Dilemmas of youth work: balancing the professional and personal

2009

International Journal of Child Youth and Family Studies, 2012

Using a semi-structured interview format, students (n = 7) attending an alternative school program who were supported by child and youth care (CYC) practitioners described their view of the work these practitioners do and the effect it has on the students. We were interested in learning about how students perceived the strategies and interventions they experienced and how the said interventions affected student outcomes. Students described program strategies such as the use of a token economy and daily group sessions as well as practitioner strategies including presence, support, use of self, and the student as resources for information and assessment. Students accomplished a variety of academic and socio-emotional outcomes, and identified the relationship as the basis for effective work between themselves and the CYC practitioner. Students identified both passive and persistent engagement strategies in the relational context. Together, these two types of engagement seem to create a continuum of constant engagement. Through a comparison of the student perceptions to the CYC practice literature, we offer a beginning point for a dialogue between students and theorists and researchers about some of the accepted and common practice strategies in our field.

Commonwealth Youth and Development

There are many youth workers who continue to design their interventions without any theoretical basis, despite a long history of youth work as a field of practice. The aim of this article is to present selected ideologies and theoretical frameworks underpinning youth work practice. These ideologies and theories, although predominantly borrowed from other disciplines, provide insight on how youth work should be practised.Based on a thorough literature review, the authors have selected different theories and ideologies that youth workers, like other professionals, are expected to know, understand and to adapt to youth work practice. These theories are important and would serve as theoretical frameworks on which youth work interventions will be based and, thereby, provide youth workers with the means to predict and analyse the situations of young people from different viewpoints to enable the development of different strategies to address relevant problems.The article concludes that th...

Community Development, 2017

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2017

In this essay, I explore my experiences as a practitioner researcher collaborating with my students on a participatory action research project aimed at institutional change. I take up two areas: blurring the boundaries of professionalism in working toward authentic collaborations with students, and secondly, incorporating perspectives of 'healing justice' into schoolbased youth participatory action research (YPAR). I first provide a framework by delineating the emancipatory aims of YPAR and how these may be at odds with much of the research teachers/practitioners currently conduct in their school sites. While ultimately acknowledging the risks in taking up emancipatory change efforts as insiders, I make the case that there are also clear benefits to the process. While there is a dynamic youth participatory action research (YPAR) movement taking place, fostered by community and youth organizing (Warren, 2014), it has yet to infiltrate school settings to any great degree (Ozer & Wright, 2012). Ironically many of these community-based YPAR efforts focus on educational reforms (Warren, 2014). Youth, with adult allies, have collectively organized around issues of school 'pushouts' and zero tolerance (Youth United for Change, 2011) and the proliferation of charter schools in urban school districts (Mirra, Garcia, & Morrell, 2016) to cite just two examples. The Funder Collaborative for Youth Organizing estimates that while youth organizing groups take up multiple issues, two-thirds of them address public education and educational justice issues in some manner (Shah, 2011; Warren, 2014). These efforts demonstrate a passionate interest on the part of youth to influence their educational experiences and contexts. Yet these same youth sit as students in our classrooms, move through our school hallways, young activists who are invisible in the eyes of the educational community. A growing body of evidence documents the multiple benefits of youth being involved in YPAR (Warren, Mira, & Nikundiwe, 2008), so to try to further incorporate this type of inquiry into educational settings is worth further exploration. YPAR has been shown to cultivate a variety of academic, social and civic skills in youth (Rubin & Jones, 2007). Others have noted youth's increased confidence in their research skills and in presenting community issues of concern to those in power (Shah, 2011). Some report higher than expected numbers of youth from low-resourced areas being college bound after participating in YPAR (Mirra et al., 2016). YPAR may offer a particularly important opportunity for those most marginalized in schools who experience social justice concerns first hand (Bland & Atweh, 2007; Fine & Torre, 2004). Fine and Torre (2004) argue that youth of poverty and/or color have paid the greatest price as neoliberalism has infused our schools and processes of YPAR provide a vehicle for a reframing of the local and large questions of ARTICLE HISTORY

Child & Youth Care Forum, 2008

Using a web-based self-report survey, this study examined the characteristics of individuals who worked directly with youth in out-of-school time programs. Specifically, it examined the relationships among intent to continue working in the youth development field and youth program staffs' experience, training, educational background, and selfreported competency in implementing the features of positive developmental settings for youth (Eccles and Gootman, Community programs to promote youth development, 2002). To accomplish this, we also developed a self-report youth worker competency measure and present its psychometric properties. Results suggested that intent to continue working in the youth development field is higher for youth workers who reported higher overall jobrelated competency, received professional development training, reported life experiences similar to the youth with whom they worked, learned aspects of their job from more experienced staff, had adequate supervision and support, and worked in programs where staff were more involved in program decision-making. Results are discussed in terms of the value of training and professional development in retaining frontline youth workers.

Les ateliers de l'éthique, 2018

Much of the literature on ethical issues in child and youth participation has drawn on the episodic experiences of participatory research efforts in which young people’s input has been sought, transcribed and represented. This literature focuses in particular on the power dynamics and ethical dilemmas embedded in time-bound adult/child and outsider/insider relationships. While we agree that these issues are crucial and in need of further examination, it is equally important to examine the ethical issues embedded within the “everyday” practices of the organizations in and through which young people’s participation in community research and development often occurs (e.g., community-based organizations, schools and municipal agencies). Drawing on experience from three summers of work in promoting youth participation in adult-led organizations of varying purpose, scale and structure, a framework is postulated that presents participation as a spatial practice shaped by five overlapping d...

In this article I reflect upon how the ambiguity of definition which surrounded Community Education in the 1970s and 1980s has had direct consequences for Youth Work in Scotland at the beginning of the twenty-first century. By looking back at what practitioners said then about their profession, I will demonstrate how this vagueness has continued to influence definitions of Youth Work, and its practice up until the present time. In hope, I go on to suggest that two recent notable occurrences have created an opportunity to redress this situation. They have, I suggest, the potential to reconnect Youth Work with its underpinning philosophy and ethos, and to develop confident practitioners, capable of engaging confidently and proactively with inter-disciplinary approaches to working with young people. It was first published in A Journal Of Youth Work: Research and Positive Practices in Work with Young People in 2011

Youth Work: Histories, Policy and Contexts, 2015

2014

2008

Michael Emslie argues that the time is right for youth work in Australia to be professionalised in line with other human service practices such as nursing, education and psychology. He identifies a groundswell of activities that support the professionalisation of youth work and a concurrent growth in high-level interest in strengthening social and community services. He argues that this context presents an opportune time to professionalise youth work. Emslie provides reasons why it is imperative to regulate and monitor the youth sector as a profession, and explains how professionalisation will help address the critical shortage of qualified youth practitioners and also improve the quality of service young people receive.

Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning, 2016

This paper documents the opportunities and challenges experienced by youth leaders and community agency partners in our community-based research project on youth engagement. Participants provided reflective statements, based on their experiences during the course of this multi-year project. Specifically, these insights focused on (a) youth-oriented and collaborative research processes (for example highlighting youth voice-"bottom-up process for youth by youth," and colearning and team work); (b) group dynamics (for example, common purpose, dealing with transformation, relationship and trust-building, and power issues); and (c) benefits for community youth-serving agencies and youth themselves, for example, capacitybuilding, grounded in youth experiences through participatory research, and knowledge translation and practical application-advancing research into action). The process of being involved in this research was coined an "amazing journey" to facilitate positive change and transformation within the youth and community partners. Understanding such youth engagement issues has implications for better supporting high-risk youth and their families in order to enhance the quality of their lives in a meaningful, sustainable way.

2011

Youth Work Professionalization Processes and Lessons Learned, 2005

The processes of both Youth Development and Professionalization of Youth Work in South Africa is analysed by the presentation to a conference of Youth Work Practitioners in South Africa. This conference was backed by the Department of Social Development of the government of South Africa; with a view to assist in policy development for youth work and professionalization of youth work in South Africa.