Professional Issues In Child And Youth Care Practice

This book provides an overview of the core professional issues in the field of child and youth care practice. The author explores themes ranging from relationships and the exploration of Self to career building and field-specific approaches to management. The book is written from a pragmatic perspective, and serves both to advance current thinking in the field about professional issues as well as to provide the student of child and youth care practice and practitioners with practical and accessible approaches to developing a strong and sustainable professional identity. All of the themes in this book are explored within a context of ethical decision-making and practice approaches informed by a commitment to children’s rights and empowerment. Throughout the discussions, concepts and themes are considered in relation to four specific lenses: the power lens, the diversity lens, the language lens and the transitioning from theory to practice lens. These lenses serve to ensure that the reader adopts a critical understanding of the professional issues in the field and is able to develop his or her own professional identity while mitigating the power and identity issues necessarily associated with being a practitioner in a helping profession. This book was published as a special issue of Child and Youth Services.

This book provides an overview of the core professional issues in the field of child and youth care practice. The author explores themes ranging from relationships and the exploration of Self to career building and field-specific approaches to management. The book is written from a pragmatic perspective, and serves both to advance current thinking in the field about professional issues as well as to provide the student of child and youth care practice and practitioners with practical and accessible approaches to developing a strong and sustainable professional identity. All of the themes in this book are explored within a context of ethical decision-making and practice approaches informed by a commitment to children’s rights and empowerment. Throughout the discussions, concepts and themes are considered in relation to four specific lenses: the power lens, the diversity lens, the language lens and the transitioning from theory to practice lens. These lenses serve to ensure that the reader adopts a critical understanding of the professional issues in the field and is able to develop his or her own professional identity while mitigating the power and identity issues necessarily associated with being a practitioner in a helping profession. This book was published as a special issue of Child and Youth Services.

In A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families, practitioners and trainers in a new methodology show you how to expand your youth program to involve family work using the Child and Youth Care Approach. This book provides a new way of looking at work with families in which the helpers are involved in the daily life of the families they are supporting. This book will be valuable to practitioners and instructors of the Child and Youth Care Approach as well as to youth workers, foster parents, and social workers who want to develop their own knowledge and skills in working with families.

Here are the information, ideas, and inspiration that will help child care workers in their daily struggle to provide better care for children, youth, and families. Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care is a much-needed sourcebook of readings on the current state of the art of professional child and youth care in North America. Some of the leading practitioners, academicians, researchers, and administrators provide a “child care perspective,” writing about what they--on the front lines--perceive as the most pressing issues and significant topics in the field today, including the nature of child and youth care, current issues in education and training, therapeutic program issues, key support functions in child and youth programs, the changing work environment and new roles, and developing professionalism in the field of child and youth care. This enormously insightful book will be valuable for use in academic courses and training workshops, as well as for individual child and youth care professionals and practitioners from related disciplines.

Find out how group care for children has changed in the last 20 years Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited focuses on the core issues that shape the quality of care that’s provided in institutional and residential care settings, as well as day care services that rely on the group process. Leading authorities on residential group care practice from around the world examine practice concepts centered on three broad themes: working directly with children; working indirectly to support children and their families; and organizational influences on practice. This unique book offers valuable insights for dealing with the daily challenges of working with young people in responsive group care. Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited builds on contemporary themes that were explored by the editors more than 20 years ago in Group Care for Children: Concept and Issues, and Group Care Practice with Children, both out of print. Contributors to this updated collection put a fresh spin on the original material, as well as cross-cultural analysis from both sides of the Atlantic, Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia, China, and the United Arab Emirates. They revisit the key issues identified in the earlier books and provide personal and professional reflections on what has happened to their practice themes since the early 1980s. Special attention is paid to how social policy imperatives—normalization, de-institutionalization, mainstreaming, least restrictive environment, minimal intervention, and diversion—have reshaped the field, group care methods and skills needed for direct and indirect care, and group care as an occupational. Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited examines (and re-examines): the relationships between group care practice and education how group care programs can become hostile to families primary care in secondary settings the importance of shared language in a group care center group development how group composition can influence the overall functioning of the group managing occupational stresses in group care practice patterns of career development in child and youth care economic influences that impact group care challenges facing the future of group care services for children and much more Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited is a must-read for youth case workers, child and youth care educators, and anyone working in child welfare, including youth justice managers, administrators, and policymakers.

A unique text to the field, Doing Ethics in Child and Youth Care serves as an essential introductory guide to ethical practice across a range of child and youth care settings within North America. In addition to providing an overview of the Standards for Practice of North American Child and Youth Care Professionals, with the full version included in an appendix, the text offers a practical and engaging introduction and explores the theoretical under-pinnings and field-specific application of ethics. Organized into three parts, this volume begins by introducing the code of ethics for child and youth care professionals in North America as well as the ethical theories and the foundational skills to “do ethics,” including cultural humility, reflexivity, and ethical problem solving. The second part moves on to orient readers to a broad range of considerations for adopting an ethical stance, such as boundary management, responsibilities to the profession, community development and youth participation, and Indigenous perspectives on child and youth care ethics. Part three features some of the different settings in which child and youth care is practised in North America, such as substitute care, family work, intervention in schools, social media, research, and ethics training and supervision, and examines the unique ethical challenges in each of these settings. With contributions from leading child and youth care scholars in Canada and the United States, this is a must-read for students and professional training programs in child and youth care, child and youth studies, and youth work across North America. FEATURES: - Contributions from researchers, practitioners, and scholars from Canada and the United States - Practice examples and reflective exercises to engage readers in developing an approach to ethical practice across a range of child and youth care settings - Appendices containing the full Standards for Practice of North American Child and Youth Care Professionals and a list of resources for ethical dilemmas and case studies to practise doing ethics

Critical and postmodern perspectives have been largely underexplored in the field of child and youth care. This book addresses the gap, showcasing cutting-edge approaches to policy, pedagogy, and practice from diverse perspectives and professional settings. The authors of Child and Youth Care challenge deep-seated assumptions about child and youth care by reinterpreting core concepts such as ethics and outcomes and raising questions about underlying goals and premises. Can the ends of practice be separated from the means? For whose benefit are interventions designed? By recognizing a range of social and political influences on children and youth, this volume bears witness to exciting developments in child and youth care. Chapters in Part 1 redefine the field by offering new theoretical frameworks which, in turn, raise questions about the underlying goal of care and its place in current political agendas. For instance, what unspoken understandings of child, youth, or family well-being are being privileged? To answer these questions, chapters in Part 2 explore underdeveloped issues such as gender, the experiences of girls, and the involvement of fathers, while those in Parts 3 and 4 question beliefs about northern communities, homeless youth, early childhood programs, and young offenders. By focusing on approaches that recognize a range of social and political influences on children and youth, this volume bears witness to new and exciting developments in child and youth care. Alan Pence is UNESCO Chair for Early Childhood Education, Care and Development, and a professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. Jennifer White is an associate professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. Contributors: Brooke Alsbury, Mackenzie Dean, Sandrina de Finney, B. Denise Hodgins, Mark L. Kelly, Kathleen Kummen, J.N. Little, Alan Pence, Elicia Loiselle, Jonathan Morris, Janet Newbury, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Lorinda Stoneman, and Jennifer White.