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This paper aims to explore the experience of one large Irish youth work organisation, Foróige, to measures introduced during the initial phase of COVID-19 in 2020. In the face of the unprecedented crisis including the closure of schools and curtailment of many youth services, this paper examines how the organisation responded and adapted its service offering.

Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 senior managers and youth officers in Foróige to explore their perspectives on the organisation’s response. Participants were purposively sampled from across the operational management functions and also from regional levels and youth workers engaging in work “on the ground”.

Shifting from a face-to -face, relationship-based to a distanced mode of engagement with young people, colleagues and volunteers required significant adaptation of Foróige’s service model. Innovation took place both in the delivery platform and fundamentally, in its service orientation. The accelerated move to online youth work brought about by the pandemic enabled the organisation to embrace and learn from the challenges and opportunities posed by digital technology. Responding to the immediate and tangible needs of young people in receipt of services, staff found themselves working with families at the more basic levels of intervention.

This paper provides new insights into the nature of non-profit service innovation during a time of unprecedented crisis management. It highlights characteristics of organisational agility that can assist organisations in managing crises, while also pointing the way towards a more flexible operating model for youth work service delivery.

Participation is the active involvement of children and young people in decision-making regarding issues that affect their lives. It is crucial in the context of child protection and welfare systems and how they respond to the needs of children and young people. The purpose of this paper is to report on the evaluation of child and family participation in an early intervention and prevention programme implemented by the Irish Child and Family Agency. It provides an analysis of a comprehensive, “whole organization” approach to understand how participation is embedded in policy and practice.

This paper reports on a comparative qualitative case study of the perspectives of managers and practitioners about participation practice, identifying the facilitators and barriers, as well as their perspectives of the sustainability of participation within the agency and its partners. The authors draw on two complementary, theoretically informed studies evaluating participatory practice within the Agency using qualitative interviews with participants.

Overall, managers and practitioners had a positive attitude towards participation and identified examples of best practices. Facilitators included training, access to resources and the quality of relationships. Challenges for meaningful participation remain, such as the need to engage, hard to reach populations. Differences were identified regarding how embedded and sustainable participation was.

This paper provides a critical understanding of participation in practice and how to embed a culture of participation in child protection and welfare.