ideas as it wants to help young people come with new projects, which are unique and do not exist (Man in Cap, Madcap Sequence, 2). Because of this, the centre discourages mixing music and asks youngsters to come with unique ways of arranging instruments used in mixing to make it a unique idea. From this perspective, they help young people in playing instruments mostly guitars (Girl Madcap Sequence, 2). The project coaches students towards realizing their potentials and developing ideas they have by giving them necessary support where they experience challenges. The work and activities of the centre revolve around promoting creativity of the young people and learning from what they see. James who is 18 yeas old acknowledges the help he received from Madcap since joining the institution through a referral by Connexions advisors. The centre helped him build his confidence than before since he got the opportunity to explore himself. He is now able to talk to more people and get involved in things that he was not used to when at home (James, Madcap Sequence, 3). Madcap provides a good atmosphere that relaxes; this enables individuals to work on their projects, and other is issues related to promoting good life. It promotes the well being of the young people as they work on their projects hence playing an important role in modeling them. Madcap gives individuals a chance to change their lives and appreciate what they have to offer as James recall the photos taken when in a jig and the number of albums he produced by the help of the centre. The centre plays important roles in the lives of the groups as it makes them discover their talents and improve their relationships with teachers. Callier speaks of her experience when she joined Madcap and lacked motivations in first admission into the centre because everyone was busy working on their projects. The centre helped in motivating her and other young people as they were encouraged on how they can achieve their ideas and dealing with different challenges (Callier, Madcap Sequence 4). It gives them a chance to access commercial studios, which would otherwise be expensive for them and prohibitive. It equips the young people with the skills of using different studio equipments and learning how to set them up. It also assists them in playing instruments well and going for live gigs. It gives young people the opportunity to come together and share as well as giving them space to play and express themselves. Young individuals are taught group dynamics and how they can cope with the group by encouraging them to work in groups through a mutual relationship. This encourages learning from one another to help in meeting their goals from their ideas. Madcap helps young individuals to involve in developing their artistic talents and technical skills. Dan (Sequence 5) thanks the workers for their ability to help him realize how to play different instruments and the composition of music, which he has achieved. He thinks the project is working very hard in ensuring youngsters develops their potentials by exhausting their skills. Madcap also promotes creativity teamwork through showcasing and playing live performance. This practice helps many young people who do not have experience in playing live performance to copy and gain some knowledge from the experienced as Dan did. This project also works in promoting and motivating on the disciplines that performances demand. It allows young individuals to learn and experience their dreams and make them a reality. The centre has helped young individuals realize what is expected of them at any given performance hence being of essential help to any aspiring talented youngsters. The project works in promoting youngster’s talent that they reflect in helping the society to overcome and know different ways of dealing with its problems. One of the beneficiaries, Jackie (Madcap Sequence, 6), reports how her experience with the project has helped her get recognition and assists other people too. In her memory, she helped a friend by composing a song that she linked to her which latter became of useful to her. This helped her in certain times as she could sing to relieve her pains as it got her emotions out. This is an important experience acquired because of this centre and it is very important to the community as well as to the youngsters themselves. The reflection is also important to the youngsters as they feel good when people appreciate the good work they do. It boosts their self-esteem and feel welcomed with hopes that the good results are on their favor. Groups The project works with different divergent groups who have ideas on what they want to achieve but lacks the means. Most of the groups and individuals they work with are referred to them from various social services groups and young offenders’ team. The project involves a group of young people who are the worst offenders and who caused massive problems elsewhere (Steve, Madcap Sequence 7). The centre also works with groups responsible for doing recording that had been once members of the centre and realized their potentials. They offer support to different groups on music as well as rendering any support that they might need as they are still in the process of acquiring work experience. Part 2: Outline of Initiative in Madcap Initiative and its Effectiveness The initiative will be the community-based approach where learning takes place. The young individuals will be learning from their day-to-day activities in their communities to help them get insights and the identities of the community. By staying in the community, the young people will be able to understand the nature of what they want to learn as well as experience the challenges before finding a solution. Experiencing the problem in the process of learning will enable the young people to find along lasting solution to their problems by focusing on the roles of the workers. The role of the workers will be to inject information to the young people to enable them cope with the societal settings. The centre will have to give orientation to the young people in a group or individual level towards this initiative. The community-based approach will enable individuals to carry out projects from their own community without coming to the centre as the workers will give them information from where they are working as elaborated by Hunter (2005, 14). This model will be effective because it will help the young people reflect on what they observe. Therefore, it will enable them get the cause of what they want to curb as well as getting a reflection on all that it entails. This model is also effective in determining abstract conceptualization as discussed by Kolb experimental learning cycle (Hunter & Harrison, 2005, 16). Abstract conceptualization is the imaginable ideas the young people has and what they want to do by coming up with concepts which they want to develop. At this point, the worker has no role because the individual has to decide what they want to achieve. Active participation in the activity will enable the individuals discover the project, indulge and seek solutions or any other help they may need. Gathering experience about a project will initiate a learning process through seeking ways of overcoming the challenges met during the task (Hunter, 2005:20). At this point, the worker will have a role to play in developing the wellbeing and assisting young people overcome the challenges. Anticipated Outcomes to Staff and Young People Young people will benefit from learning what they chose to do in their natural environment. They will engage in the learning process through participation hence developing early experience from the work they do. It will also promote their activities in the learning process because they enjoy what they do as they chose it themselves and are passionate about it. The project will empower them towards achieving their expectations, which they have developed from the community. Young people will have the chance to share the project equally should they do it as a group. Acquiring practical knowledge on dealing with the problem of the community will be important, as young people will gain first hand experience. The staffs will feel motivated when engaging with young students who enjoy what they are doing. They will have reduced time to work because they will be instructing the young people from their community without coming to the learning centre. The process of learning will be short because young people know what they are doing and experience little problems, which they might overcome (Hunter & Harrison, 2005, 26). Inclusion of Other Groups This initiative should be inclusive to other groups of young people because they share the common problems and aspirations. The community offers many things in terms of challenges as well as benefits to the individuals. Young people enjoy working or learning in groups as they share experiences and learn from one another. Giving young people and groups, a chance to get involved in this initiative will increase their expected outcome as they will enjoy and share good time together. Initially, young people from Madcap enjoyed working in inclusive learning where they could make jokes and share good time together. Duplicating the same trend to the youngsters in the community will be essential in promoting quick learning through interaction. Justification Using Theories Literature Concepts There is a justification from the literatures that learning occurs in very different settings with different young people. What they share in common bases on their needs and interests hence puts much focus into it. Young people who share the same backgrounds always attend together to address their concerns, which they bring with them and influence the way they develop learning opportunities. In most cases, learning centers sets priorities based on the individuals in the community and what attracts them together. Sharing the same experience among the young people makes, them bond together in pursuing a common goal, which they both have interest. The learning taking place between individuals with similar background experience is not easily packaged by the set of the learning outcomes but emerges from an interaction (Hunter & Harrison, 2005: 8). Therefore, it is a product of the young people, workers and the settings in which they meet in carrying out the learning process. Reference list Another. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 2 Boy in Cap. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 2 Callier. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 4 Dan. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 5 Girl. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 2 Hunter, B & Harrison, R., 2005. Understanding Learning. Open University Hunter, R., 2005 . Planning for learning. Open University Jackie, n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 6 James. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 3 James. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 1 Steve. n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 7 Steve, n. d. Introduction to working with young people. Madcap Sequence 1 Read More