When you start defining the context you must ask yourself on what level or levels you want information; Is it important for you to know the quality regarding:
- A specific group activity (e.g. a girls group)?
- All group activities in your organisation or youth centre/unit?
- All youth work carried out in your municipality?
The reason for this is that which indicators you choose will most likely vary between different contexts. This means that you, when you choose indicators, must ask yourself for what context or level they are relevant. For example, if you choose the indicator that young people should experience that they develop new interests, you may find this relevant on a municipal level, but not in relation to a specific group activity where young people are gathered around an already existing interest.
This means that some indicators might be relevant on (e.g.) a youth centre level but not on a municipal level and the other way around. If you are active in an organisation that consists of many different units you must therefore keep this in mind and discuss if you need to use different indicators for the common/general level and for the single units.
Examples of contexts that your indicators could be related to:
- A specific group activity in a youth centre or an NGO.
- All group activities in a youth centre or an NGO.
- A specific open (spontaneous drop-in) activity in all or a specific youth centre or NGO (e.g. drop-in football tournaments on weekends).
- All open (spontaneous drop-in) activities in all or a specific youth centre or NGO.
- All activities in a specific youth centre or NGO.
- All youth work carried out within a municipality.
- All youth centres in a municipality (excluding e.g. activities taking place in sport arenas).
Before you continue, you should have an at least preliminary answer to which context(s) you are interested in. However, when you have taken the next steps and specified your target group and chosen indicators, we recommend you to go back and see if context, target group and indicators are consistent with each other, or if you need to make some adjustments.