Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Blog Post #1





This article describes the first characteristics of Youth Work is as an educational practice between youth workers that engage with youth in order to educate them. Education is an important topic to me but I also believe that informal education has a place within the development of people, especially youth. Not everything has to be learned within a school setting or school hours. These key interactions are valuable as information is passed on but it is often remembered because of the close interactions between youth workers and youth. The second characteristic of youth work is social practice. This entails working with youth as groups or working with existing peer groups. This is important as starting within groups is a good engage point towards getting to know young people. These interactions builds social skills that youth need to become well adjusted within their communities. Sometimes youth do not have a place in which to practice their social skills and these encounters serve to help them improve themselves.
This article describes the first characteristics of Youth Work is as an educational practice between youth workers that engage with youth in order to educate them. Education is an important topic to me but I also believe that informal education has a place within the development of people, especially youth. Not everything has to be learned within a school setting or school hours. These key interactions are valuable as information is passed on but it is often remembered because of the close interactions between youth workers and youth. The second characteristic of youth work is social practice. This entails working with youth as groups or working with existing peer groups. This is important as starting within groups is a good engage point towards getting to know young people. These interactions builds social skills that youth need to become well adjusted within their communities. Sometimes youth do not have a place in which to practice their social skills and these encounters serve to help them improve themselves.
The third characteristic is that youth workers actively challenge inequality and work towards social justice. In order to carry this out youth workers work with youth to figure out the inequalities that surround them and what they can do to overcome them. This joint project helps to establish trust within youth and their mentors as they begin to see what youth see as issues that make them feel vulnerable and what they can do to change that feeling. The fourth characteristic is wherever possible, young people choose to be involved. This is something that is often overlooked but cannot be stressed enough because if youth are not involved with something through its inception then they may not be fully on board.
The fifth characteristic of youth work is that it seeks to strengthen the voice and influence of young people. A belief that most youth workers have is that youth are underrepresented and seek to engage them to become active participants in society. This is important as growing up most teachers I had loved to just teach but rarely did they give us ‘students’ the opportunity to become fully engaged with the material we were learning through anything outside of lecturing. The sixth characteristic of youth work is a welfare practice. This entails promoting the welfare and safety of our young people through the use of education and behavior. In order to achieve this it is key to work with youth in a balanced role of educator and social worker whenever possible.
The last characteristic of youth work is working with youth ‘holistically’. This last characteristic is to take into account the full extent of the difficulties that youth encounter. Focusing on one part of the difficulties could result in limited impact for youth workers when engaging with youth. I remember that while working as a City Year corps member I worked with youth through various scenarios that they may encounter such as the importance of recycling to littering and being a good neighbor. These topics feel scattered but when taken into a community perspective you can see the value of learning these topics in building greater civic engagement of youth within their communities.   

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