A Narrative Systematic Review of the Mental Toughness Programme Offered by the National Youth Development Agency

The rapid increase of poverty, crime, and unemployment in South Africa results in youth vulnerability. Youth not in employment, not in education, and not in training are most vulnerable to life setbacks, find it difficult dealing with criticism, rejection, and failure. Thus, youth workers responsible for the coordination of youth service programme need to design an autonomy-supportive programme that can prepare youth mentally before youth are placed in a youth development programme that seeks to enhance youth employability. The National Youth Development Agency in South Africa under the National Youth Service Programme has developed a mental toughness programme curriculum that NYS volunteers undergo before participating in youth skill development programme or community service programme for a minimum of five days. The aim of the study is to explore the impact of the Mental Toughness Programme on the positive development of youth through youth lived experience in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. This study made use of a qualitative research approach, non-probability sampling to sample eight youth who participated in the Mental Toughness Programme offered by the National Youth Development Agency. In this study, we recommend that the National Youth Development Agency knowledge and research division should conduct a longitudinal study that can evaluate the impact of the Mental Toughness Programme on positive youth development in South Africa. The National Youth Development Agency should revise the mental toughness programme curriculum in a way that the programme goes beyond five days and physical toughness should be cooperated in the curriculum to enhance social cohesion. Received: 27 July 2021 / Accepted: 6 October 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the National Youth Service Programme in Skill Development of Unemployed Graduates in the North West Province of South Africa

For the last 3 decades, youth unemployment has been a major challenge in South Africa. Education and training has been considered as a solution to this challenge in the country. The South African Government introduced skills development programs focusing on the youth to reduce unemployment and poverty. However, the youth unemployment among the skilled has been persistent. Given this background, an attempts is made in this study to evaluate the effectiveness of the National Youth Service Program (NYSP) in skill development of unemployed Graduates in the North West Province of South Africa and determine stakeholder involvement in the conceptualization, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the skills development program. The research methodology used in this study was both quantitative approach aimed to fill in the knowledge gap, which is achieved through critical reading and analysis of what other researchers have identified, and qualitative method. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect data. Questionnaires were self-administered to obtain primary data from (90) graduates and (10) stakeholders who took part in the NYSP. Th e main finding of the study indicates that 83 % of the NYSP graduates are unemployed since completing the skills development program in the 2017 fiscal year. The study alluded that lack of stakeholder participation and commitment in the NYSP was attributed to the high rate of NYS graduate unemployment. Stakeholder engagement and participation will also play a critical role in ensuring that learners completing the skills development program are linked to employment opportunities and are self-reliant. The study recommends that stakeholder identification should take place before the program is being implemented.

Assessing the Effect of Federal Universities Academics and National Youth Service Corps Members on the Conduct of General Elections in Nigeria

This study examined issues that necessitated the use of federal universities academics and national youth service corps members in the conduct of general elections in Nigeria and discussed the credibility of election management with their involvement. It also interrogated the effectiveness and challenges of using them by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The study utilised primary data that was collected through semi-structured interviews with thirty respondents. Secondary data was sourced from periodicals, journals, election manuals, and electoral act of 2010 as amended. The data collected were analysed using content analysis. The study showed that the need to sanitize the electoral system informed the use of universities academics and national youth service corps members. The study also showed that the academics and national youth service corps members have facilitated the credibility of the electoral system and that the activities of desperate politicians who are driven by the lust for political power are some of the challenges faced in using university academics and national youth service corps members. It is suggested that the current use of universities academics and national youth service corps members in the conduct of future elections should be sustained. Received: 5 August 2021 / Accepted: 30 september 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

Applicability and Efficiency of a Computerized Adaptive Test for the Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students

The Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students (WARNS) is a computer-based assessment created to help courts, schools, and youth service providers determine an adolescent’s risks and needs that may lead to truancy, drop out, or delinquency from school. Users are advised to consider the WARNS total score to work with youth. A total score estimate based on fewer items than the full item set may result in less respondent burden, administration time, and fatigue, while not hindering accurate decisions. This simulation study examined the applicability and efficiency of a computerized adaptive test (CAT) to estimate a WARNS total score under a unidimensional item response theory model. The results demonstrate that the CAT provides an accurate estimate of students’ risks and needs and reduces the number of items administered for each examinee compared with the existing version. Future directions and limitations of CAT development with the WARNS are discussed.

On staying: Extended temporalities, relationships and practices in community engaged scholarship

This article examines the complexity and affordances of staying in ‘the field’. Time as a resource for qualitative research is widely experienced as diminishing. Yet increasingly, academic emphasis is also being placed on the merits of time intensive approaches, like participatory scholarship. This tension raises critical questions about the ethics and practices of collaboration within arguably narrowing parameters. Taking a view from the edges of conventional research practice, this article focuses on staying beyond the formal completion of a sociological research project. Drawing on over 10-years of collaboration with youth service providers in an English city, I examine the dynamics and complexities of staying, where temporalities, relationships and practices extend beyond research. In doing so, this article contributes to methodological debates about research exit and participation, by introducing staying as a practice that affords new collaborative freedoms and possibilities.

Entrepreneurial skills and retention ability among students of faculty of education, University of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

This study determined the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and retention ability among students of faculty of education, University of Calabar, Cross River States. Correlational survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of UTME 2018/2019 academic session 200-400 level students and this was also used as sample. A validated research-made questionnaire with reliability range of 0.81-0.89 was used for data collection. The data collected were analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the analysis showed that acquisition of indexing skills and book publishing skills significantly relate with retention ability. It was recommended among others that support grants from school management and government should be granted to graduates with passion and enthusiasm to set-up their own business ventures on indexing and book publishing upon graduation either from their various institutions or after graduation from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

The prevalence of anxiety symptoms and associated factors among Nigerians newly posted for National Youth Service Corps programme in North-Western Nigeria

Objectives: This study was done to determine the prevalence of anxiety symptoms and assess the associated factors among new members of national youth service corps (NYSC) programme in North-Western Nigeria.Method: A clinic-based descriptive cross-sectional study with convenient sampling method using selfadministered questionnaires was done among 157, 2018 Batch-C, corps members at Dakingari orientation camp in Kebbi State, over a period of three weeks. The prevalence of anxiety symptoms was determined using anxiety subset of Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale. Data were analyzed with SPSS-16 andChi-square was used to assess the degree of association between anxiety symptoms and certain factors. Pvalue of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: The prevalence of anxiety symptoms was 50.0% among the respondents. There was a significant association between the presence of anxiety symptoms and age of the respondents (P-value= 0.006).Conclusion: The high prevalence of anxiety symptoms among the new NYSC members suggests the need to take preventive measures such as incorporation of subjects on what should be expected during service year into the undergraduate learning curriculum. Doctors attending to youth corps members, especially when on camp, should routinely screen them for anxiety symptoms.

“You Start with the Youth”: Narratives of Deservingness and Dissent at a Homeless Service Organization

As they provide social services to people experiencing poverty and homelessness, many nonprofit organizations perpetuate ideologies that obscure the political and economic causes of poverty and blame poor people for their plight. But the ideologies and practices of service provision are more diverse than many scholars of the nonprofit industry have assumed. What are the processes by which professionalized service organizations not tied to broader social movements might nonetheless facilitate rather than hinder structural explanations of inequality among their clients? Using ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews, and analysis of art and writing by young adults experiencing homelessness, I investigate the prevalence of structural explanations of poverty among clients at a large homeless youth service organization. I find that the organization’s liberal assimilationist narratives about “youth” facilitate more critical analyses of poverty and inequality among homeless participants. As the organization’s public-facing communications emphasize the positive meanings of youth to assert clients’ deservingness, homeless clients leverage the organization’s assimilationist discourse to advance more radical critiques of the systems that oppress them. Building on scholarship about the medicalization of homelessness and the nonprofit industrial complex, this case study demonstrates how multiple ideologies and practices spanning the continuum from repressive to mobilizing can take hold within a single organization, and by extension, the nonprofit service industry.

Empowering Teens to Make a Difference in Their At-Risk Community

When identifying problems and creating solutions that support the community culture of health, youths provide a unique perspective. This article describes how staff from Somerset County, NJ 4-H partnered with staff from Middle Earth, an at-risk youth service provider, to organize a group of teens who identified and implemented projects that affect the health and wellness of their community of Bound Brook, NJ. Extension professionals can replicate a sustainable and synergistic youth-adult partnership by creating the opportunities, making the initial connections within the community, and following the 4-H club model to ensure teens experience the essential elements.