Not-Knowing or Knowing Naught: Revisiting the Concept of Collaboration and Expertise in Child and Youth Care Practice

This article discusses the complexities associated with adopting a not-knowing stance in Child and Youth Care practice. By highlighting some of the challenges, it also clarifies the distinctions between practitioner lack of knowing how to proceed and an intentional, uncertain attitude when working with children, youth and families. Recommendations or caveats are provided if a practitioner chooses to adopt this kind of orientation to practice.     

Like a Deer in the Headlights: The Paralysis of Stuckness

When describing how they experience moments of not-knowing, youth workers often talk about a sense of paralysis, as though their uncertainty becomes physically constraining. This chapter describes the first of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not knowing what to do: the paralysis of stuckness. In addition to describing and investigating the dominant theme of paralysis, this chapter discusses its three variations, as described by youth worker participants: (a) It's just me, and that's not enough, (b) It's like a mental freefall, and (c) That crushing becomes your world.     

Living in the world risk society

Abstract

In a world risk society, we must distinguish between ecological and financial dangers, which can be conceptualized as side effects, and the threat from terrorist networks as intentional catastrophes; the principle of deliberately exploiting the vulnerability of modern civil society replaces the principle of chance and accident.     

My Stomach Fell Through the Floor: The Moment of Not-Knowing What to Do

Youth workers routinely experience moments in their professional practice with young people when, despite their experience and training, they are simply at a loss for what to do, how to respond, and how to be helpful to the youth. These experiences of not-knowing are seldom shared with other youth workers, which contributes to a climate of shame and humiliation. Professional supervision seldom attends to how youth workers experience these moments and their personal and vocational costs. This study presents a phenomenological investigation of how youth workers experience moments of not knowing what to do, identifies five central themes of the experience, and makes recommendations for improved youth work practice and supervision. This chapter presents the research question and its significance to the field of American youth work.     

Contextualizing Not-Knowing: Terminology and the Role of Professional Identity

This chapter provides a context for the concept of not-knowing, including a discussion of how the concept was framed. The experience of not-knowing in professional youth work is framed in relationship to other concepts explored by the social work and therapeutic literature (including vicarious trauma, helplessness, secondary trauma, and burnout), as well as those offered by the limited youth work and nursing literature discussing similar concepts (disruption and hurt, suffering, commitment in spite of conflict, and the struggle to go along when you do not believe). The standing of youth work in the professions and its own struggles to professionalize are explored, with attention to how not-knowing affects and is affected by these efforts.     

It's Just a Little Too Human: Questions of Vocation

SUMMARY

Among youth workers who experience moments of not-knowing what to do, many often describe their thoughts and reactions to the phenomenon in vocational and existential terms. They ask what right they have to work in the helping professions if they find themselves simply unable to be helpful. In many cases, the vocational crises following experiences of not-knowing contribute to burnout and youth workers' decisions to leave the field altogether. This chapter describes the fourth of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not knowing what to do: questions of vocation. In addition to presenting the dominant theme, this chapter discusses the three variations on it, as described by youth worker participants: (a) What am I supposed to do? (b) Who am I to deal with this? and (c) Maybe the problem is me.     

Not-Knowing Gives Way to Knowing

One of the few truly reassuring features of not-knowing among youth workers is the realization that not-knowing cannot last forever. Eventually, some feature of the situation shifts, and youth workers move back into the capacity for action. This chapter describes the last of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not knowing what to do: Not-knowing gives way to knowing. In addition to presenting the dominant theme, this chapter discusses the three variations on it, as described by youth worker participants: (a) The rousing power of someone else, (b) I have to respond, because no one else will, and (c) The power of winging it.     

Center Stage: Humiliation,Being Found Out,and the Myth of Supercompetence

Youth workers operate within a professional climate in which competence is perceived to be linked to a worker's ability to respond quickly and effectively to whatever situations clients may present. Many youth workers perceive their own inability to respond in moments of stuckness as indicative of their own failing and lack of professional skill. They often view their colleagues as more equipped and competent than themselves and fear having their own struggles exposed. This chapter describes the third of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not-knowing what to do: humiliation and the fear of being found out. In addition to presenting the dominant theme, this chapter discusses the two variations on the theme, as described by youth worker participants: (a) The worst public humiliation and (b) They'll know I'm a fraud. Implicit in both variations is the weight of youth workers' attempts to measure up to the field's myth of supercompetence in their practice.