Enrichment and the youth sector
You may not have heard of the term ‘enrichment’ before, but you would probably recognise enrichment activities if you saw them. ‘Enrichment’ covers all manner of – you guessed it – enriching activities for young people that, alongside being inherently beneficial and enjoyable, bestow a range of benefits on participants.
Enrichment is primarily associated with the education (i.e., schools) sector. There is no fixed definition, but it typically covers activities such as music, sport, art, drama and outdoor learning.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Education (DfE) are both interested in enrichment as a means for providing young people with a range of positive experiences while developing important skills. DCMS asked SQW, supported by UK Youth, to conduct research examining what enrichment involves in the context of the youth sector, and findings from our research have today been published.
The research is based on an evidence review, stakeholder interviews and young people focus groups to explore how enrichment is defined, who provides it, and young people’s experiences of it. Ultimately, the paper is intended to support discussion within DCMS and between DCMS and DfE about how enrichment can be further supported.
From the outset, the paper is clear that while much (arguably, all) of what the youth sector does is enriching for young people, it is not necessarily ‘enrichment’. The youth sector provides myriad opportunities for young people to engage in enrichment outside school, and often supports the provision of enrichment in schools. Indeed, the youth sector can augment and extend school provision, through providing capacity and expertise that schools don’t have, while making use of schools’ physical facilities and equipment.
Enrichment can provide many benefits for young people, including the development of a skill or passion for its own sake, and also because such activities often involve developing teamwork, communication skills, and so on.
However, despite these clear benefits, access by young people to enrichment activities outside school is inconsistent. Young people may live in an area with lots of opportunity, but they may not. Furthermore, some young people’s families may not be able to afford some of the opportunities that are on offer.
The paper poses a series of questions to help DCMS and DfE reflect on current provision and consider ways forward.
You might find our research on the youth sector interesting, too, including the Youth Evidence Base projects available here, and research into volunteering in the youth sector, also published today, and available here.
