Building a sense of belonging and community online with Creative Youth Network

B+B R+D has commissioned this article as part of our ‘test’ and ‘reflect’ inclusion action research. All of the articles in this series represent the views of the author and not of B+B R+D or our partner organisations.

Some of the articles describe experiences of discrimination that readers may find upsetting.

Creative Youth Network (CYN) conducted a programme of research and consultation aimed at investigating responses to the question:

‘How do we (Creative Youth Network) reach young people through digital technologies, post lockdown, to build a sense of belonging and community?’

The research conducted included the enquiry around trying to understand what and where constitutes a community online, and how they are perceived and used. This is with a view to better reaching young people for whom attending in person may not be practical due to geographical or financial reasons, mental ill-health preventing them from leaving the house (real and pressing issues that we deal with regularly), or cultural & familial barriers. CYN know that there are a multitude of existing platforms and channels that young people use to stay in touch and share, but to what degree are they viewed as authentic communities and how much do young people turn to them to get news about opportunities or participate in activities?

The research follows on from Bristol City Council’s youth consultation led by CYN which in 2021 fed into the Belonging Strategy and later into the One City Plan. The research conducted by CYN during this programme aimed to collect data and feedback on young people’s use and sense of belonging online.

Whilst the pandemic may seem largely over to many, the impact on young people’s sense of community, connectivity, and resilience are all having a real impact on their perceived chances of success and on how external opportunities are viewed and engaged with. Pre-pandemic the CYN Creative Futures programme would receive in excess of one hundred applicants for every round. During and post pandemic that figure fell to single figures, leading to us pulling the whole programme for a redesign through consultation around what young creatives are looking for in the world right now. This research has been a valuable part of helping us design not only that programme but also framing wider considerations around engagement.

CYN worked with a small cohort of young people to draft a survey that was later completed in person and online by a range of young people from across our service. The questions on the survey included:

• what does community mean;

• what contributes to a sense of belonging;

• how do virtual interactions compare to real interactions;

• and how could online communities be improved or made attractive and functional.

(The full survey can be found here)

We gathered feedback from young people aged between 14 and 23. Gathering the data proved to be tougher than anticipated. Online participants were not particularly interested in contributing and needed to be chased up and reminded a few times before filling in (if at all), and open access sessions are seeing spikes of challenging behaviour, which can make consultation of this kind difficult. Through our work at CYN we are noticing a trend in young people’s decline of sense of self and place, and ensuing attitudes and behaviours. In addition to pandemic upheaval there are cuts to funding across a range of youth and education services and programmes. Anecdotally pressures young people are facing socially and personally from time spent online are also having an impact on wellbeing.

That leads to the question around why are we doing this? Are we in danger of encouraging young people to spend more time online and thus contributing to the problem? The answers that came back gave insight into how young people view the online communities that they are part of; how they compare to real life communities; and the dos and don’ts of being part of those communities, and so hopefully some guidance on how to make this positive and safe spaces.

On the question of ‘do you feel a sense on community on platforms that you use?’ the response was a 55%/45% split in favour of ‘no’. Some of the ‘yeses’ were qualified with the response that online relationships were sometimes necessary as a proxy for a real life one due to reasons such as geography, or they allowed for specific interest groups to come together, or that they were a part of the journey of getting to know people before meeting in real life. Another round of answers linked to this indicated that whilst online relationships are easier or more accessible, they are ‘less nourishing’. From this, CYN took away that although young people may spend time in these virtual environments, their sense of the importance of real-world relationships was still primary.

CYN’s questions on what online communities are for and what behaviours are acceptable or not also generated interesting answers. With regards to what they are for, as mentioned areas of interest or overcoming geographical barriers was important, but also these spaces being a place to gain recognition came up a number of times. This was mostly from early career creatives/professionals who see online communities as a primary space for building their reputation and networks, even if their work is physical in nature. The implications for us are around different pathways into engagement or progression and what that means for inclusion are worth further investigation.

The main behaviour deemed unacceptable (apart from abusive behaviour, which almost everyone accepted as an ugly but inevitable part of engaging with people remotely) is people not engaging when ‘in the room’ and just passively consuming rather than moving the discussion forwards. This is something to be aware of in future work, particularly around engaging young people who may feel isolated, or have confidence issues. Whilst joining an online community may be easier than joining a real-world one, there may well still need to be a degree of inducting, tacit understanding of the nature of the group, or pastoral support that goes with that (something that we do in all of our real-world sessions) in order to ensure that young people don’t end up feeling just as isolated, or even more so.

Our final area of investigation was into what young people might want from online communities that they don’t have now (or isn’t quite right). The ideas centred around the use of these spaces as a place for signposting to local offline opportunities and also better, more collaborative, ways of facilitating real world events. Supporting this was the need for wellbeing and acknowledgement of differing needs to be hardwired into online offers. There was a sense of tiredness around some of the existing major platforms and the nature of interactions on them, with people preferring to go online for positive return and impact, rather than confrontation or sharing personal issues.

From the data and feedback collected from this research, CYN will be developing a digital strategy for youth engagement, whilst also feeding lessons learnt into the delivery of our Creative Youth Work. The feedback provided is enabling CYN to understand how and why young people would choose to use online platforms to engage with us, each other and opportunities. CYN will be using this feedback to design an appropriate, inclusive online platform that can support young people to access opportunities in the city including creative careers, training and networking. CYN is also looking at its current use of digital platforms, evaluating the methods of their use, whether they are the correct and best platforms to use to reach young people, and the purpose of their uses. There is also learning for our staff and sessional workers around potential small wins with big gains in developing our working relationships with young people online.

For any other organisations looking at similar work we would recommend further research, possible including testing of use of existing platforms for community creation.

The learning of this research has been:

• There is need for formulating specific approaches to engaging in online environments that will provide clear information around opportunities that you’re wishing to promote/inform about.

• Engaging in an open manner that seeks to authentically join the conversation in those communities, and not just dipping in to promote is the best use of digital and online platforms when looking to engage with young people on them.

• If seeking to set up a new online community/space then paying extra attention to the rules of that space that are designed around wellbeing & attention to supporting new arrivals and those who may have personal barriers to engaging fully is paramount.

• Accepting the fact that communities are most successful when they evolve organically and you will have the best chance of success if you relinquish most of your control over where it’s going and what it’s for.

• Online does not replicate or engage as meaningfully as in person, and whereas there is an assumption that young people use digital technologies and online platforms, they actually prefer in person experiences.