Aurora Training - Voluntary and informal

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1b Values of Youth Ministry

Voluntary Participation

Informal education

What is voluntary participation? Discuss in groups.

Definition and examples.



What about a free concert that fails to mention that the gig is sponsored by the church and will include a gospel presentation?

Is this voluntary youth work?



Not all work involving young people is youth work per se – e.g. police arresting a young person. ‘Voluntary participation requires that young people must have genuine freedom to opt in or opt out.’

Danny Brierley, Joined Up. (2003) page 61



‘Freedom to accept must be based on an equal freedom to reject’




Voluntary participation is not activated by inviting young people to a free concert whilst failing to mention that the gig is sponsored by the church and will include a presentation about the Christian faith.’




http://performancexdesign.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/leveraging-the-full-learning-continuum/

Informal Education


Informal education, we argue, is driven by conversation and being with others. It develops through spending time with people – sharing in their lives – and listening and talking.

http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-informal-education/


Informal Education

‘Going with the flow’ opens up all sorts of possibilities for us as educators. On one hand we may not be prepared for what comes, on the other we may get into rewarding areas.

http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-informal-education


Informal Education

Such conversations and activities can take place anywhere and at any time. This contrasts with formal education which tends to take place in special settings such as schools.



Informal Education

Informal education:• works through, and is driven by, conversation.

• is spontaneous and involves exploring and enlarging experience.

• can take place in any setting.http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-informal-education


Informal Education

VALUES OF INFORMAL EDUCATION• work for the well-being of all.• respect the unique value and dignity of each human being.

• dialogue.• equality and justice.• democracy and the active involvement of people in the issues that affect their lives. (Jeffs and Smith 2005: 95-6)



Formal education: the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded ‘education system’, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialised programmes and institutions for full-time technical and professional training.

Coombs, P. with Ahmed, M. (1974) Attacking Rural Poverty, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.


formal Education

Informal education: the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment – from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media.



Informal Education

Non-formal education: any organised educational activity outside the established formal system – whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity – that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives.




… informal education creates an environment where dialogue, conversation and action can be carried out honestly in an atmosphere of equality. It has the ability to support, challenge and affirm young people and to ‘create possibilities of transformation’.

Christian Youth Work in Theory and Practice: Nash & Whitehead, 2014 (page 209)


Informal Education

• List three benefits of voluntary participation

• Describe one example that you would define as informal education

• Describe one example that you would define as non-formal education

• Describe one example that you would define as formal education

(and say what makes it so)


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