A Youth worker is a person that works with young people to facilitate their personal, social and educational development through informal education, care (e.g. preventive) or leisure approaches.[1] All types of educative approaches are not ethical for youth work, examples for unethical forms of education are indoctrinating, inculcating, and brainwashing. Youth workers can work in many contexts and according to the roles they are known as enablers, facilitators, emancipators, animators or could be known by the set of activities they use to reach out to youth. The validity of youth work approaches are based on whether they are educational, participative, empowering, promotes equality of opportunities, etc. The basic principles of youth work are respecting young people, providing accessible and value oriented opportunities (genuinely useful) for voluntary participation, accountability, being anti-oppressive (e.g. social model of disability, unconscious bias training) in processes, confidentiality, reliability, trustworthiness, and being ethical in keeping boundaries.[2]
In the UK and elsewhere, the main distinction is usually made between statutory, those who work as part of a government run initiative, and non-statutory, those that work in any other context.
See the article Youth work for a full explanation, and the article History of youth work for a brief time line. In some circumstances, the term should be carefully distinguished from Child and Youth Worker which refers to therapeutic work in the USA and Canada.
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What does a youth worker do?
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Career Advice on becoming a Youth Worker by Lynda W (Full Version)
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Transcription
Feeling down, having hassles with friends, school or family can be pretty isolating. If you don't know what to do, talking to someone who understands young people can really help. A youth worker is one of those people. They understand what young people go through, and they're really easy to talk to. They're also connected to a bunch of other services, so if you need more help from like a doctor, a counsellor, or a psychologist, they can help you find them. Having someone on your side that can work with you is a massive support. Hi, Jo. How are you going? I'm good, Tim. How are you? Not too bad. Welcome. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for having me. No, no dramas. Come in, I'll show you through. What does a youth worker do? Well, we work only with young people aged 12-25 years of age. And we will do lots of different work with them from programs to individual work, to going out working in schools. But basically, we're there to support young people. That stuff all happens here? Yeah, lots of it does, but a lot of it happens outside of here too. So there's youth workers all over the place, and they work in lots of different agencies and services. What kind of programs do you offer? We can do stuff from sports programs, so we run basketball comps or soccer comps, that sort of stuff. We'll do stuff around youth leadership. Where there's young people who want to be leaders in their community, we can help them with public speaking and those sorts of skills. We can do programs around sexuality, positive body image, mental health. We do dance programs. There's a whole range of different programs that we can do. And a lot of the times, it'll be young people saying, "We need a program around such and such." And we go, "Okay, great. Let's put something together." What sort of things do young people come to talk to you about? Yeah. Look, there's some real general stuff that they'd want to chat to us about. They might be having just some hassles at school and that sort of stuff. So, young people often experience bullying. It could be that they got hassled with their friends, and they're feeling quite alone. There could be stuff getting sent, text messages and all that sort of stuff about them that they don't know how to deal with. There could be trouble with Mum and Dad or one of their parents, their siblings or that sort of stuff. It could be that they've got some signs of depression, but they wouldn't even know that sort of stuff. So, we can help identify that with them, and then help them get the support that they need. Okay. So, youth workers are connected to other services in the area such as? Yeah. Doctors, psychologists? Absolutely, absolutely. So youth counsellors, doctors, psychologists, health and well being. It could be youth law, those sorts of things. What would you say if a young person was worried you were gonna tell someone what they told you? We would talk to a young person first up and say that the conversation we have with them is confidential, that they have the right to privacy. The only time we would have to breach that is where there's a risk of someone getting hurt, either themselves or someone else. So, it sounds like youth workers are really helpful in a lot of ways. Our primary focus is to be here for young people. So we're that first foot in the door for young people to all the other things that they might need, from just that chat, right to some really serious stuff. Well thanks, Jo. Thanks very much for speaking with me. My pleasure. See you around.
Tasks and duties of direct youth work practice
Engaging youth in participation and aiding youth in locating self is an important aspect of youth work practice. A youth worker needs to identify an "opening" for practice and be willing to make that opening into an "opportunity" by find resources to meet the needs of the work through various stakeholders. When the needs are met an "obligation" should be made to delivering the services and enabling participation of youth at a specific level, this obligation then becomes a part of the macro-system of services.[3] Through participation the youth should be able to locate themselves, their strengths and limitations. Through participation the youth would be able to learn the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values that they have through the relational experience and reflective observation, this leads them to further their growth opportunities.
Main tasks and duties of direct practice's are:[4]
- Establish contact and build relationships.
- Bring contacted youths together in groups/ open events and shared activities.
- Enable participation of youth in activity planning (e.g. sports, arts, outdoors, etc.), project developing (community, educational, etc.), evaluation and review of activities.
- Address, advocate, and educate about youth issues, influences, and interests.
- Provide guidance (in locating self and growth opportunities), instruction (teaching & directing), personal & social education, mentoring and support.
- Collaborative development of community resources, facilities, and services.
- Manage and develop community programs and resources of an organization.
Functions of youth work
Merton, et al. in 2004 through a research report delineated the following as primary functions of youth work.[5]
- Integrative: It is concerned with socialization of youth and introducing them to norms and expectations of society for directing them to social fitness, this has a preparation to adult world function.
- Reflexive: It is concerned with ensuring inclusion of youth perspectives in social institutions, this has an anti-oppressive function.
- Redistributive: It is concerned with ensuring social justice to youth and developing social capital for youth empowerment.
See also
- List of youth empowerment organizations
- One World Youth Project
- International Youth Change Maker
- Positive youth development
References
- ^ Kate Sapin (15 January 2013). Essential Skills for Youth Work Practice. SAGE Publications. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-4462-7208-4. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
- ^ "Ethical conduct in youth work". NYA. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
- ^ Shier, Harry (2001). "Pathways to participation: openings, opportunities and obligations". Children & Society. 15 (2): 107–117. doi:10.1002/chi.617. hdl:10197/12051. ISSN 1099-0860.
- ^ Kate Sapin (15 January 2013). Essential Skills for Youth Work Practice. SAGE Publications. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-1-4462-7208-4. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
- ^ "An evaluation of the impact of youth work in England - Social Care Online". www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
This page was last edited on 12 October 2022, at 15:44