Chapter 9. Framing the Future for Children and Youth in the Risk Society

Abstract

This chapter sets out to explore the six significant findings of this study by relating the interview content to the sociological risk literature. It examines thinking behind loss zones and gain zones and then moves on to look at individual versus collective risk and perceptions of risk. A child and youth care understanding is noted within the context of the Youth Encounter Project environments.     

Chapter 7. “Learn What You Like and Like What You Learn”

Abstract

Mark Twain once famously quipped, “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” Paul Simon, the American folk singer, begins one of his songs “When I think back on all the crap I learned at high school, it's a wonder I can hardly think at all.” These men could just have easily been discussing schooling in Ireland, for this is the way many Limerick children and youth felt about formal school life prior to their involvement with St. Augustine's Youth Encounter Project. But it is prior to their involvement.

This chapter provides a demographic profile of the pupils of that project and explores aspects of the day-to-day life of the project as a child and youth care intervention by examining some of the influences of risk replacement or resiliency projects that have influenced provision of services. This Limerick YEP attempts to alter the approach from one that is risk, deficit, and psychopathology-oriented to one that is protection, strength, and asset focussed. A question posed is, “Has the early intervention enrichment programme assisted the pupils to reintegrate successfully within the community?” By reintegrate I mean the ability to attend a regular school, hold a job, live again with their family and such things. This chapter also explores the establishment of the Youth Encounter Projects in Ireland in the context of an important but largely overlooked study completed by Egan and Hegarty over two decades ago (1984). No official review has been published since.     

Chapter 8. Listening to At-Risk Youth

Abstract

In this chapter I describe the micro “risk society” of Limerick City and St. Augustine's Youth Encounter Project in terms of the social and cultural background of the interviewees, their perceived family and community identity, and their wider socialisation influences. The project is situated down one of the notorious Limerick lanes made famous in a deftly realized and beautifully written story of a boy coming of age during the 1930s and 1940s in Catholic Ireland, Angela's Ashes, and has been a safe haven for children and youth since 1977. In this chapter I present direct quotations from my young interviewees organised around the risk concept in their own dialect and inflections.

Past and present students of St. Augustine's are viewed in the context of family, school, and community whilst considering three broad questions: What are the important risk factors associated with each setting? What factors at the individual level are associated with resilient outcomes? What mechanisms at the social ecological level promote resilience in individuals?     

Chapter 10. Patterns of Career Development in Child and Youth Care

Abstract

Patterns of career development in the field of child and youth care are reexamined in relation to roles that involve working directly with children in specific settings as well as in relation to roles that involve working indirectly in support of children through working with other adults, be these parents, other caregivers or professionals. Other career roles involve working in support of human service systems that impact on the care of children and young people and influence family welfare. Finally, some career roles involve working at the macro level to formulate policies that shape the culture of caring communities to support the health and well-being of children. Each career role presents important challenges and offers valuable opportunities for influencing the lives of children, young people and their families.     

The Analysis of Extracurricular Activities and Their Relationship to Youth Violence

The purpose of this study was to examine how extracurricular activities relate to rural youth violence. Gender differences were examined across all of the study variables. Self-report data were collected from 235 teenagers from a rural, ethnically diverse, Virginia community. Correlations revealed a significant inverse relationship between church activity and weapon carrying. Time in non-school clubs (B = .444, p = .000) was the best predictor of fighting frequency for boys. Time in non-school clubs (B = .315, p = .001) and time in religious activities (B = −.291, p = .003) were the best predictors of weapon carrying for boys. Time in extracurricular activities (B = −.267, p = .016), time volunteering (B = .262, p = .007), exercise frequency (B = −.221, p = .046), and number of sports team memberships (B = .240, p = .021) were significant predictors of fighting frequency for girls. None of the activity participation variables were predictive of female weapon carrying. Findings suggest that different types of extracurricular activities are predictive of violent activity. Deanna C. Linville is an Assistant Professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy program at University of Oregon. Received Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in Marriage and Family Therapy. Major research interests are international adoption, collaborative healthcare, and youth resilience. Dr. Angela J. Huebner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development at Virginia Tech in Falls Church, Virginia. Her research interests include examining adolescent risk and protective factors in context as well as studying the effects of U.S. military deployments on adolescents in military families.     

Youth Homelessness and Social Stigma

Building upon previous exploratory qualitative research (Kidd SA (2003) Child Adol Social Work J 20(4):235–261), this paper examines the mental health implications of social stigma as it is experienced by homeless youth. Surveys conducted with 208 youths on the streets and in agencies in New York City and Toronto revealed significant associations between perceived stigma due to homeless status and sexual orientation, pan handling and sex trade involvement, and amount of time homeless. Higher perceived stigma was also related to low self esteem, loneliness, feeling trapped, and suicidal ideation, with guilt/self-blame due to homeless status having the strongest impact on mental health variables. Sean Kidd is an assistant professor with the McMaster Department of Psychiary and Behavioural Neurociences. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Windsor, Ontario, in 2003. His primary research areas are suicide and resiliency among homeless youth and the application of qualitative methodologies in psychological research.     

Chapter 6: Essential Orientations and Practices

SUMMARY

In civic youth wouth work program staff focus on larger outcomes and do not often attend to the importance of seemingly mundane and simple tasks. Young people talk about how these simple tasks have powerful meaning for them and their work even as adult volunteers talked about the challenges of working democratically with young people. To integrate these perspectives there are some practices that describe how this work is done: co-creation, contributory, interrogatory, contextual, caring-for-the-world, processual, open, invitational, and a commitment to more than the self.     

加入WTO与共青团工作的思考

去年 12月 ,中国正式成为世贸组织新成员。入世后 ,中国的社会、经济面貌将会发生许多变化 ,共青团工作也随之要面对许多新的工作领域。这些工作领域主要有 :重视青年人力资源的开发 ;组织农村青年 ,搞专业化生产、产业化经营 ;帮助青年开拓就业渠道 ;引导青年树立新的观念。     

Chapter 6: Northern Ireland as a Case Study of the Development of Treatment Foster Care

Major Developments in the history of fostering in Northern Ireland are described, major problems identified and suggestions made for the current and future development of specialist fostering arrangements.     

Chapter 4: Adult Descriptions of Public Achievement

SUMMARY

Adult volunteers who work as experiential educators in Public Achievement (PA) told us about their experiences, and we contrasted these with the stated aims of Public Achievement, young peoples' experiences, and what it is like to be an adult volunteer. PA coaches reflected that there was a significant disjuncture between the official aims of PA and their lived experiences working with youth. Even though this was a source of frustration, PA coaches did come to have personally meaningful experiences working with youth, and this provoked reflection on their own understanding of citizenship, democracy, and public work.     

Chapter 2. From Risk to At-Risk

Abstract

The American economist, Frank Knight (1921), introduced risk as far back as the early 1920s with his analysis of profit legitimisation. In the profession of law, by the latter part of the 19th century risk had entered into mainstream social law in Europe (Ewald, 1991). Risk discourse seems to have regained popularity since the 1970s. Despite the voluminous work published since then with over three thousand books and articles by the end of the 1990s (Renn, 1998) there is no consensus regarding the risk construct itself, as it is approached from so many differing perspectives and disciplines. Many researchers tended, when writing about risk and children and youth, to focus on single variables such as intense interparental conflict that exacerbates maladjustment in children. This has now changed since the introduction of population health child and youth care perspectives. We are now far more interested in co-occurring adversities and the total, or whole, environment of a child. This chapter explores how and why a child or youth might be considered at risk exploring educational environments, the world of insurance, the natural world, medical discourse, and the world of the individual.     

Chapter I: Children and Youth Grow and Develop in Group Care

No abstract available for this article.     

Chapter 12. Conclusion-Looking Ahead

Abstract

Attention is drawn to important themes thought likely to influence the continuing development of group care services for children and young people in the decade ahead. These include a poorly educated workforce, autonomous training, multi-disciplinary approaches, centres of excellence, diversified programs, new trends and issues shaping the future, and group care practice and the law.     

Chapter XII: Emerging Issues in Children and Youth Care Education:

No abstract available for this article.     

Longitudinal Outcomes for Youth Receiving Runaway/Homeless Shelter Services

This research examined outcomes and use of specific types of services 6 weeks, 3 and 6 months post-discharge for a large sample of runaway/homeless youth using crisis shelter services. Data were collected for 371 runaway/homeless youth using emergency shelter and crisis services at eleven agencies across a four-state midwestern region. Outcomes were assessed for runaway behavior, family relationships, substance use, school behavior, employment, sexual behavior, and self-esteem. Additionally, the impact of services on outcomes was assessed. Findings indicated that although youth achieved a wide variety of positive outcomes 6 weeks post-discharge, there were signs of attenuation of certain outcomes by the 6 month follow-up. Service use after discharge did not demonstrate a strong impact on maintaining outcomes. The substantive findings reported here present encouraging evidence for providers of services for runaway/homeless youth. Crisis shelter services appear to facilitate broad-based short-term gains, but do not appear sufficient to maintain these gains over an extended period.     

Chapter 13: Group Therapy for Birth Parents of Children in Foster Care

Psychological impairments render many biological parents of children placed in treatment foster care incompetent to meet child-rearing tasks. Service agreements identify and address critical areas of dysfunctioning but do not engage parents in a broader inventory of their parental functioning and dysfuntioning. A group method provides mutual support, exploration, and a positive child-rearing model. A clinical assessment of parenting that highlights ongoing developmental needs of nurturance and empathy, limit setting, structure, role modeling, reality testing, and separation and individuation is used to promote progress. Parents gain insight into their own overall impairments, origin of impairments, and compensatory techniques. Parents recognize broader responsibility for parenthood enhancing reunification efforts.     

Chapter 7. Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Group Care

Abstract

Group care centers are established to provide a range of living, learning, treatment, and supervisory opportunities for children and young people who, for a variety of reasons, need alternative, supplementary, or substitute care. It is important, therefore, that group care centres establish an organizational climate, ethos, or culture of caring that is consistent with these objectives. This is achieved through internal organizational design, administrative routines, maintaining the physical environment, and support for staff team functioning, including attention to Specific work methods.     

Chapter 17: The Community as an Advocate for Youth:

State treatment foster care programs established by the National Youth Advocate Program are described in terms of youth served, homes established, treatment program, implementation problems, and evaluation procedures.     

The Importance and Benefits of Supervision in Youth Work Practice

This article explores the concept of supervision and its implementation within a youth work context. The article describes and explores a process of staff development facilitated by the author which involved providing supervision training to a group of youth work practitioners at Cork YMCA in Ireland and continuing to meet them on a monthly basis over a period of a year in a mentoring capacity. These sessions provided a supportive space for supervisors and aimed to facilitate a reflective process in relation to their own supervisory practice. This article explores the opportunities and challenges of the supervision process, advocates the importance of supervision in ensuring effective youth work practice, and identifies the beneficial impact of this at a number of levels.