Humour is Serious Business: engaging and empowering young people more effectively was a 6-day training programme that aimed to enhance the quality of individual youth work practice through the power of humour as the means by which to engage and empower young people more meaningfully and more effectively. Participants grew to understand how humour can be an asset and a resource and in doing so they discovered how it can be the most effective mechanism for building rapport, enhancing relationships, addressing, and resolving issues, managing conflict, problem-solve challenges, creating alternate approaches, and presenting and reflecting upon learning. The ‘Humour Journey’ was an 18-step process across three phases – pre-, during and post-programme - which would lead to: (i) upskilling youth work practitioners in the use of humour as an effective tool for engaging young people and youth work communities (ii) enhancing knowledge of the various types of humour so as to increase understanding of how, where, when and why it can be applied (iii) increasing awareness of how humour can be used as a pro-active and deliberate methodology in youth work and not just as a natural consequence of and response to specific situations (iv) consideration of cultural differences in humour and understanding better how these can be used to support and inform youth work practice (v) provision of space and time for practitioners to reflect upon the use of their own sense of humour and consider where it can be altered to support their practice (vi) challenge participants to step out of their ‘comfort zone’ in order to appreciate their own commitment to learning (vii) the development of ‘in-house’ humour-based activities to test methodologies and techniques with a view to informing humour-based practice among youth work colleagues (viii) the development post-programme actions that address and respond to identified issues affecting young people within their communities, e.g., lack of opportunities and/or mobility, career choices, unemployment, lack of resources, dealing with climate change, populism, racism, etc During the course of the programme there was a particular emphasis on: - increasing their knowledge of various humour-related tools and techniques required to engage young people and in doing so enhancing their understanding of where and when these are applicable. This covered areas such as the use of ice-breakers, energisers, clowning exercises, movement, ‘improv’ and the use of props alongside non-verbal communication, tone, facial expression, body language, etc. - increase their knowledge of the many different types of humour (we worked from a list of more than 30) and analysed what makes these funny (or not as the case may be), how they are constructed, the differences in meaning – context, literal and otherwise, the variances in understanding as determined by culture and how these relate to participants on an individual basis, i.e., their preferences and why. - learning how to use humour in their work (and when appropriate other) settings by taking into consideration a number of factors including target group, context, environment, the type of humour to be used, how to apply the humour including confidence, tone, communication, message and delivery. - better understand how culture impacts upon humour, cultural differences in the types of humour that exist and cultural differences across countries, regions and nationalities and how these influence perception and judgement – this helps to contribute to cultural competence in that participants are much more aware of how to behave around others from different backgrounds. - better understand their own humour, how they use it, it’s strengths and weaknesses, where it is applicable and when it is appropriate by participating in a number of activities that tested their assumptions, beliefs and perception. - develop greater self-awareness including sensitivity, care and foresight and being better able to manage decision-making and exercising self-control. - increase their confidence of, the capacity for and development of their resourcefulness in humour by participating in a wide range of activities where they had to take on various roles including acting out different scenarios (impromptu or otherwise often against time constraints), clowning and characterisation as well as developing and contributing to the development of ideas in response to set tasks. - consider their learning style with regard to humour by working alongside others in various activities and where they are ‘located’ with regard to the ‘Heart, Head, and Hand’ model which underpinded delivery of the programme. - develop a stronger ‘grasp’ of how they can use humour in their work setting and in follow-up activities with other programme participants by introducing ideas to the Action Planning phase of the training programme.