The Changing Landscape of Youth Work : Theory and Practice for an Evolving Field [1 ed.] 9781681235653, 9781681235639

Citation preview

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work

A volume in Adolescence and Education Ben Kirshner, Series Editor

This page intentionally left blank.

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work Theory and Practice for an Evolving Field edited by

Kristen M. Pozzoboni San Francisco State University

Ben Kirshner University of Colorado, Boulder

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress   http://www.loc.gov ISBN: 978-1-68123-563-9 (Paperback) 978-1-68123-564-6 (Hardcover) 978-1-68123-565-3 (ebook)

Copyright © 2016 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS Introduction: The Changing Landscape of Youth Work: Theory and Practice for an Evolving Field........................................... 1 Kristen M. Pozzoboni and Ben Kirshner

SECT I O N I CONCEPTIONS OF YOUTH WORK AND YOUTH WORKERS 1 Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action: Youth Work in Places Where There Are No (Professional) Youth Workers....................................................................................... 11 Carole MacNeil, Steven Eric Krauss, and Shepherd Zeldin 2 Credentialing for Youth Work: Expanding Our Thinking............... 31 Elizabeth Starr and Ellen Gannett 3 Youth Worker Professional Development: Moving from Practicing the Symbolic to Working Substantively............................ 51 Michael L. Baizerman and Ross VeLure Roholt

SECT I O N I I HOW SHOULD YOUTH WORKERS BE PREPARED? 4 Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”: Preparing Youth Workers in a Graduate School of Education..................................................... 71 Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Mandy Savitz-Romer, and Deepa Vasudevan 

v

vi   Contents

5 Building Pathways from Research to Practice: Preparing Youth Development Professionals through a Blended Online Master’s Degree Program.................................................................... 91 Barry A. Garst, Edmond P. Bowers, William Quinn, and Ryan J. Gagnon 6 Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice...................................................................... 109 Laurie Ross 7 Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals...................... 127 Michael Heathfield and Dana Fusco 8 Professional Learning Communities: An Alternative to the One-Stop Workshop................................................................ 147 Femi Vance, Emily Salvaterra, Jocelyn Atkins Michelsen, and Corey Newhouse Appendix: Compelling Models of Youth Worker Recruitment and Preparation.................................................................................. 167 Maranda Ward and Jeanne Dairaghi

SECT I O N I I I WHAT SHOULD YOUTH WORKERS KNOW? 9 Re-Envisioning Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention................................................................... 175 Patti Ranahan and Jennifer White 10 Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs: A New Approach for Engaging Youth Workers in Program Evaluation....................................................................... 193 Mary E. Arnold, Melissa Cater, and Marc T. Braverman 11 Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers: Implications for Practice and Professional Development...................................... 211 Kathrin Walker and Tamara Ginger Weiss 12 Youth Work for Social Change: Preparing Individuals to Work With Youth in Diverse Urban Contexts............................................. 229 Kristen Atkinson, Emilia Chico, and Stacey S. Horn About the Editors............................................................................... 249 About the Contributors...................................................................... 251

INTRODUCTION

THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF YOUTH WORK Theory and Practice for an Evolving Field Kristen M. Pozzoboni San Francisco State University Ben Kirshner University of Colorado Boulder

School age youth spend far more of their time outside of school (80%) than inside of school (20%) (LIFE Center, 2005). The United States boasts a rich and vibrant ecosystem of out-of-school time (OST) programs and funders, ranging from grassroots neighborhood centers to national organizations such as Girls, Inc., 4-H, and Boys and Girls Clubs. The research community, too, has made progress in drawing on varied theories and methods to produce scientific consensus about defining features of high-quality youth development settings (e.g., Eccles & Gootman, 2002) and the importance of after-school and informal programs for youth (Mahoney, Harris, & Eccles, 2006). We even have a pretty clear sense of what quality looks like for youth workers—including key features of The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 1–8 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

1

2   Introduction

developmentally appropriate mentoring, the kinds of collaboration and joint work that engage youth in authentic learning, and the central importance of humanizing relationships for young people (Ginwright, 2010; Halpern, 2005; Rogoff, 2003). There is a curious lacuna, however, when it comes to the profession of youth work in the United States. Unlike K–12 classroom teaching, a profession with longstanding—if contested—legitimacy and recognition, “youth work” does not call forth familiar imagery or cultural narratives. Ask someone what a youth worker does and they are just as likely to think you are talking about a young person working at her first job as they are to think you mean a young adult who works with youth. This absence of shared archetypes or mental models is matched by a shortage of policies or professional associations that clearly define youth work and assume responsibility for training and preparation. This is a problem because the functions performed by youth workers outside of school are critical for positive youth development, especially in our current context governed by widening income inequality. As Sean Reardon (2013) wrote in a New York Times opinion piece, “High-income families are increasingly focusing their resources—their money, time and knowledge of what it takes to be successful in school—on their children’s cognitive development and educational success.” The U.S. has seen a decline in social mobility and an increase in income inequality and racial segregation. This places a greater premium on the role of OST programs in supporting access and equity to learning opportunities for children, particularly for those growing up in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Fortunately, in the past decade there has been an emergence of research and policy arguments about the importance of naming, defining, and attending to the profession of youth work. Our purpose in this volume is to build on that momentum by bringing together the best scholarship and policy ideas—coming from in and outside of higher education—about conceptions of youth work and optimal types of preparation and professional development. In the remainder of this chapter, we elaborate on the changing landscape of youth work and introduce each chapter. DEFINING YOUTH WORK Youth work represents a broad group of principles and practices that guide adult interactions with young people in a variety of experiences across multiple contexts (Batsleer & Davies, 2010). While there is no one working definition that is embraced by the field, there is agreement about some of the core values and practices. For instance, youth work occurs in informal learning settings; is characterized by the intentional building of

Introduction    3

caring and trusting relationships with youth; and includes the facilitation of learning and social, cultural, civic, and emotional development. But there are also significant differences. Across the globe, youth work varies depending on how it is defined by time, place, intended outcomes, and strategies. Another factor that affects how youth work is defined has to do with its relationship or association with other institutions. In the United States, for example, it is common for youth work to be seen as a complement to the formal education system, whereas in other parts of the world youth work is less about school and academic outcomes (although that is important) and more about enacting youth-centered values and practices to promote the inclusion of young people in society (Fusco, 2012; Pittman, 2004). Youth work is arguably more developed in countries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Ireland than it is in the United States. One reason for this is what Pittman (2004) describes as a lack of “external validation and broad-based, cross-sector demand for high-quality youth work that can only come from a clear public understanding of the value of the work and a national commitment to compensate the workers adequately” (p. 89). This is evidenced by a scarcity of national infrastructure and policy that articulates standards to define the youth sector, provides leadership, and promotes the development of integrated systems (public and private) to benefit youth. In England, the National Youth Agency is responsible for setting the curriculum and validating the qualifications of everyone who enters the profession of youth work (Jones, 2012). New Zealand has a Ministry of Youth Development that promotes best practices for working with young people, providing resources and funding aimed at increasing the number and quality of youth development opportunities. Not having these kinds of systems and structures in the United States has contributed to a field of practice that is broad in scope and focus (some may argue too broad), without a centralized system to develop, support, and assess professional development for youth workers. In the United States, youth work typically involves engaging young people ages 5 to 25 in a variety of out-of-school time settings. For example, youth work may occur in afterschool and recreation programs, juvenile justice facilities, summer camps, faith-based agencies, health services, or community-based programs. What youth work looks like in practice is as varied as the settings where it occurs, as youth workers draw upon multiple (and sometimes competing) models, each with a distinct philosophy and strategies—not to mention the values and ideological underpinnings of the youth-serving agency—which can lead to a variety of outcomes. These approaches may include youth services, youth development, youth leadership, civic engagement, and youth organizing (Listen Inc., 2003).

4   Introduction

Practitioners, or “youth workers,” interact directly with or on behalf of young people within these varied contexts. It is widely accepted in youth work literature that the role of the youth worker is “to facilitate personal, social and educational development and enable young people to gain voice, influence and a place in society as they make the transition from dependence to independence” (Stone, Garza, & Borden, 2004, p. 9). A recent report released by the DC Children and Youth Investment Corporation suggested that employment opportunities for youth workers are growing faster than the national average (Manekin & Rucker, 2013). Although conversations about youth workforce development have been underway for over two decades, this increase in employment opportunities combined with a growing body of research showing the value of youth work has sparked new debate about changes in the field and the merits of professionalization and credentialing. In her recent book, Advancing Youth Work, editor Dana Fusco (2012) explored the nature of youth work across the globe and examined three trends influencing the training and education of youth workers: competencies, credentials, and curriculum. Competencies signify what youth workers should know and be able to do: knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Credentials refer to a certification that recognizes that an individual has the competencies necessary to be an effective youth worker. Curriculum includes the design and structure of education for youth workers—for example, the content included in youth work as well as the training or delivery system for that content. Her comprehensive volume surfaced a variety of perspectives and conceptual frameworks and provided a compelling case for why it is vital for educators, youth workers, funders, scholars, and policymakers to contemplate, dialogue, and debate about what it takes to develop a strong, stable, and skilled workforce. This book aims to continue and expand on conversations raised by Fusco by bringing in new literature about the preparation of youth workers in the United States. Our goal was to compile some of the finest current thinking about training and preparation of youth workers and create a resource for scholars, students, and frontline youth workers. CHAPTER OVERVIEW In this volume we have assembled 12 chapters that highlight perspectives from 33 authors who occupy different roles in the field of youth work including researchers, educators in youth work preparation programs, youth work practitioners, and professional trainers and consultants who specialize in providing support for youth-serving agencies. In the following pages, we feature empirical and conceptual studies that stretch or challenge

Introduction    5

existing notions of youth work. We showcase innovative strategies currently being used to prepare youth workers in higher education degree and credential programs. And we present field-based professional development models that offer learning opportunities and on-the-job training for the existing workforce. In addition, we draw attention to essential knowledge and skill sets that youth workers need to respond to trends emerging in out-of-school time settings. The book is divided into three sections. The first section, “Conceptions of Youth Work and Youth Workers,” presents three perspectives about what it means to be a youth worker and examines how social, cultural, and political systems and structures can inform preparation for and practice in the field. In Chapter 1, Carole MacNeil, Steven Krauss, and Shepherd Zeldin take the reader to Dadaab, Kenya and Gaya Island, Malaysia, where they observed innovative youth work being accomplished by young people with no formal training or preparation. Their careful examination of youth work practice in places where there were no “professional youth workers” challenges conceptions of youth work commonly held in the United States and offers practical insights about how to design meaningful professional development. In Chapter 2, Elizabeth Starr and Ellen Gannett describe recent developments in the landscape of youth work in the United States and offer a discussion about why creating a nationally recognized credential is an important next step for the field. The authors surface possible benefits and potential problems that can accompany credentialing and encourage us to think critically about the effects of credentialing in larger systems and structures. They conclude by articulating a vision for what a national credential might look like in the United States. In Chapter 3, Michael Baizerman and Ross VeLure Roholt explore the complexities of youth work by calling attention to the many different communities of practice within the field—each with a unique history, philosophy, organizational structure, funding, and strategy for working with young people. This variation, they argue, makes it difficult to have productive converations about designing useful professional development opportunites across the field. Instead, they suggest that professional development for youth workers should be agency-specific and focus on mastery of the “worker-as-employee” within a specific organizational context. Section II, “How Should Youth Workers be Prepared?” highlights and critiques strategies currently being used to prepare and strengthen the existing workforce. In Chapter 4, Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Mandy Savitz-Romer, and Deepa Vasudevan argue for the value of locating youth worker preparation in a graduate school of education. They begin with a comprehensive description of an existing graduate program located in the Northeast that combines coursework with an intensive practicum organized by four guiding principles: reflexive practice, ecological systems

6   Introduction

frameworks, culturally and contextually responsive practice, and praxis. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ongoing tensions within the model and surfaces questions that instructors grapple with as the program continues to evolve. Barry Garst, Edmond Bowers, William Quinn, and Ryan Gagnon, in Chapter 5, demonstrate the value of online academic opportunities for youth workers by sharing results from an assessment of a blended online master’s program in the Southeast that was designed to accommodate youth-serving professionals already in the workforce. Their findings suggest promising evidence that a blended model in higher education may contribute to substantive training and may lead to an increase in professional opportunities, advancement, and pay. In Chapter 6, Laurie Ross draws on case studies and student artifacts to show how university classrooms can create spaces for novice and experienced youth workers to learn alongside one another and how having people at different developmental stages of their practice in one classroom can bolster student learning. She also describes how design features of the classroom contribute to this process and presents strategies classroom instructors could use to promote student engagement and support the development of youth workers. In Chapter 7, Michael Heathfield and Dana Fusco discuss the value of creating educational opportunities for youth workers in alignment with the principles and values often enacted in youth work programs: principles such as participation, empowerment, democracy, and social justice. By drawing on excerpts from interviews with youth workers in Chicago, they highlight how systems and structures in higher education present obstacles to achieving this vision and argue that if educators seek to honor youth work as an intellectual endeavor, we must work to address these conditions. Chapter 8 offers alternatives to higher education as a way to prepare youth workers. First, based on the findings from four independent evaluations, Femi Vance, Emily Salvaterra, Jocelyn Atkins, and Corey Newhouse explain the benefits youth workers reported while participating in year-long professional learning communities (PLC) organized through a school district in Oakland, CA. They discuss the potential of PLC to influence practice by providing opportunities for youth workers to engage in collaboration, continued learning, and critical reflection. Section II concludes with an appendix that profiles two compelling models of youth worker development. Maranda Ward of Promising Futures in Washington, DC and Jeanne Dairaghi from Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!) in Raleigh, NC describe innovative approaches for engaging young people (ages 11 to 24) in field-based professional development designed for preparing the next generation of youth workers. The authors explain how each organization recruits, educates, and empowers youth to take on the role and responsibilities of a youth worker and then supports them to

Introduction    7

become involved in planning and implementing community-based youth development programs relevant for their communities. Section III, “What Should Youth Workers Know?” addresses content knowledge and expertise demanded of youth workers so that they can effectively respond to recent trends emerging in out-of-school time settings. This section is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, we chose to underscore four content areas that received attention in our strongest chapter proposals. In Chapter 9, Patti Ranahan and Jennifer White examine how youth workers are typically prepared to engage with young people about mental health and suicide prevention. They discuss problems with existing preparation and present an alternative that includes four promising approaches for preparing youth workers: transformative learning, culturally responsive care, relational pedagogy, and enhancing professionals’ presence. In Chapter 10, Mary Arnold, Melissa Cater, and Marc Braverman address the increasing pressure for youth workers, particularly those on the frontlines, to become involved in program evaluation. Drawing from their experience as evaluators for the 4-H program, they advocate for youth workers to learn evaluative thinking, such as understanding theories of change and theories of action, rather than develop technical skills needed to conduct outcome evaluations. Kathrin Walker and Tamara Ginger Weiss in Chapter 11 propose there is much to be learned about the kinds of skills and competencies youth workers utilize by exploring the ethical dilemmas youth workers experience in their day-to-day practice. A careful examination of dilemma scenarios with youth leaders from a variety of organizations across the Midwest illustrates the complexity of youth work as it unfolds in real-world settings and yields important implications for the preparation and support of frontline workers. Finally, in Chapter 12, Kristen Atkinson, Emilia Chico, and Stacey Horn describe how one university-based graduate training program in Illinois prepares youth workers to enact youth development approaches informed by a social justice perspective. This includes examining power and privilege, thinking critically about systems and structures that affect youth lives, and learning to work with young people toward social transformation and community change. They highlight the theoretical underpinnings and structure of the program and then use personal narratives from graduates to highlight programmatic successes and lessons learned. They conclude by offering recommendations for educators about how to design higher education degree programs focused on equity and social justice. This is a dynamic moment for youth work in the United States. Widening inequality of opportunity places greater pressure on public and not-for-profit youth agencies to support positive youth and community development. Youth workers play a key role in the quality of OST opportunities available to young people. This calls for creative conceptualizations of youth work practice and quality research about various models for preparation and

8   Introduction

ongoing learning. The chapters in this volume bring a valuable mix of examples, theories, and evidence to bear on these debates. REFERENCES Batsleer, J., & Davies, B. (Eds.). (2010). What is youth work? Exeter, UK: Learning Matters. Eccles, J., & Gootman, J. A. (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Fusco, D. (Ed.). (2012). Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions. New York, NY: Routledge. Ginwright, S. A. (2010). Black youth rising: Activism and radical healing in urban America. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Halpern, R. (2005). Instrumental relationships: A potential relational model for inner-city youth programs. Journal of Community Psychology, 33(1), 11–20. Retrieved from http://dctrust.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/05/CYITC_ResearchCorner_YouthWorkerForecast_Final.pdf Jones, H. (2012). Youth work practice in England. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 157–172). New York, NY: Routledge. LIFE Center. (2005). The LIFE Center’s lifelong and lifewide diagram. Retrieved from http://life-slc.org/about/about.html Listen, Inc. (2003). An emerging model for working with youth: Community organizing + youth development= youth organizing. Occasional Papers Series on Youth Organizing No. 1. New York, NY: Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing. Mahoney, J., Harris, A. L., & Eccles, J. (2006). Organized activity participation, positive youth development, and the over-scheduling hypothesis. Social Policy Report, 20(4), 3–26. Manekin, S., & Rucker, L. (2013). Youth worker professional development and job forecast. DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation. Retrieved from http://dctrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/CYITC_ResearchCorner_ YouthWorkerForecast_Final.pdf Pittman, K. (2004). Reflections on the road not (yet) taken: How a centralized public strategy can help youth work focus on youth. New Directions for Youth Development, 104, 87–99. Reardon, S. (2013, November 12). No rich child left behind. New York Times. Retrieved on January 12, 2014 from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes. com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/ Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Stone, B., Garza, P., & Borden, L. (2004). Attracting, developing and retaining youth workers for the next generation. Wingspread Conference Proceedings. Washington, DC: National Collaboration for Youth/National Assembly.

SECTION I CONCEPTIONS OF YOUTH WORK AND YOUTH WORKERS

This page intentionally left blank.

CHAPTER 1

VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION, YOUTH VOICE, AND COLLECTIVE ACTION Youth Work in Places Where There Are No (Professional) Youth Workers Carole MacNeil, Steven Eric Krauss, and Shepherd Zeldin

DADAAB, KENYA Flying into Dadaab, near Kenya’s eastern border with Somalia, it is hard to believe that the harsh landscape of sand and scrub brush can support life at all, and even harder to understand how it can accommodate one of the world’s largest refugee camps. But in fact, Dadaab—a village of approximately 15,000 people prior to the development of the refugee camp—hosts, according to estimates, nearly half a million primarily Somali refugees. In this desert climate, water and food are hard to come by, and rations are delivered by UN agencies while residents wait their turn in line. For the youth who live in these camps, freedom and mobility are constrained, security is tenuous, and educational and economic opportunities can be challenging

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 11–30 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

11

12    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

to find. But in the company of the youth associations that have formed in Dadaab, one can also see reasons for hope. GAYA ISLAND, MALAYSIA In the east Malaysian state of Sabah, the capital city Kota Kinabalu has become well known for its expansive development and sleek modernization. Once a quiet Borneo coastal town, Kota Kinabalu has become a bustling melting pot of ethnic groups, languages, and cultures. Ten minutes off the coast of Kota Kinabalu lies Gaya Island, part of the Tuanku Abdul Rahman Marine Park, a hotspot for scuba divers and beachgoers. There is more to Gaya Island than just beautiful beaches, however. For on its shores sit 11 “floating” fishing villages comprising a substantial population of 10,000 Bajau Laut, a Philipino ethnic group, most of whom are perceived as illegal by mainland Sabahans. For the youth of Gaya, life is an ongoing struggle battling discrimination, geographic isolation, and economic hardship. However, Gaya’s youth have begun to feel hope for a better future. Much of this can be attributed to a most unlikely source—the island’s lone youth association. * * * More than half of the world’s population is under the age of 30. Almost 90% of those under 30 live in developing, economically vulnerable regions and countries1 (UNESCO, 2013). These young people continue to be perceived in a myriad of ways: “victims,” “citizens,” “perpetrators,” or “agents of change.” While the international development community has conceptualized the youth population as “an undervalued asset” (World Bank, 2007) and a “demographic opportunity” to tap into youths’ potential to be agents for positive change (USAID, 2012), moving from theory to practice is challenging. Yet examples abound of youth who, for years, have been engaged in—and have often led—the work of youth and community development in challenging contexts. So how are they doing it? In this chapter, we explore two communities—the large refugee camp of Dadaab and the small island of Gaya—where professional youth workers from within the community simply do not exist. These places are highly vulnerable. They struggle with extreme poverty, geographic and social isolation, lack of education and work opportunities, a lack of infrastructure, and innumerable other challenges of survival and basic human rights. Yet, even though professional youth workers do not exist in Dadaab and Gaya Island, youth work does get done. And sometimes it gets done really well. The structure for much of the day-to-day youth work in Dadaab and Gaya Island is the youth association, groups of youth coming together voluntarily

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    13

to promote their own development and that of their communities. Looking at these associations from a Western perspective, one might perceive them as outside the bounds of traditional “youth work” or “community work.” The associations may seem disorganized. Their work may seem inconsistent as the group’s goals shift, sometimes fairly quickly, or as their focus moves back and forth from youth to community development. Looking more closely, however, one sees that the youth associations respond in practical ways to the conditions around them to the cards they are dealt. In doing so, they exemplify a new paradigm of youth work. Specifically, our analysis of Dadaab and Gaya Island revealed four “practical insights,” strongly evidenced across both settings, that we believe should be fundamental to the future direction of youth work: • Practical Insight 1: Effective youth work responded directly to prevailing community issues, as prioritized by youth, and continuously adapted to changing events and conditions. • Practical Insight 2: Effective youth work required the ongoing identification and creative mobilization of local (material, financial, and human) resources. • Practical Insight 3: Effective youth work built relationships and partnerships among youth, adults, and community elders, using a wide range of strategies. • Practical Insight 4: Effective youth work emphasized skill building through processes that were responsive, experiential, asset-based, and ongoing. These insights suggest that youth voice and intergenerational partnerships can be central to collective action on behalf of the larger community. The welfare of communities is inextricably linked to youth development, and vice versa. Indeed, fundamental to this model of youth work is that the young people take the lead in identifying and prioritizing the issues to be addressed. It is the young people who determine the overall plan of action and who often set the tone and the pace of that action. At the same time, our research indicates that these youth associations cannot do it alone. In the day-to-day life of communities, youth seek out adults—as allies, as partners, as advisors, and as gatekeepers and power holders. Besides needing other youth to work on issues, youth almost always require elders to give approval and to give up some of their institutional or cultural power. In this new paradigm, youth—through voluntary association with their peers and with adults—become collaborative leaders of change.

14    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

THE MEANING OF YOUTH, ADULT, AND YOUTH ASSOCIATION IN DADAAB AND GAYA ISLAND It is necessary to provide some background on what is meant by “youth,” “elder,” “adult,” and “youth association.” The concept of youth varies across the globe.2 In Kenya, “youth” is constitutionally defined as ages 18–35. Within this broad chronological parameter, Dadaab residents explain that youth is also shaped by marital status and level of responsibility in the family or community. A youth may be a 35-year-old man who isn’t married or working. In contrast, a 20-year-old married man may be considered an adult if he is the primary breadwinner. Typically, a young woman’s status as youth or adult is most influenced by her marital status and/or whether or not she has children. Malaysia, too, has a constitutional definition of youth, one that extends from ages 15 to 40.3 As in Dadaab, youth on Gaya Island is also defined according to the roles that young people play within Malaysian culture. Finally, in both Dadaab and Gaya Island, we refer to “elders” in contrast to adult residents as those community members who have the greatest levels of institutional power (voice and decision-making) within the community. “Adult residents,” as we use the term, typically—but not always—have more institutional power than the youth, but still less than the elders. The term “youth association” in Dadaab refers to an organized group of youth who voluntarily come together with a shared goal or interest. While they may have leadership structures, youth associations in Daadab are very often loosely organized. They work on issues as diverse as health, education, human rights, or security. The Dadaab associations analyzed in this chapter worked directly with an international nongovernmental organization (NGO), RET International (Refugee Education Trust).4 Participants in the associations—both male and female—ranged in age from their teens to their thirties. The youth involved had lived in Dadaab for anywhere from a year or two to most or all of their lives. Youth associations in Malaysia are formally structured. Although informal organizations exist, most associations in Malaysia register through the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which provides support in the form of state-sponsored trainings, workshops, and programs. The ministry also provides about USD $1,500/year of operational funds to each association. As the island’s lone formal youth organization, the Youth and Sports Association of Gaya Island (BESUGA) started out in 2007 with just 17 members and has since grown to over 400 youth. The association’s activities are mostly organized according to three informal subgroups. The first consists of adolescent youth, those 15 to 18 years old, who comprise the majority of the general membership. The second group consists of emerging adults, those 18 to 30 years old, who make up most of the organization’s 15-member executive committee (“Exco”). The oldest youth, those 30 to 40 years, are the smallest group in

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    15

number and tend to take on hybrid roles, sitting on both youth and adult committees within their respective villages. This group plays a vital intermediary role between the association and the larger community. For the purposes of this chapter, “youth work” is intentional programming or collective action done with or in support of young people and their positive development. In many contexts around the world, this work would be done by professional youth workers who are specially educated or otherwise prepared for such a role. In the contexts we describe, however, the youth workers are most often members of the youth associations, as described above. METHODOLOGY The Dadaab case study is based on Carole’s work with small teams made up of representatives from over 80 youth associations from the five camps that make up the Dadaab refugee camp. This work was organized through RET International as a component of the organization’s larger strategy supporting youth in Dadaab. As part of this strategy, Carole provided consultation on youth-directed activism and peace building, community development, and intergenerational partnerships. The consultations occurred over the course of a year; they involved two site visits, including trainings, coaching, program follow-up, and a certain amount of just “hanging out.” Formative and summative data collection and analysis were conducted at several points throughout the year to guide the consultation process and to better understand how participants applied the trainings and accomplished their work, including the skills they used, the relationships they built, and the successes and challenges they encountered while implementing their projects. Data collection methods included participant observations, photo documentation, individual surveys, and structured reflections with RET staff, youth leaders, and training participants from the youth associations. The Gaya Island case study is part of a cross-national initiative on youth and adult partnership, aimed at examining how youth and adults work together in the service of youth and community development (Krauss, Dahalan, & Zeldin, 2015; Zeldin, Gauley, Krauss, Kornbluh, & Collura, 2015). As part of the mixed-method analytic approach, case studies were conducted to identify best practices and culturally relevant strategies used by different youth and community groups. The youth association on Gaya Island was selected due to its unique experience in working intergenerationally as a program provider and community organizer. Toward this end, Steve, Shep, and a Malaysian colleague, Dzuhailmi, made several trips to the Island over the course of one year to collect data through observation, interviews, and focus groups; they reviewed documents about the Island such as historical

16    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

white papers, PowerPoint presentations made to government bodies, and photographs of programs and activities. For the purpose of this chapter, the authors came together to conduct a comparative analysis. We began by reviewing literature on youth voice and youth work in developing countries and vulnerable contexts in the United States (Adam & Oshima, 2014; Camino & Zeldin, 2002; Kasumagic, 2008; MacNeil, 2013; Magnuson & Baizerman, 2007; Nga & King, 2006). This literature grounded the analysis. Most importantly, it highlighted the critical role of collective action of youth, often in the form of youth associations, in vulnerable areas. It underscored the creativity, faith, and persistence that youth and their adult allies needed to bring their hopes and potential to fruition. Building from that foundation, we focused our analytic attention on how youth associations identified and mobilized resources in spaces where capital is not obvious or readily available. What strategies did the youth associations employ? What beliefs guided their work? What was most critical to their success, given that the youth in Dadaab and Gaya Island were often confronted with what can be perceived as insurmountable odds? To address these questions, we oriented the analysis toward identifying the commonalities between the two sites. Our assumption was straightforward: There are most certainly key differences between the work of the Dadaab and Gaya Island youth associations. If the data showed that certain strategies “worked” across these two distinct settings, we would be confident in declaring that strategy as a “practical insight” to guide future youth work in highly vulnerable places. Through face-to-face discussions, video conferences, and sharing of analysis notes among our team, common themes emerged. In an iterative fashion, we continued to probe these themes more deeply and more critically, looking for additional evidence to support or refute the emerging findings. We ultimately arrived at the four practical insights presented in this chapter. THE CHALLENGES OF MARGINALIZATION In spite of the fact that Dadaab has existed as a refugee camp for over 20 years, and even though many of the tents have evolved into semipermanent structures, there is still a sense that living here is a temporary condition (see Photo 1.1). The residents of the camps have little freedom of movement; they cannot leave the camps without official identification and permission to travel. During discussions, residents described dynamics that are not readily apparent to the visitor: lack of trust among groups (which may be based on camp residence, tribal membership, age group, or length of time living in Dadaab), security issues, and tensions between the cultural traditions of elders and the ideas of many of the youth. Adults, they reported, often hold

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    17

Photo 1.1

an extreme distrust of youth, associating the violent activities of some militant groups with youth in general. Youth feel frustrated by the limitations of educational or economic opportunities and by the constraints on their freedom. Gaya’s fishing villages (Photo 1.2) consist of traditional wooden homes built on pillars erected from the ocean floor. It is common for immediate

Photo 1.2

18    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

and extended families to stay together in two or three rooms, which can result in more than seven people living together (Said, 2011). Water taxis provide the main source of transportation for those working on the mainland. Years of systematic marginalization and neglect by their political leaders and the mainland Sabahan community has left Gaya’s residents with little in the way of basic services and infrastructure. In our conversations with both youth and adults on Gaya, it became clear that for the youth of Gaya, geographic isolation limits their sense of connection, economic hardship confines their living conditions, and the discrimination from being presumed illegal is a source of disillusionment and alienation to many. Few see much of a future for themselves outside of the small-scale fishing of their fathers or the underpaid, unskilled work of their mothers. Practical Insight 1: Effective youth work responded directly to prevailing community issues, as prioritized by youth, and continuously adapted to changing events and conditions. In both Dadaab and Gaya, the voluntary youth associations represent youths’ most visible and collective response to marginalization and to the community needs and issues they deemed as high priority for action. Indeed, the youth associations in Dadaab developed among youth because of shared concerns around a community problem, a pressing need, or a desire for new opportunities. The association might form, then dissipate or morph into something else, where some of those same youth would come together again with a different focus. The leadership and membership of groups shifted and fluxed as the groups responded to changing external circumstances (such as security alerts or new funding opportunities) or to changing internal dynamics (such as shifts in the “critical mass” of the membership who was interested in a particular issue). As is the case in many developing contexts (MacNeil, Ragan, & Solberg, 2012), the youth associations in Dadaab often had a sophisticated understanding of the complexity of the issues in their communities. They recognized a wide range of community issues, including the lack of educational, social, and economic opportunities; insecurity (violence and conflict); drugs; and issues of gender-based violence. For example, a group of youth associations from different camps throughout Dadaab had decided collectively to work on promoting girls’ education in their respective camps. While they all shared the goal of enrolling more girls into school, their paths diverged once they began their work in community. Some associations found that barriers to girls’ education were linked to ethnic tensions in mixed schools, so their focus shifted to conflict resolution work in the

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    19

community; others found barriers of infrastructure, child labor, or cultural attitudes that needed to be addressed, so their plans, likewise, shifted accordingly as they responded to their communities’ diverse environments and challenges. From the outside, one might call it “mission drift”; from the inside, it was, instead, a process of refocusing to try to address one or more of the underlying causes of the issue. While fluid and flexible, the associations were not without structure. In some cases, the groups had identifiable leadership, structured into positions (e.g., president, secretary) elected from within the association. In other cases, the structure emerged from less formal protocols. Individuals emerged as leaders because they were an older youth, a founder of the group, or a religious leader in the community. Within these structures, group members would often defer to the leaders, who held considerable sway over group decisions. On Gaya Island, BESUGA started out as a youth development organization but evolved significantly over its first seven years in response to important community issues. Building on their initial success with sports programs, which proved to be very popular with both youth and adult residents, the association began to identify additional needs. They began with skills that were deemed most critical for Gaya’s youth to be competitive off the island, with a focus on specific competencies in the areas of communication and languages (primarily English), leadership, and computer skills. To address the broader educational needs of the community, their programs were also expanded to include adults. Because of their responsiveness to youth needs, the association began to be seen as a resource by more villages on Gaya. Their positive reputation grew and so did their scope of work. For example, the island’s school principal and other elders approached the association to help address concerns about students’ school achievement and behavior. Although none of the association members had any formal training in youth or social work, they began working with parents and teachers to help students re-engage with school. Consequently, the association began to see themselves as a competent resource and influential community asset. This evolution culminated in the association’s largest and most ambitious project: the acquisition of water and electricity infrastructure for the villages of Gaya. Only until recently, the villages had to purchase potable water shipped in daily from Kota Kinabalu. Expensive, gasoline-powered generators were used for electricity for the relatively few families who could afford them. Things began to change in 2008, however. The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government experienced a near defeat in the country’s general election. The youth of Gaya knew that their political leaders could no longer take Gaya Island’s political support for granted. To take advantage of the situation, the association enlisted the support of influential adults from Kota

20    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

Kinabalu, and together, they invited local politicians to the island. After listening to harsh rebukes from community, academic, and business leaders, the government agreed to provide electricity and running water to Gaya. The youth pivoted quickly from an advocacy to implementation focus. Recognizing that few Gaya residents knew what it was like to have a dedicated supply of water and electricity, the youth responded by taking the lead on educating families about their new resource. To do so, the association capitalized on the strengths found within the association, making the most of whatever skills they had to conduct programs and provide services. What they lacked, they made up for through smart partnerships. Having members who ranged in age from adolescence to those in their thirties also gave the association an all-important “ear to the ground” on community needs. They learned first-hand the concerns of diverse residents. Such learning allowed the association to manage the infrastructure development and overcome fears in an effective manner. In brief, while the association still focused on youth development, they recognized the necessity of moving in and out of their core area of focus. Practical Insight 2: Effective youth work required the ongoing identification and creative mobilization of local (material, financial, and human) resources. Almost all youth organizations, particularly in high-poverty areas, struggle to find the resources necessary to do their work. The youth associations in both Dadaab and Gaya, however, revealed that the challenge is not insurmountable and conveyed important insights about the ways that creativity and collaboration can be used to mobilize resources for youth work. In Dadaab, a most pressing challenge was the mindset of scarcity that comes from years of not having enough (i.e., food, water, space, freedom) and from having to struggle for basic needs. The Dadaab camps host nearly three times more people than their intended capacity (Refugee Education Trust, n.d.). Further, a pattern of dependence is created because so many basic resources are provided by UN agencies and NGOs. Likewise, many of the project resources available to youth associations also come from these outside agencies. When the groups are too small or not visible enough to qualify for grants, their members often assume that they can’t operate until they access funds from international agencies. So, when the youth associations in Dadaab began to develop their projects, their first assumption was that they couldn’t get started without a grant from an international agency. However, after training and discussion, the members began to recognize that there were creative ways they could accomplish their tasks without getting funding, per se. If they wanted funds to rent a space to provide training,

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    21

could they instead barter for use of the space? If one group needed equipment for a project, could they borrow it from another group, perhaps in exchange for something the other group needed? Because there is a pervasive sense of competition for scarce resources, the idea of collaborating among “competing” groups was a challenging idea. It was difficult for groups to realize they could share resources between and among groups to help each other reach their goals, or that they could share ideas and plans with other groups. But when they did, they began to see new opportunities for networking, thus amplifying their human and material resources. When Carole guided the youth associations through a mapping exercise of their communities, they were surprised to discover just how many material resources they could actually access throughout their communities: mosques/churches, distribution centers, informal gathering places, police stations, schools, hospitals, offices, markets, parks, and sports fields, among others (see Photo 1.3). The trainings further supported the youth in strengthening skills that would support them in mobilizing these and other resources in creative and effective ways. For example, project planning tools helped them determine what resources were needed, when they were needed (e.g., an adequate space for training), and who might be able to help them access those resources (e.g., the person managing the NGO or community agency using that space). Conflict resolution training helped equip them to deal with any opposition they might face from community

Photo 1.3

22    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

members. Training skills helped them prepare other association members to be more effective in their community activism, while simultaneously modeling an assets approach by putting community youth at the front of the room as trainers, rather than people from outside the community. In fact, more than a year later, the youth association members were still talking about the concept of starting with assets. While it continued to be a challenging idea to implement in an ongoing way, it was also one that they reported had had a great impact on them—by increasing their confidence and their level of community engagement. The location of Gaya afforded the youth association close proximity to a significant amount of material and economic resources. Systematic marginalization and gripping poverty, however, had prevented the association from benefitting from the rapid economic development of mainland Kota Kinabalu. Despite this context, BESUGA worked diligently to get what they needed. They had been moderately successful at accessing resources, mostly on an in-kind basis (for example, computer donations from an organization in Kota Kinabalu to conduct their computer training classes, and land and materials from their local community leaders to run their sports programs and classes). Depending on the type of program they were offering, they were also successful in soliciting modest amounts of financial sponsorship from local universities, technical colleges, and other outside organizations. They leveraged participation in their tournaments by charging youth an entrance fee of one Ringgit (approximately 30 cents) that doubled as a membership fee for non-association members. This approach had been highly effective in recruiting youth into the organization. One of the association’s greatest strengths was its mobilization of internal resources—those found within the association and Gaya Island community. Association members identified who had the capacities to do certain duties. Some youth, for example, were able to provide counseling services to school students and parents, while other members pushed themselves to figure out how to educate community adults on using electricity, organizing environmental awareness programs for the community, and teaching computer classes. Other resources utilized by the association included the time and labor allocated by community adults including manpower to build sports facilities for tournaments, stages for performances, and cooking (food) for events. As poor fishermen with little formal education, many of the adult residents helped in relatively simple ways that were proportionate with their resources and abilities. Youth association members insisted that partnership had been the key to unlocking the resources needed to maximize program effectiveness, as they did when advocating for running water and electricity. Succeeding where the adults before them had failed, the association built smart partnerships with academic leaders from nearby University of Malaysia-Sabah (UMS),

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    23

representatives from Kota Kinabalu City Hall, and the state electric company, among others. These partnerships with community leaders helped apply the necessary pressure on the local politicians, who began to realize that the issue was one of social justice. Adult leaders on Gaya had taken a unilateral approach in past attempts to lobby for infrastructure on the island; these failed at least in part because there simply was not enough community pressure put on the politicians to force change. However, the association’s coalition-building work proved to be the difference, marking their evolution in becoming an intermediary agent capable of linking the Gaya community with outside resources. Practical Insight 3: Effective youth work built relationships and partnerships among youth and community elders using a wide range of strategies. The Dadaab and Gaya Island youth associations were clearly adept at identifying and mobilizing what they needed to do their work. Yet the fact remains that financial and material resources were often negligible to the task at hand, while their human resources were by far the largest potential source of support, including youth, adults, and elders within the community. For this reason, the associations spent much more time managing their human resources and developing a variety of strategies for getting and keeping the community engaged. In Dadaab, strong cultural and religious traditions govern the roles of young women and men. Youth voice and youth activism can be seen as a threat to the cultural traditions of the Somalis living in the camps who are already feeling pressure to maintain their homeland traditions. At the same time, many of the younger youth in this project had lived in the camps most of their lives and had no real memories of Somalia. They were also influenced by Kenyan culture and other ideas from outside the community. Thus, it was not unusual to see Somali youth pushing back against some traditional practices like forced early marriage or female genital mutilation (FGM). This created tension, and sometimes a power struggle, as the tribal elders asserted their authority. Even given this context, however, the youth understood that to get things accomplished, they needed, at minimum, the approval of elders and, at times, their active participation. When asked, the youth explained that adults can contribute wisdom and experience to help solve problems and can provide guidance and encouragement. Youth expressed their appreciation for traditions, even while sometimes pushing against them, and said that involving adults helped ensure the maintenance of culture and

24    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

traditions. And practically speaking, the elders often had access to resources to which the youth did not. But these relationships were not easy. Youth told us that they felt excluded from community decision making and experienced a lack of respect from the adults, who tended to see the youth as problems. To overcome these hurdles for intergenerational work, youth identified and used a wide range of strategies. According to the youth members, increasing communication between groups was critical. This might include communicating their respect for the elders and the roles they play and working to incorporate those elders into the association plans. It might also include creating opportunities to meet and share information (or, in the words of one youth, “sort out matters together”). In a culture that values oral traditions, simply sitting together could be a powerful strategy. At times, cultivating the partnership required negotiation; at other times, it was more about coaxing and encouraging. Youth used a variety of strategies to build the partnerships: They tried to show adults how youth contributed to the community; they worked to “speak the language” of adult community leaders and remained sensitive to cultural norms; they tried to find incentives for adults to work with them; they flexed their schedules to coordinate with the schedules of adults; and they found adult allies who could speak on their behalf and help them gain access to other people or resources. On Gaya Island, according to both the association members and residents interviewed, collaboration and partnership are what had allowed BESUGA to overcome many of the challenges that often derail the efforts of other Malaysian youth associations. Such challenges often include getting—and keeping—adult community members involved, and finding meaningful roles for both youth and adults. When we talked to adult residents on Gaya, there was a strong desire to support the association’s efforts. The association leaders recognized the adults’ sacrifice and support and the importance of their partnership with adults in the community. BESUGA’s expanded focus into nonformal education and skills training facilitated their entrée into community engagement and organizing. Following a successful start-up period where they increased their membership mainly through sports, they began to broaden their scope of work building on the visibility and legitimacy they had gained in the eyes of adult residents and community leaders. School officials, parents, and village leaders began to look up to BESUGA. Even adult residents with no ties to the organization began to notice that BESUGA was sparking greater cohesion among the island residents. As the association’s influence began to spread across the 11 villages on the island, it required forming working relationships with more community leaders. In rural Malaysian culture, the role of the Village Head (ketua kampong) is particularly significant, and his permission is vital to conduct any

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    25

activity within his respective village. Garnering the Village Head’s support essentially ensures the subsequent support of the village residents. For this reason, the association had to go out of its way to include the Village Heads in the planning and execution of programs, which was met with different levels of acceptance. Because the island had been so under-resourced, there tended to be universal acceptance of the need for youth activities. This proved to be an important selling point for the association when it sat down with Village Heads and other adult leaders who might have otherwise been hesitant to collaborate with youth (see Photo 1.4). Despite broad support, the association had occasionally faced what they described as “turf” issues with Village Heads following their successful penetration into the villages. Once they received initial approval from the Village Heads to conduct sports programs, the heads often became apprehensive upon seeing how positively their residents embraced the association’s work. This made it difficult to offer programs in other areas. According to the association members, Village Heads often felt threatened when their residents embraced “outside” groups. The association attempted to address this issue by emphasizing their desire to serve the villages and help the Village Heads in any matters relating to youth well-being. Most Village Heads responded positively, yet a small number remained distrustful of BESUGA. Outside Gaya, the association utilized a variety of linkages to build working partnerships. For example, the association president was an employee

Photo 1.4

26    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

at a nearby technical-vocational institute, and he used his workplace networks to acquire sponsorship for some of the association’s programs, as did other members of the Exco. They also engaged academics at the nearby University of Malaysia–Sabah to give talks during environmental awareness programs and constantly worked to expand their networking with other youth associations in Sabah. From BESUGA’s perspective, partnership and collaboration were critical to the future sustainability of the association. Practical Insight 4: Effective youth work emphasized skill building through processes that were responsive, experiential, asset-based, and ongoing. Clearly, the youth associations of Dadaab and Gaya Island had a wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion; at the same time, interviews and surveys revealed that the association leaders in both Dadaab and Gaya were keenly aware that they and their members needed training and support in a range of areas. Very few of the youth had formal training in youth work, project management, conflict resolution, or other key skills. While they developed many skills experientially, they may have lacked some fundamental knowledge and skills that would have helped them achieve their aims more effectively. The work with youth associations in Dadaab revealed some important aspects of supporting the de facto youth worker in her or his work and provided opportunities to learn how outside resources for capacity building (i.e., outside trainers or coaches) could be leveraged most effectively to take advantage of the experiential and ongoing skill development already happening within the association. Certainly, there is a need for technical training and capacity building; the youth had definite ideas about the skills that they wanted to develop. Those topics were wide-ranging, and included conflict resolution; leadership; strategies for working together; project planning; and specific topics related to health, education, and other social issues. Often, the topics youth wanted to learn were challenging ones. For example, what the youth in this case study claimed was most interesting and useful—such as intergenerational partnerships and asset-based community development (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993)—also happened to be what they identified as the most difficult concepts to grasp and then later implement. Initial capacity-building trainings for association leaders—as well as the follow-up trainings they then led for other association leaders and members—worked best when the selection of topics was made in partnership with the associations. As in other marginalized areas, the youth leaders required training that was delivered over time, rather than from a “one-off” model. Ongoing support, combined with direct experience, was especially important to really

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    27

hone the skill. For example, many of the youth who participated in the Dadaab trainings found it much easier to identify the problems and deficiencies of their community than it was to identify the assets within the community. But, when they began to see that they already had resources— within themselves, within their associations, and within the larger community—there was an extraordinary shift. A year later, they talked about the concept and practice of “starting with assets” as having had a major influence on their work and lives. But the concept and practice had to be learned experientially, not just during the training, but through ongoing coaching and through implementing the concept in their day-to-day practice. Creating ongoing support, instead of one-time training, can be challenging in these contexts, where NGOs often face pressures from donors to reach higher numbers of “beneficiaries.” In Dadaab, the NGO (RET) addressed this challenge by combining introductory level trainings, refresher courses, and “cascading trainings” where youth who had received training would, in turn, train other members of their associations. Trainings to build skills were complemented by ongoing coaching to encourage the continuing development and application of the skills learned during the associations’ work on community change projects. Follow-up evaluation on the work of the youth associations showed that this integrated approach was working, and the groups were continuing to accomplish a range of projects in the camps. Youth association leaders who had participated in the initial trainings had gone on to lead additional trainings in the different camps within Dadaab, and each of the more than 80 youth associations were implementing at least one social change activity in their respective camps. What’s more, other community members were beginning to share their “new” insights about how youth could be community leaders. BESUGA did not have the level of technical support as did the associations in Dadaab. Thus, they worked on creating a homegrown strategy of youth work that relied on the strengths of the association members, especially the leaders. Association leaders considered skills development a major thrust of the organization’s work on Gaya Island and freely acknowledged that sports were the means for getting young people involved. Nevertheless, skills development in areas such as computers, leadership, and communication was the long-term goal. To ensure that the work would remain ongoing and a fixed asset within the community, at the time of our interviews the association was laying the groundwork for a community education center called the GITC (Gaya Island Training Center). Their vision was to make the GITC an eventual hub for the association’s community programs. Employment opportunities for young people outside of fishing have always been limited on Gaya Island. The leaders of the association were determined to see that change by helping the youth acquire skills that would allow them to give back to the community both economically and socially.

28    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

To the association’s leaders, the answer to many of the youths’ problems was education, of which the leaders themselves were role models. Most of the leaders had acquired at least some form of postsecondary education. Some had started small businesses, while others held midlevel positions in organizations in Kota Kinabalu. Their formal education was augmented by what they learned on the job in founding and leading the association, which provided them with basic organizational and management skills. Many of their youth work skills had been learned experientially as well, such as when they were asked to provide support services to parents of troubled students and conduct motivational programs with youth at risk of dropping out of school. In our interviews, the association leaders acknowledged their limitations and need for training in other areas such as counseling, fundraising, and program development. Despite their accomplishments, the association leaders felt that many youth could not yet appreciate BESUGA’s role in the community beyond their sports programs. This had led to difficulty in recruiting and grooming new leaders and obtaining greater buy-in and support from the younger members (and their parents) for the educational component of their work. One approach they were using to address this challenge was to target those younger members of the association who had the most potential to become future leaders. They would invite these recruits to share in the leadership responsibilities according to their capacity and mentor them along the way. Using this targeted approach, they were focusing their efforts on those with the most interest in being involved in the running of the association. CONCLUSION Youth workers are critical to the health and well-being of marginalized communities and peoples across the world. At their best, youth workers can respond to the lived experiences of youth while simultaneously creating the supports and opportunities needed so that youth discover their potential, explore new possibilities, and connect with community. There is no substitute for good youth work. But in so many places, professional youth workers do not exist. Our analysis of Dadaab and Gaya Island, however, demonstrates that youth associations, acting as de facto youth workers, manage to achieve significant accomplishments in developing, under-resourced, and vulnerable contexts. We believe that the young people in Dadaab and Gaya Island have demonstrated four practical insights that could be used to broaden and strengthen conceptualizations of youth work in the future. The processes through which the young people engaged in their work are inspiring. The youth associations vividly illustrated how important it is to have youth workers—be

Voluntary Association, Youth Voice, and Collective Action    29

they young or old, part of a formal association or not—who are motivated to get things done through collective action in the face of severe adversity. The youth we worked with, observed, and interviewed found ways to mobilize people and resources, to be inclusive and work across differences, and to adapt to quickly changing environments. They maintained vigilance to strategic opportunities. When necessary, the young people reached out to adult residents and to community elders to harness institutional or cultural power. When things did not work out as planned, they changed course. Equally importantly, the young people learned by doing. And armed with this experience, they sought to teach their peers and other community members what they had learned. The success of these youth associations suggests that those concerned with the efficacy of youth and community work—be it through work in grassroots communities, international aid organizations, foundation initiatives, or empirical study—can learn important things from the youth in our communities. In our judgment, the practices of the Dadaab and Gaya Island youth associations could profitably lead the youth work profession to reflect on assumptions about the goals of effective youth work, the structure and formalization of organizations, and prevailing strategies of collective action. Most concisely, we believe that the youth associations underscore the necessity of youth-directed action and intergenerational partnership as a policy and funding priority. These associations remind us that youth work gains its influence when it affirmatively seeks to involve and support all members of a community, not only those with the most obvious sources of power, knowledge, or skill. NOTES 1. Typically a country is considered to be—or labels itself as—”developing” when its GNI or gross national income falls below a certain level and/or when the industrial base and infrastructure is not sufficient to support its population. 2. International development agencies, also, have differing definitions of “youth.” The United Nations defines youth as ages 15–24, while the World Bank use a more flexible definition of youth as a “transitional period” between the dependence of childhood and the independence of adulthood. 3. Malaysia’s new National Youth Development Policy revises the official age to 15–30 years old. The policy was tabled in April 2015 and is expected to be fully implemented in 2018. 4. RET International is an independent, nonpartisan, international, nongovernmental organization, which assists communities throughout the world to meet the educational and developmental needs of young people who have been impacted by displacement, violence, armed conflict, and disasters (theret.org).

30    C. MACNEIL, S. E. KRAUSS, and S. ZELDIN

REFERENCES Adam,S., & Oshima, K. (2014). Engaging youth through community-driven development operations: Experiences, findings, and opportunities. Washington, DC: Social Development Department, World Bank. Camino, L., & Zeldin, S. (2002). From periphery to center: Pathways for youth civic engagement in the day-to-day life of communities. Applied Developmental Science, 6(4), 213–221. Kasumagic, L. (2008). Engaging youth in community development: Post-war healing and recovery in Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Review of Education, 54, 375–392. Krauss, S. E., Dahalan, D., & Zeldin, S. (2015). The Gaya Island Youth Association: Intergenerational partnership and social justice in a Malaysian fishing community. In M. Heathfield & D. Fusco (Eds.), Youth and inequality in education: Global actions in youth work (pp. 53–70). New York, NY: Routledge. Kretzmann, J., & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. Chicago, IL: ACTA. MacNeil, C. (2013). Supporting asset-based youth and community development in conflict zones: A training example from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Children, Youth and Environments, 23(1), 211–220. MacNeil, C., Ragan, D., & Solberg, J. (2012). State of the field in youth-led development: Through the lens of the Un-Habitat’s Urban Youth Fund. Global Youth-Led Development Series. Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). Magnuson, D., & Baizerman, M. (Eds.). (2007). Work with youth in divided and contested societies. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Nga, J., & King, V. (2006). Youth organizations’ participation in the nation building of Malaysia. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds. Refugee Education Trust. (n.d.). Kenya. Retrieved from http://theret.org/en/ where-we-work/2/kenya Said, H. M. (2011). Promoting community-based tourism in Bajau Laut community in Kampung Pulau Gaya, Sabah. Universiti Tun Abdul Razak E-Journal, 7(2), 46–57. Retrieved from http://www.unirazak.edu.my/research/ejournal/cases/SUSTAINABLECULTURALTOURISMINPULAU_GAYAFinalSubmit31012012.pdf UNESCO. (2013). World radio day: Statistics on youth. Retrieved from http://www. unesco.org/new/en/ unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/ international-days/world-radio-day-2013/statistics-on-youth/ USAID. (2012). Youth in development: Realizing the demographic opportunity. Youth policy toolkit. Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development. World Bank. (2007). Youth—an undervalued asset: Towards a new agenda in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress, challenges and way forward. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Zeldin, S., Gauley, J., Krauss, S. E., Kornbluh, M. & Collura, J. (2015). Youth-adult partnership and youth civic development: A cross-national analysis for scholars and field professionals. Youth & Society. doi: 10.1177/0044118X15595153

CHAPTER 2

CREDENTIALING FOR YOUTH WORK Expanding Our Thinking Elizabeth Starr and Ellen Gannett Wellesley College

Credentials are a means by which a profession recognizes an individual’s performance based on a set of defined skills and knowledge (Dennehy, Gannett, & Robbins, 2006). Credential programs typically define the types of training (based on core competencies), number of training hours, and evidence of skill development that are appropriate for certification. They thus provide a clear, consistent path for professional development and recognize individuals who demonstrate competence and skill (Gannett, Mello, & Starr, 2009). While some have touted the merits of credentialing for the youth work field, others have expressed concerns about introducing a credentialing system nationwide. This is a critical time to reexamine what a nationally recognized youth work credential would look like and how it could benefit the field. There is growing interest in expanded learning time (ELT). At the same time, the definition of youth work is widening; there is more focus on quality, and the The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 31–49 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

31

32    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

National Afterschool Association has adopted nationally recognized core competencies for afterschool and youth development professionals. In this chapter, we reexamine the possibility of a nationally recognized credential in youth work and explore several questions: Why have people been wary of credentialing? What can be done to mitigate these concerns? What would a credential look like? What could a newly imagined credential do for the field of youth work, and ultimately for youth? First, we discuss recent changes in the youth work landscape. Next, we highlight both the benefits of credentialing—for children and youth, youth workers, and the field—and the concerns: namely, preserving the field’s rich diversity and unique perspectives. After exploring ways to mitigate the concerns, we present an alternative, which starts from the points of agreement: the desire for a strong, stable, and supported workforce and the right kind of training and education to increase quality. We envision a broad-based credential, arguing that it is ultimately best for the field to expand definitions, embrace and encourage diversity and other strengths, and move toward professional recognition for youth workers. RECENT CHANGES IN THE LANDSCAPE Until a few years ago, critics could have argued that the youth work field had not established the foundation on which to build a nationally recognized credential. However, developments over the past decade have changed the landscape of youth work. There is a growing interest in ELT. This trend, combined with an expanding definition of youth work, the proliferation of quality improvement systems (QIS), and the creation of nationally recognized core competencies, has opened up opportunity. Growing Interest in ELT Interest in expanding the school day and year has been growing, largely because of its promise to reduce the educational and opportunity gap for low-income children (Farbman, 2015). Charter schools are leading the way, but other public schools are beginning to follow suit. Though policymakers have been discussing increasing the amount of time children spend in school since the late 1800s, it has only been since the late 1990s that expanding learning time has gained traction. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act explicitly named “increased learning time” as one of the reforms schools must undertake to be eligible for funding through the School Improvement Grant Program. In 2012, Chicago became the first large urban district to expand the school calendar

Credentialing for Youth Work     33

district-wide, and in 2015, the Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union agreed to expand the school day by forty minutes at 60 elementary and middle-grade schools (National Center on Time and Learning, 2015). Youth work professionals have an important role to play in implementing these reforms by contributing expertise in summer learning, enrichment, and social and emotional learning and by advocating for these important elements to remain in the forefront of the conversation about expanded learning time. Expanding Definitions of Youth Work Historically the field of youth work has been fragmented by different goals, regulations, funding streams, evaluation frameworks, auspices, and locations. For example, afterschool, juvenile justice, summer camp, and residential care have been considered distinct fields. However, these kinds of programs all involve working with young people to achieve similar positive youth outcomes. Definitions that do not limit youth work to a certain setting, age group, or time of day (such as “afterschool”) have been proposed by thought leaders in the field. The Next Generation Youth Work Coalition’s 2004 definition of youth workers is one of the early examples of this expanded thinking. It defines youth workers as “individuals who work with or on behalf of youth to facilitate their personal, social and educational development and enable them to gain a voice, influence and place in society as they make the transition from dependence to independence” (Stone, Garza, & Borden, 2004, p. 9). Similarly, the Association for Child and Youth Care Practice (ACYCP), an organization that has established a nationally available credential in youth work, has a broad-reaching definition: [Youth work] focuses on infants, children, and adolescents, including those with special needs, within the context of the family, the community, and the life span. . . . Professional practitioners promote the optimal development of children, youth, and their families in a variety of settings, such as early care and education, community-based child and youth development programs, parent education and family support, school-based programs, community mental health, group homes, residential centers, day and residential treatment, early intervention, home-based care and treatment, psychiatric centers, rehabilitation programs, pediatric health care, and juvenile justice programs. (ACYCP, 2010, p. 2)

While the field still struggles with nomenclature, a developmental framework under which youth workers are unified by their approach and core

34    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

values is becoming more common in the literature. A broad definition of youth work unites the field and creates a stronger profession and discipline. Quality Improvement Systems (QIS) The proliferation of formal statewide, regional, and citywide quality systems is another important trend changing the landscape of youth work. QIS are an intentional effort to raise the quality of afterschool and youth work programming in an ongoing, organized fashion. Similarly, a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), common in early childhood education, is a formal quality-assessment process that translates into a way to rank licensed childcare programs in a city or state. The National AfterSchool Association (NAA) has identified thirty states with a QRIS that includes programs that serve school-age children during out-of-school time (NAA, 2015b). Among the reasons QIS are growing in popularity is an increased attention to quality by field leaders, policymakers, and legislators. Research shows that program quality determines whether programs meet their youth developmental and academic goals (e.g., Durlak & Weissburg, 2007; Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Lauer, Akiba, Wilkerson, Apthorp, Snow, & MartinGlenn, 2006; Vandell, 2013). Higher quality programs mean better experiences for kids. However, quality is uneven across, and even within, afterschool programs (Yohalem, Devaney, Smith, &Wilson-Ahlstrom, 2012). At the core of QIS is a shared understanding of what makes a high-quality program, informed by research and defined by program quality standards; there is now a body of research that points to common characteristics of quality programs. For example, Eccles and Gootman (2002) identified a number of common characteristics across high-quality out-of-school time programs, including positive relationships between program participants and staff, positive relationships among program participants, a blend of academic and developmental skill-building activities, high levels of student engagement, an orientation toward mastery of knowledge and skills, appropriate levels of structure, and opportunities for autonomy and choice. Quality program standards put this kind of research into a usable form, offering guidelines. Standards typically address best practices in domains such as curriculum and activities, physical environment, health and safety, child/youth–staff interactions, family–staff interactions, and program management (NAA, 2015b, p. 3). Quality standards in programs for older youth may also focus on youth engagement. NAA introduced the Standards for Quality School-Age Care in 1998. At least 30 states have since adopted these standards or developed their own. QIS and standards provide a unifying definition of quality for the field.

Credentialing for Youth Work     35

Nationally Recognized Core Competencies Core knowledge and competencies that define expectations of youth workers are becoming widespread, even mainstream. Many states have developed their own core competency frameworks (Starr, Yohalem, & Gannett, 2009). Some are specific to certain age groups, but increasingly these frameworks are aligned across a continuum of ages from early childhood through age 18 (such as in Kansas, Missouri, and Washington state). The Association for Child and Youth Care Practice and the Child and Youth Care Certification Board have developed the Competencies for Professional Child and Youth Work Practitioners, which were revised in 2010.1 In 2011, the NAA adopted a set of nationally recognized, research-based core knowledge and competencies based on frameworks already in use around the country (NAA, 2011). The competencies are broad, applying to those who work with a range of ages (5–18 years) and in various settings. The NAA’s ten competency areas are designed to be relevant to all age groups and settings, allowing for indicators that can be customized to meet specific needs: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Child and youth growth and development Learning environment and curriculum Child/youth observation and assessment Interactions with children and youth Youth engagement Cultural competency and responsiveness Family, school, and community relationships Safety and wellness Program planning and development Professional development and leadership

The NAA Core Knowledge and Competencies, along with state and local examples of broad core competencies, essentially define what it means to be a youth work professional. CREDENTIALING Youth worker credentialing is gaining momentum. Many states, including Michigan, Indiana, and Missouri, have developed their own youth work credentials, and the NAA has named credentialing as an important part of maintaining high-quality programs and supporting youth workers. The NAA further recommends the creation of a system of professional recognition, such as an afterschool professional credential or a series of certifications as part of an aligned professional development system (NAA, 2015a).

36    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

Potential Benefits Research has shown that credentialing can benefit the field in significant ways and at multiple levels by improving program quality and outcomes for children and youth, supporting individual youth workers, and advancing the field (Gannett et al., 2009). Improving Program Quality and Youth Outcomes Research indicates that staff training affects program quality. The Massachusetts Afterschool Research Study (Miller & Hall, 2007) found that programs with more highly educated and trained staff demonstrated higher staff and youth engagement and better activities than programs with less educated and trained staff. Other studies have similarly shown that professional development can significantly affect program quality (Dennehy et al., 2006; Harvard Family Research Project, 2004; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Research further suggests that credentialed youth workers offer significantly higher-quality programs than their equally educated but noncertified peers (Dennehy & Noam, 2005). Through pre- and post-credential assessments, the New York School Age Care Credential Evaluation documented interactions among staff and school-age children, implementation of activities, overall program structure, space, and furnishings. The findings indicate that credential programs had a positive impact on program quality in school-age settings; changes were not seen in program quality in the comparison group, in which youth workers did not obtain credential training (McCable & Cochran, 2006). In a series of Massachusetts studies, researchers found teacher and provider education to be a strong and consistent predictor of programming quality for early education and care programs in centers, public schools, and family childcare homes (Marshall, Dennehy, Starr, & Robeson, 2005). In addition, Marshall et al. (2003) found providers who held a Child Development Associate credential provided higherquality programs than did providers without the credential. A growing body of research suggests that practitioner training, professional development classes, and education improve child and youth outcomes such as academic achievement and social emotional development (Curry, Schneider-Munoz, Eckles, & Stuart, 2012; Dennehy et al., 2006; Durlak & Weissbourd, 2007). For example, a review of 1,300 studies of the impact of professional development revealed that providing teachers with more than 14 hours of training had a positive, significant effect on students’ academic achievement (Yoon, Duncan, Lee, Scarloss, & Shapley, 2007). More recent research shows that high-quality afterschool programs (presumably led by well-trained staff) facilitate the social and emotional development of children and youth in areas such as self-esteem, positive attitudes toward school, and positive social behaviors (American Institutes for Research, 2015).

Credentialing for Youth Work     37

Supporting Youth Workers High job mobility, low compensation, lack of career advancement and formal recognition, and burnout have plagued the youth work field. Youth workers often feel undervalued as professionals (Yohalem & Pittman, 2006). Credentialing would address some of these concerns. Graduates of the Youth Work Certificate at the Community College of Philadelphia reported that the program helped them by improving their counseling skills and self-confidence and by giving them a fuller view of the field of youth development (Watkins, 2012). Similarly, students of the Harold Washington College youth work program in Chicago reported growth in their professional identity and understanding of their roles (Heathfield, 2012). Youth workers who have earned credentials report greater self-confidence and feelings of efficacy in performing their jobs, increased skills and knowledge, greater interest in pursuing higher education, and increased wages. Furthermore, programs that employ credentialed staff have noted reductions in turnover rates (Dennehy et al., 2006; Huang & Cho, 2010). Advancing the Field A qualification that is recognized both internally and publicly would legitimize the field—a key concern for youth workers (Yohalem & Pittman, 2006). As the field becomes more recognizable and credible to the general population, many benefits can be imagined: Families could make informed choices about programs for their children if they were aware of staff credentials, funding might become more readily available, and a high-quality workforce might be drawn to the field. Concerns While credentialing has the power to benefit youth work on multiple levels, some within the field have cautioned against the limitations of credentialing and even the potential harm credentialing may do. Critics argue that requiring a credential could deter rather than encourage people from entering the field and limit access; reduce youth work to purely technical skills, while ignoring the artistry that comes with expertise; and not guarantee an increase in compensation. Limiting Access A national credential might limit access for potential youth workers, leading to less diversity in race, ethnicity, language, age, and socioeconomic status in the workforce. For example, a study in St. Paul found that youth workers feared credentialing would lead to a “whitening” of the field (Cunnien, 2011). Though the study was small (17 youth workers), the author

38    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

echoed the youth workers’ fear that requiring a credential would impose barriers to the field for people of color and for individuals from low-income backgrounds. Though she did not specify why she was concerned about access, presumably it was because of the costs of training and education programs, which include not only fees but also hidden expenses such as transportation and childcare. Others have expressed similar concerns about credentialing and the professionalization of the field and have suggested a less formal system so as not to limit access. Halpern (2002) noted that relying on volunteers and part-time employees has the advantage of providing a more diverse workforce with a variety of different skills and knowledge that can be passed on to youth. Borden, Schlomer, and Wiggs (2011) suggest that professionalization (as measured by salary, education, and status) might estrange youth workers from their clients. One survey of more than 1,000 youth workers found that those who received higher salaries were likely to be both White and more highly educated than less well-paid workers (Yohalem, Pittman, & Moore, 2006). In this survey, though more education was correlated with higher pay (a seemingly good thing for the field), significant racial differences suggest that minorities might have difficulty accessing education. According to Yohalem and Pittman (2006) one strength of the youth work field is the diversity of its workers. Ideally, a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse workforce would mirror the young people in the programs and their families. The field also values a variety of skills and knowledge. It is important to maintain this goal of diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, language, age, socioeconomic status, knowledge, and experience, and not lose it as a byproduct of a credentialing system. Reduction of Youth Work to Purely Technical Skills Youth work is challenging. It is often said to be an art as well as a science (Curry et al., 2012). Some fear the artistry would be lost in a credential program because of a focus on skills and knowledge. In the St. Paul study cited above, youth workers expressed the concern that a credential would not guarantee high quality, since the practice is not a “100% learned craft” (Cunnien, 2011, p. 5). Some aspects are difficult to teach. The daily situations that youth workers face are complex and require understanding. Youth development researchers argue that credentials would have to go beyond identifying the features of high-quality programs to fully examine how effective leaders create and sustain high quality in the midst of challenging situations (Larson & Walker, 2010; Walker & Larson, 2006). Walker and Walker (2012) assert that youth workers must develop practitioner expertise, a combination of knowledge, skills, and judgment. Programs that involve reflective practice (such as the After School Matters Practitioner Fellowship2) are more effective at developing expertise than typical credential programs.

Credentialing for Youth Work     39

Uncertainty of Higher Salaries Cunnien (2011) found that her group of St. Paul youth workers was concerned that a credential would not ensure better pay. They believed that credentialing would be about improving the quality of programs, not their salaries. Others have claimed that increasing salaries is simply not feasible due to lack of resources (Borden et al., 2011). And Lochhead (2001) cautions that increasing salaries might actually price youth workers out of the reach of the populations they serve, since those most in need often depend upon programs with limited resources. Research about this concern is limited. Some youth worker surveys (Yohalem et al., 2006) show that more highly educated (but not necessarily credentialed) workers are better paid, but more investigation is necessary. A credential is not worthwhile if it does not increase individual youth workers’ pay. BUILDING ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS The national trends toward ELT, an expanded definition of youth work, QIS, and a broad, nationally recognized core competency framework have paved the way for the field to seriously consider the introduction of a nationally recognized credential for youth workers—in spite of the concerns. ELT ELT offers the field of youth work an opportunity to ensure that its strengths—expertise in summer and enrichment activities, a positive youth development perspective, and a focus on so-called 21st century skills, or social-emotional learning—are not lost in the quest to close the achievement gap between high- and low-income children, but rather enhance the academic work of schools (Halpern, 2006). Closing the achievement gap is important, and youth work can contribute to that goal (Huang, Cho, Mostafavi, & Nam, 2008), but youth work’s unique contributions need to remain part of the ELT conversation. The youth work field must ensure its workforce is prepared for increased demands. For example, youth workers may need to meet increased academic requirements in STEM and literacy. ELT may create more full-time positions for youth workers, whose skills will be needed throughout the day. School systems, which usually prioritize or require certifications, will probably be doing the hiring. As the nation recognizes that important learning happens during out-of-school time, a nationally recognized credential can help legitimize youth work and ensure the strengths of the field are not overlooked.

40    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

Afterschool and summer programs as we know them—that is, as discrete services for youth and families during specific times—may cease to exist under ELT, but youth work will become more important than ever. The field needs to show that it has an important part to play as the U.S. re-envisions its educational goals.

Expanded Definition of Youth Work An expanded definition of youth work would unify the field and broaden the appeal of a credential that applies across age groups and settings. Such a credential would provide opportunities for full-time employment, careers in school and community settings, and articulation into higher education disciplines such as child and human development, social work, psychology, or education. A broad definition also allows for blended funding streams, so youth work can leverage limited resources (for example, funds dedicated to early childhood and older youth), making both the development and the achievement of a credential easier to realize.

QIS QIS improve youth outcomes only if organizations support the professional development of their staff. Some systems—for example, Pennsylvania Keys—have incorporated both program quality and professional development (including a credential) in their QRIS.3 Credentialing and other professional development opportunities should go hand in hand with QIS to maintain program quality. The wide use of QIS is creating a demand for high-quality professional development opportunities; a nationally recognized credential would fill this need.

Core Competencies Finally, the NAA Core Knowledge and Competencies framework, along with other state and local examples of broadly defined core competencies, could serve as the foundation of a credentialing program. The competencies would determine the coursework; they define the skills and knowledge that youth workers need. Several existing credentialing programs are already aligned with these core competencies.

Credentialing for Youth Work     41

FINDING COMMON GROUND AND RECONCILING DIFFERENCES The two sides of the credentialing debate share much common ground. Both sides want a strong, stable, and supported workforce and agree that the right kinds of training and education increase program quality. Both sides also agree that credentialing is not a “silver bullet.” All want youth work to maintain its unique contribution to improving outcomes for children and youth. Four factors would mitigate the opposition’s concerns: a system of support for youth workers, the maintenance and encouragement of the field’s diversity, the continued development of expertise among youth workers, and the building of pathways for professional advancement. Creating a System of Support Training, credentials, and degrees will ensure a well-trained staff, and therefore quality programs, but the field must also provide appropriate compensation and opportunities for career advancement to youth workers. For a credential to have currency it must be nested in a system that not only values it but also provides the infrastructure for continued professional development. A strong professional development system should include the following elements (National Center on Child Care Professional Development Systems and Workforce Initiatives [PDW Center], 2013; School’s Out Washington, 2008; Starr & Gannett, 2014): • Defined standards of quality for programs and individual staff (core competencies and quality program standards) • Academic pathways for continuing professional growth, including gaining additional credentials and access to training and higher education • Registries or central locations where staff can record trainings attended and credentials or degrees earned. They can also list training opportunities and provide feedback for trainers. • Career pathways/lattices that describe how increases in professional development are connected to advances in position and salary • Compensation increases to ensure that salaries are commensurate with education and experience and incentive programs to reward credentials and other training • Funding, both public and private, to support and sustain a career development system. Links to larger system building efforts, such as QIS, are also important for sustainability.

42    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

The field has already laid the foundation of this support system by defining quality programs and practice, and many organizations are building the other components. The trend toward ELT may open up resources, in the form of funding and public support, to further this system building work. Ensuring Diversity A credential must not become a barrier to entry into the field but rather should encourage racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. Though some fear that a credential would limit access for minority, low-income, or nontraditional age candidates, childcare research shows the opposite. The Child Development Associate (CDA) credential, the national standard in early childhood education, has provided a professional pathway that encourages minority and older women to enter the field (Dennehy et al., 2006). Forty-five to 48 percent of CDA holders are minority women, and more than 90% were adult learners (26 years or older at the time of credentialing). Furthermore, credentials have been shown to be entry points into higher education rather than barriers. Forty-five percent of those who earned the CDA credential received college credit (Bailey, 2004). Similarly, although the exact numbers are not available, many graduates of the Youth Work Certificate program at the Community College of Philadelphia went on to earn college degrees. Seventy-nine percent of current students planned to earn an associate degree, and 74% planned to earn a bachelor’s degree (Watkins, 2012). States that have already established a youth worker credential have found ways to protect the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of the workforce. For example, access has been improved by locating courses offcampus, at churches, and in other community locations. Online courses, a growing trend, are another strategy that states have used to open opportunities to those who may not be able to attend traditional courses because of scheduling, cost, transportation, or other life demands. A nationally recognized credential could have clear expectations yet allow for various ways to meet them. Many credentials incorporate alternative approaches to demonstrate competence such as portfolios. Deadlines for completing requirements could be extended to meet individual needs. A system that translates experience into credit—in early childhood education called a prior learning system—could also be put in place. Mentoring, coaching, and counseling could provide ongoing guidance and encouragement for students who need support to successfully complete a credentialing program (e.g., Curry et al., 2012; Scrivener & Weiss, 2013). Perhaps most importantly, financial support must be made available in order to ensure access to credentialing programs. Using a model that has

Credentialing for Youth Work     43

been successful in providing financial support for early childhood practitioners, Palm Beach County pioneered using the T.E.A.C.H. scholarship program to fund training for youth workers. Child Care and Development Block Grants are the typical funding sources for T.E.A.C.H. early childhood training. The county was able to find an alternative local funding source that did not come with age-group restrictions, which they used to provide scholarships through the T.E.A.C.H. infrastructure for youth workers. They coupled T.E.A.C.H. with the WAGE$ program—another early childhood model that provides education-based salary supplements (Child Care Services Association, 2015). Palm Beach County’s approach could easily be scaled up in other communities. Developing Expertise A nationally recognized credential would not preclude what has been called the artistry of youth work. There is room to foster the artistry and judgment that are central to youth work within credential programs. For example, classes could be grounded in practice and include opportunities for reflection, and portfolios could be used to track skills and knowledge. The Association for Child and Youth Care Practice (ACYCP) established a national professional child and youth care credential in 2008 that addresses both relational strategies and competencies. The assessment process uses a multi-measure approach, including a situational judgment exam, a portfolio, and a supervisor portfolio assessment (Curry et al., 2012). Other state credentials, such as Michigan’s School Age Youth Development Credential,4 similarly include portfolios and external observations and assessments of candidates to ensure the focus is not simply on a checklist of skills. Many youth work core competency frameworks—the underpinnings of credentialing programs—already take into account both relational and content skills and knowledge. Such frameworks include “foundational attitudes,” “beliefs and attributes,” or “dispositions” that cut across all content areas. The NAA Core Knowledge and Competencies document explains, “Dispositions describe how a person perceives his or her work rather than what he or she knows or does. . . .  They may be thought of as part of the ‘art’ of the practice, which work in concert with the ‘science,’ the things one needs to know and be able to do” (NAA, 2011, p. 9). The document lists eleven dispositions that youth workers should possess, such as “reflects on the personal beliefs and values that influence his or her attitudes and practices” and “appreciates and supports the unique and vital role of children’s and youth’s family, school, and community” (NAA, 2011, p. 9).

44    E. STARR and E. GANNETT

Building Pathways for Professional Advancement A credential is neither the only nor the last stop on a career or academic pathway. Professional development must be ongoing. The field needs to offer opportunities to advance skills and learning at every level. Academic pathways, which provide continuing opportunities to build skills, must be strengthened. For example, the Indiana Afterschool Network outlines pathways—from a credential to certificates to associate’s degrees to bachelor’s degrees—that are offered by several community colleges and state universities.5 Similarly, Florida’s Palm Beach State College offers an entry-level school age certification, a school-age professional certificate, and an associate’s degree in youth development.6 Of course, one size does not fit all. While some youth workers may be ready to earn a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree, others may not want to pursue higher education or may already hold an advanced degree. A 2013 NAA survey of their members found that 34% of its members have a master’s or doctorate degree, and 11% had completed some postgraduate work (NAA, 2015b). This is a different picture from the one of youth workers as young, low-educated, and on the path to a future in a different discipline. The field needs to be responsive to the level of professionalism that already exists in the workforce and to provide options for advanced training. This need could be met with a multilevel credential. For example, the early childhood field offers a director’s credential for those advancing in their careers. The NAA core competencies recognize a similar continuum of professional achievement and learning, dividing each of its competency areas into five levels. Each of its levels corresponds to advanced learning, and thus could easily be the foundation of a tiered credential. ENVISIONING A BROAD CREDENTIAL AND ADVANCING THE FIELD A nationally recognized credential for youth work not only requires establishing a system of support, ensuring diversity, fostering the artistry of youth work, and building pathways for career advancement, but it also requires us to think expansively: The system should be broadly defined and multidisciplinary. First, a nationally recognized credential must apply to work with children and youth from ages 5–18. Such continuity would not only help children and families, but also give youth workers flexibility. Second, it must apply to multiple settings. A youth worker needs the same foundation of skills to work with children, youth, and families, whether he or she is at a school-based afterschool program, community-based

Credentialing for Youth Work     45

child and youth development program, residential center, juvenile justice program, or museum or cultural institution. Third, a nationally recognized credential must be interdisciplinary. Historically, youth work has drawn from multiple fields, including mental health, social work, education, and early childhood development. Youth workers act as liaisons among the disciplines. Tomorrow’s youth workers, even more than today’s, will need to be “multilingual”—that is, able to speak the language of educators, social workers, mental health providers, and families. Collaborations and partnerships will be essential in the realm of ELT. Andrew Schneider-Munoz, President of the ACYCP, said, What is important is that the relational strategies and the competencies as we know them in child and youth care work are utilized to prepare the applied development professionals for the future. These practitioners will likely work across venues and combine disciplines to care for vulnerable children, youth, families and communities. (A. Munoz, personal communication, March 10, 2015)

Therefore, where the credential is housed, both literally, in terms of institutions of higher education, and conceptually, needs to be broad and integrated. Positioned at the intersection of school, community, and family—the three main influences on a child’s life—youth work can take on a key role in re-envisioning how children and youth learn and develop. The field must make this geography explicit and truly embrace its multidisciplinary nature. Creative, interdisciplinary academic programs to teach youth work are emerging. Some universities have multidisciplinary programs that, though not explicitly for youth workers, deliver collaborative teaching and scholarship that translates research into practice for healthy youth and communities. For example, the School of Public Health at Indiana University Bloomington takes “new approaches to health, community engagement, and quality of life.”7 The master’s degree in prevention science and practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education teaches students to “promote positive educational, personal, and social outcomes for children and youth, and strengthen the schools and communities that shape their development.”8 In conclusion, if the youth work field carefully and creatively designs a credentialing system, the field will be strengthened. Given the current trend toward ELT and other recent developments in the field, a nationally recognized credential that fully addresses the concerns of all stakeholders and expands our current thinking has the potential to elevate youth work. NOTES 1. https://cyccb.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/competencies_2010.pdf

46    E. STARR and E. GANNETT 2. http://www.niost.org/Practitioner-Fellowship/nasm-fellowship-overview 3. https://www.pakeys.org/pages/get.aspx?page=Programs_STARS 4. http://miafterschool.com/michigan-school-ageyouth-development-certificate-and-credential/ 5. http://www.indianaafterschool.org/quality/higher-education-pathways/ 6. http://www.palmbeachstate.edu/programs/childcare/school-age-professional-certificate-sapc.aspx 7. http://www.publichealth.indiana.edu/about/index.shtml 8. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/masters/psp

REFERENCES American Institutes for Research. (2015). Supporting social and emotional development through quality afterschool programs. Retrieved from http://www.air. org/sites/default/files/downloads/report/Social-and-Emotional-Development-Afterschool-Programs.pdf Association for Child and Youth Care Practice (ACYCP). (2010). Competencies for professional child and youth work practitioners. College Station, TX: Author. Bailey, C. T. (2004). The 2004 National Survey of Child Development Associates (CDAs). Washington, DC: The Council on Professional Recognition. Borden, L., Schlomer, G., & Wiggs, C. (2011). The evolving role of youth workers. Journal of Youth Development, 6(3), 127–138. Child Care Services Association. (2015). The Child Care WAGE$® Project: An evidenceinformed initiative. Retrieved from http://www.childcareservices.org/wagesapps/WAGE$EIFY15.pdf Cunnien, K. (2011). It’s complicated: Crafting a system to support youth work. Retrieved from http://www1.extension.umn.edu/youth/Training-Events/docs/It’sComplicated.pdf Curry, D., Schneider-Munoz, A., Eckles, F., & Stuart, C. (2012). Assessing youth worker competence: National child and youth worker certification. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 27–38). New York, NY: Routledge. Dennehy, J., Gannett, E., & Robbins, R. (2006). Setting the stage for a youth development associate credential: A national review of professional credentials for the out-ofschool time workforce. Wellesley, MA: National Institute on Out-of-School-Time, Wellesley Centers for Women. Dennehy, J., & Noam, G. (2005). Evidence for action: Strengthening after-school programs for all children and youth: The Massachusetts out-of-school time workforce. Boston, MA: Achieve Boston. Durlak, J. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2007). The impact of after-school programs that promote personal and social skills. Chicago, IL: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. A. (Eds.). (2002). Features of positive developmental settings. In Community programs to promote youth development. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Committee on Community-Level

Credentialing for Youth Work     47 Programs for Youth, Board on Children, Youth, and Families (pp. 86–118). Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Farbman, D. (2015). The case for improving and expanding time in schools: A review of key research and practice. Retrieved from http://0-files.eric.ed.gov.opac.msmc. edu/fulltext/ED534894.pdf Gannett, E., Mello, S., & Starr, E. (2009). Credentialing for 21st CCLC staff: An overview of the benefits and impacts. Wellesley, MA: National Institute on Out-of-School Time. Halpern, R. (2002). A different kind of child development institution: The history of after-school programs for low-income children. Teachers College Record, 104(2), 178–211. Halpern, R. (2006). Confronting the “big lie”: The need to reframe expectations of afterschool programs. Chicago, IL: Erikson Institute. Harvard Family Research Project. (2004). Promoting quality through professional development: A framework for evaluation. Issues and Opportunities in Out-ofSchool Time Evaluation, Brief No. 8. Cambridge, MA: Author. Heathfield, M. (2012). A Chicago story: Challenge and change. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 39–51). New York, NY: Routledge. Huang, D., & Cho, J. (2010). Using professional development to enhance staff retention. Afterschool Matters, 12, 9–16. Huang, D., Cho, J., Mostafavi, S., & Nam, H. (2008). What works? Common practices in high functioning afterschool programs: The National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning final report. Austin, TX: The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Larson, R., & Walker, K. (2010). Dilemmas of practice: Challenges to program quality encountered by youth program leaders. American Journal of Community Psychology, 45(3/4), 338–349. Lauer, P. A., Akiba, M., Wilkerson, S. B., Apthorp, H. S., Snow, D., & MartinGlenn, M. L. (2006). Out-of-school time programs: A meta-analysis of effects for atrisk students. Review of Educational Research, 76, 275–313. Lochhead, A. (2001). Reflecting on professionalization in child and youth care. Child & Youth Care Forum, 30, 73–82. Marshall, N. L., Creps, C. L., Burnstein, N. R., Cahill, K. E., Robeson, W. W., Wang, S. Y. . . . Glanz, F. B. (2003). Family child care today: A report of the findings of the Massachusetts cost/quality study: Family child care homes. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Centers for Women and Abt Associates, Inc. Marshall, N. L., Dennehy, J., Starr, E., & Robeson, W. W. (2005). Preparing the early care and education workforce: The capacity of Massachusetts institutions of higher education. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Centers for Women. McCable, L. A., & Cochran, M. (2006). The New York State school age credential evaluation: Preliminary findings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Cornell Early Childhood Program, Department of Human Development. Miller, B., & Hall, G. (2007). What counts in after school? Findings from the Massachusetts Afterschool Research Study (MARS). Journal of Youth Development, 1(3), 110–116, Article No. 0603RS001.

48    E. STARR and E. GANNETT National AfterSchool Association. (1998). Standards for quality school-age care. McLean, VA: Author. National AfterSchool Association. (2011). Core knowledge and competencies for afterschool and youth development professionals. McLean, VA: Author. National AfterSchool Association. (2015a). Promoting professionalism. Retrieved from http://naaweb.org/images/final_NAA_3_F.pdf National AfterSchool Association. (2015b). Identifying and improving quality programs. Retrieved from http://naaweb.org/images/final_NAA_2F.pdf National Center on Child Care Professional Development Systems and Workforce Initiatives (PDW Center). (2013). Aligned professional development systems planning and implementation guide. Retrieved from https://childcareta.acf.hhs. gov/sites/default/files/pdwcenter_alignedpds_considerations.pdf National Center on Time & Learning. (2015). History of expanded learning time. Retrieved from http://www.timeandlearning.org/about/history School’s Out Washington. (2008). A well-prepared workforce brings out the best in our kids: A framework for a professional development system for the afterschool and youth development workforce in Washington State. Retrieved from http://www.schoolsoutwashington.org/documents/workforce%20study%20full%20report.pdf Scrivener, S., & Weiss, M. (2013, December). More graduates: Two-year results from an evaluation of accelerated study in associate programs (ASAP) for developmental education students. New York, NY: MDRC Policy Brief. Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. A. (Eds.). (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. A report of the National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Starr, E., & Gannett, E. (2014). A proposed framework for a statewide career development system. Wyoming Afterschool Alliance. Retrieved from http://wyafterschoolalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Wyoming-Career-DevelopmentSystem-Summary-Final.pdf Starr, E., Yohalem, N., & Gannett, E. (2009). Youth work core competencies: A review of existing frameworks. Seattle, WA: Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. Stone, B., Garza, P., & Borden, L. (2004). Attracting, developing and retaining youth workers for the next generation. Wingspread Conference Proceedings. Washington, DC: National Collaboration for Youth/National Assembly. Vandell, D. (2013). Afterschool program quality and student outcomes: Reflections on positive key findings on learning and development from recent research. In T. Peterson (Ed.), Expanding minds and opportunities: Leveraging the power of afterschool and summer learning for student success. Washington, DC: Collaborative Communications Group. Retrieved from http://www.expandinglearning.org/expandingminds Walker, J., & Walker, K. (2012). Establishing expertise in an emerging field. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 39–51). New York, NY: Routledge. Walker, K., & Larson, R. (2006). The dilemmas of youth work: Balancing the professional with the personal. New Directions for Youth Development 112, 109-–118. Watkins, P. (2012). A decade of educating youth workers at an urban community college. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 39–51). New York, NY: Routledge.

Credentialing for Youth Work     49 Yohalem, N., Devaney, E., Smith, C., & Wilson-Ahlstrom, A. (2012). Building citywide systems for quality: A guide and case studies for afterschool leaders. Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment. Yohalem, N., & Pittman, K. (2006). Putting youth work on the map: Key findings and implications from two major workforce studies. Washington, DC: Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. Yohalem, N., Pittman, K., & Moore, D. (2006). Growing the next generation of youth work professionals: Workforce opportunities and challenges. Washington, DC: Next Generation Youth Work Coalition by the Forum for Youth Investment. Yoon, K. S., Duncan, T., Lee, S. W. Y., Scarloss, B., & Shapley, K. (2007). Reviewing the evidence on how teacher professional development affects student achievement. Issues & Answers Report, REL 2007, No. 033. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs

This page intentionally left blank.

CHAPTER 3

YOUTH WORKER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Moving from Practicing the Symbolic to Working Substantively Michael L. Baizerman Ross VeLure Roholt University of Minnesota

Ineffective assistance of counsel, or bad lawyering, constitutes a violation of a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. —Ineffective Assistance of Counsel (2016)

Can you imagine a similar legal right or concept in youth work practice? What would “ineffective assistance” look like? Must a youth worker harm a client or can they be ineffective even if they cause no direct harm? What standards would be used to assess the youth work practice episode? Who would assess the case and with access to what penalties? Would one moment, one event, one episode, be enough to drum a youth worker out of their agency, away from practicing and from the field, or would such remedies require a

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 51–67 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

51

52    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

pattern of such asserted malfeasance? These questions reveal the difficulty for understanding youth work professional development. While generally referred to as a “field,” youth work has several practice orientations, theoretical and scholarly foundations, and resulting normative practices. This chapter begins with a discursive exploration of youth work as a family of semiprofessions and the importance of this conception for understanding professional development of practicing youth workers in the youth work field. Professional development means both initial preemployment education and training of youth workers and specialized training while employed. Our primary focus is the latter. While in many professions, the goal of professional development is to increase expertise (Brown & Warfield, 2015), in youth work we have to first ask: expertise for which youth work orientation or field of practice and with which type of youth? To add more complication, youth work as a practice is embedded in organizations, each with social legitimacy to practice in one or more domains of youth life issues and youth problems (health, delinquency, recreation, out-of-school-time) and accepted practices, which may be, to some lesser or greater degree, professionalized. Many of these practices have in common some expertise and some actual youth work practices (e.g., group work, team building, relationship development). At other times, these practices do not share much in common except that they both call themselves youth work, or a professional practice that works with young people. This chapter draws on our work facilitating youth work professional development over the last several decades in different countries and within numerous different domains of youth work. Together, we have devoted over 70 years to youth work professional development both in primary preparation of workers and in training of employed youth workers. These efforts have taken place in college classrooms, at both the undergraduate and the graduate level; in the community, at park and recreation centers, community organizations, and public schools; and globally in international and local nongovernmental organizations. We have designed and delivered youth work professional development to executive directors, youth program managers, and direct service practitioners, as well as to government officials and youth studies researchers. Much of this work has been time limited, although we have also designed and facilitated several multiyear, intensive youth work professional development initiatives with partners in the U.S. and internationally. Much of our research has focused on understanding professional development and its efficacy (e.g., VeLure Roholt, Baizerman, Rana, & Korum, 2013) and expanding conceptions of youth work (e.g., VeLure Roholt & Baizerman, 2013). Our perspective on youth work professional development draws from this broad and global experience. Our aim is to map the idea (not the practice) of professional development in youth work and to raise questions to guide the future of youth

Youth Worker Professional Development    53

work professional development in part by breaking out of the idiomatic and normative language and assumptions, which are basic to most writing about professional development in youth work and in other fields. This allows us space and freedom to explore basic and new ideas about this omnipresent—hence difficult to analyze critically—professionalizing practice of enhancing expertise called professional development. We understand professional development to be grounded in a particular logic. Exposure to knowledge, it is argued, builds expertise, and this gives a profession and its professionals legitimate authority to use knowledge power (over, on behalf of, with, for) (Kong, 2015). We want to problematize professional development, make it a stranger, so that we can examine our fields’ beliefs and hopes for the practice of professional development, our fields’ ways of conceptualizing and doing professional development, and the research questions, strategies, and methods used to evaluate professional development work. We organize this chapter into three broad sections. The first part maps the philosophical foundations of professional development in youth work, where we show youth work to have multiple communities of practice, each with a history, philosophy, and accepted practices, some of which overlap. From this basic understanding of the field, we also illustrate how youth work is organizationally based: What youth workers do and how they do it is directly shaped by the organization that they work in. The second part moves to a more direct discussion of professional development and its often taken-for-granted assumptions about practice improvement. Finally, drawing from these two discussions, we describe future directions for youth work professional development. PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN YOUTH WORK The background against which to understand youth work is to appreciate that work with young people is commonly thought to belong to everyone as a family’s and community’s moral and practical responsibility (Damon, 1997). Everyone can and many have worked with young people as parents, as adult citizens, and as youth volunteers. It may not be too big a stretch to say that for most, youth work is simply doing stuff (activities) with young people, with work with youth reserved in everyday thought (in the U.S.) to professionals in mental and physical health, delinquency, sports, and religion. Those doing youth work, whether as youth workers, child and youth care workers, recreation specialists, probation officers, teachers, youth ministers, or coaches, for example, see themselves and may be seen and treated as professionals with specialized training, knowledge, often legal recognition and protection, sometimes a formalized code of ethics, and a professional association.

54    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

They have socially legitimate expertise (Schon, 1983). It is this range of job titles, service spheres, organization types and philosophies that must be organized to better understand professional development in youth work and for this range of youth workers. There are different families of youth work or “practice communities” constituting the broad family of youth work. Each of these practice communities has its more or less exclusive practice turf and its own language, professional association, service sites, training, and practices, and young people to serve. Some closely resemble others (sports coaching and formal teaching), and some are very different from others in the same broad youth work field (for example mental health and recreation). Youth Work as Communities of Practices The field of practices called youth work—the multiple professional communities of practice (Wenger, 1999) with similar yet different ways of thinking and acting towards and with and on behalf of young people—is not a single professional world. Youth work is unlike many fields in the human services in being a wide array of semiprofessions (Etzioni, 1969), with little intercourse between many fields. Juvenile probation youth workers may know little about hospital-based youth work, while they may be more knowledgeable about and work closely with youth workers in community recreation, out-of-school time (OST), drop-out prevention, and religious youth work. Youth work communities of semiprofessions make a broad and diverse geography of youth work practices. Differences in job titles, required education, job specifications, licensure, and other regulatory instruments characterize youth work as a family of community practices rather than as a coherent and single professional community. Each of these communities has a similar, yet different conception of its job with young people and on behalf of the larger community. Especially important is that most of these have different conceptions of youth and young persons, and different theories about what brings about “healthy development,” personal pathology, and social deviance. Finally, each often has its unique ways of understanding what to do about this and how to do it (Argyris & Schon, 1992). The different communities of youth work practice vary in their philosophy, theories, conceptions of young people, community responsibility, interventions and practices, and organizational homes, as suggested in Table 3.1. Professional development has different meanings within and across domains, within and across professions, and within and across organizations, all within the larger youth work field (in the U.S.). All this variety does not make the field chaotic, just highly differentiated and segmented. All of these similarities and differences can be used to understand professional development in youth work. Often what unites these communities of practice

Youth Worker Professional Development    55 TABLE 3.1  Comparing Youth Work Communities of Practice Community of Practice

Conception of Youth

Why Are We Concerned?

What Should We Do?

Out of School Time

Learner

School achievement; safety

Skill build Educate

Formal to informal education

Juvenile Justice

At-risk

Delinquency

Intervention

Rehabilitate

Civic Youth Work

Community member

Disenfranchised

Invite engagement

Organizing, participatory research & action

Hospital Youth Work

Patient

Personal trauma, misunderstanding illness and options

Inform and ensure involvement in decision making

Through relationships

Religious Youth Work

Congregation member

Faith development Faith guidance and commitment

How?

Pastoral care

is a commitment to a relationship-based practice focused on enhancing a young person’s courage to craft a vocational and occupationally authentic lived-self. And, again, each youth work community understands and works towards these abstract goals somewhat differently; hence, each has different needs and wants for particular types of professional development. Youth Work is Agency-Based Work There are very few solo practitioners or fee-for-service youth workers; almost all are employed by an organization and work as employees, making it necessary to treat youth work as an agency-based and agency-bound practice, with all that this implies (Baizerman & Compton, 2009). Each level of this work (healthy development, prevention, rehabilitation) and each sphere of youth programs and services are staffed by workers with particular (if not always specific) social mandates. In each sphere are workers with (typically) different job titles, roles, responsibilities, supervision, and training. These workers are employees of organizations differently funded and with similar but different, even unique, mandates, as shown in Table 3.2. It is crucial to remember this because youth work professional development is the professional development of an employee whose organization typically provides the resources to support the training opportunity and has direct and powerful influences on the worker and their use of their professional knowledge, including what they learn in their professional

56    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT TABLE 3.2  A Brief Map of Youth Services, Level of Work, and Job Titles Sphere of Youth Program and Services

Level of Work

Job Titles

Recreation

Healthy development Intervention

Recreation leader Athletic coach Youth Worker

Out of school time

Healthy development Intervention

Child care teacher Instructor Youth intervention specialist

Juvenile Justice

Intervention Rehabilitation

Case manager Juvenile corrections counselor Probation officer

Health Services

Healthy development Intervention Rehabilitation

Sexual education instructor Street detached worke

Religious and Spiritual

Healthy development Rehabilitation

Youth pastor/minister Youth religious instructor Sponsor/mentor

development in school and while an employee. Typically, youth workers implement agency programs with little discretionary space for use of their unique skills and professional knowledge. An individual who works in an organization that has its own policies, accepted practices, and developed programs is not a free agent. The organization is a host, cage, and promise for practices based on certain expertise (VeLure Roholt et al., 2013). This is often why some forms of youth work remain even after their expiration date and why other practices continue even when there is no acceptance by the wider youth work field (for example boot camps or the D.A.R.E program). These are organizationally embedded, which powerfully affects their protection from youth workers who have their own ideas about how to serve the young people they work with as agents of an agency. In a deep sense, youth serving agencies, along with the family and schools, are major social institutions for producing adults for human and social reproduction. Within and across the youth work field, there are several conceptions of the ideal adult. Youth work in its deepest social purpose is to produce, to bring about, this ideal. Youth is a social time and social category (Baizerman & Magnuson, 1996; James & Jenks, 2004). During different historical periods in different places, there were differences in opinion about whether there was a chronological time and/or designated age-role called youth (Baizerman, 1998; Lesko, 2001). In the Global West and North, youth agencies work in a loose sense as agents of community, society, and government in the shaping of youth into a society’s, culture’s, and group’s ideal adult.

Youth Worker Professional Development    57

Youth agencies and organizations that do this work are doing “character building.” They are trying to produce “fully flourishing young people”: young persons who are physically, intellectually, interpersonally, and morally strong (Catalano et al., 2004)—that is, young people who will be ready and able to fit into adult society, work and procreate, raise children, and all the rest: in short, social reproduction. Much youth work is about preventing and changing youth who are seen as troubled or are said to be this or that type of person. Many youth serving agencies have been tasked with curbing the alleged excesses of youth, such as delinquency, “early” pregnancy, chemical (mis) use, disobedience, or rebellion. It is the job of these types of youth agencies to control and redirect young individuals towards, on, and along the “right path.” These are youth processing and youth-changing organizations (Lefton & Rosengren, 1970), typically each with its own ways, technologies, organization and culture, and preferred practices. These approaches and tools are put in the service of the agency’s goals for youth (the ideal) and for actual young people; and these goals come from the organization’s purpose. This is attached in part to its funding, and that comes in part from what the society and government are asking the youth agency to do on their behalf and thus on behalf of the community (youth policy drives youth programs/services, which drives youth work). Youth work is always about contributing to the work of family, community, and government in helping to create future adults through what is now called “healthy youth development,” and for the prevention of personal troubles and the rehabilitation of those young people who are troubled, in trouble, or troubling—as seen and named by adults. Now, where do the people processing (“growing up”) and people-changing (“helping”) technologies come from? What are their knowledge bases and truth statuses? How are these learned, supervised, and evaluated in general for types of youth and for and with each specific young person? All of these are joined to professional development, for it is typically these that the agency and the funder and the worker want to improve, bring up to date, enhance, and of course, do all of these to make the worker more effective with young people by doing better that which the agency and funder and others want done to youth. Professional development typically comes into play in reference to the worker and one or more young people they are “working with” in the larger contexts of the agency’s purpose and the agency’s funding and the agency’s place in the world of youth services and youth development. The youth worker as employee is more or less circumscribed in their purpose, goals, and activities, and in the technology they know and are permitted to use. Regardless of the degrees of freedom of a particular worker in a particular agency, in general there is little space for youth workers to do what they

58    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

want, compared to full professionals, such as physicians in a fee-for-service practice. Organizations are the home of youth workers as employees, and thus are the foundational and omnipresent context of youth work practice and youth work activities. It is here precisely where we take up important issues in the professional development of employee youth workers: Enhancing employee knowledge, attitudes, and skills—expertise—can result in change in employee practice but not necessarily change in agency-wide or agency-level practice (Schon, 1983). Here is where the topic of professional development in youth work and the background and context necessary to understand how it is framed, conceptualized, and practiced begin to become more complex. Basic to a practice is a field’s knowledge base. Nowadays, this must be based on empirical research— the more “scientific” the better. In this model, the youth worker uses empirically proven practices or “best practices” and applies these in their work directly with or indirectly on behalf of young people and community. This is the major purpose and grounding of typical professional development in youth work— the diffusion of “up to date knowledge” about what to do with whom, how, when, where, and at what cost, and with what hoped for and likely outcomes. YOUTH WORK PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT There is a vast literature on professional development in multiple fields; so too are there literatures on expertise, professionalism, and professionalization, on practice and practices (e.g., Fusco, 2011), on youth work as a field and as practices (e.g., Nicholls, 2012), on adult education, and on related topics. We draw across all of these to show how professional development as currently done is focused on particular types of learning, practice, and skills. It also works as a professionalization process giving those trained and certified greater authority to exercise power in their employing organizations and in their work with young people. Professional development in its ideal-type form is a teaching and learning process with the goal of mastery of the latest (Eaton, 1962), up-to-date knowledge about how to think about and do some (scientifically) proven practice with young people. It is about knowledge and skill—practice expertise—and the social legitimacy, authority, and power that come along with these (Dreyfus, 2004; Ericsson, Charness, Hoffman, & Feltovich, 2006). What Must Youth Workers Know About? Depending on the particular youth work community of practice, and based on what most professional development opportunities focus on, most agree on about what youth workers should know and know how to do. For example:

Youth Worker Professional Development    59

• Young People: in general and in broad sociological, anthropological, and political terms, in their everyday lives locally, in individual development terms, in psychological terms • Youth Work Field: its general to local history; its philosophy and ethos; how it differs from neighboring fields which work with young people, adolescents, and youth; its preferred practices; types of organizations which employ (and don’t employ) youth workers; occupational and job titles; what are the current “best practices” with which populations of young people living where, and delivered by which workers for what types of agencies, programs, services, projects, and groups; how to evaluate one’s practice; and the principles and details of the general to local and sphere specific youth work profession • Youth Work Organizations, Programs, Projects, Services: The particulars of doing youth work (how and why) specific to their employing agency; youth worker roles. However, as we already discussed, this is often a minor focus and one that often receives only passing attention, usually at the end of trainings when participants are asked to take what they have learned and plan how to use it back in the organizations where they work. • Youth Work: How to think about and how to use the best knowledge to guide, assist, and help a young person Does Professional Development Enhance This Knowledge? In general, most professional development for youth workers is about the fourth category, direct, “clinical” practice: approaches, models, techniques, tools, and curricula, often (if not most often) for certain populations of young people, typically psychologically (e.g., abused) and socially defined (e.g., delinquent). This is in one sense well and good. It follows a modified medical model of knowledge diffusion using medical practice logic (Groopman, 2007), with its frames of diagnosis, pathogenicity, and therapy. This approach delivers the most recent, valid scientific knowledge about the condition and by extension, the patient, client, and adolescent. But rarely does this model clearly articulate an understanding about young people in their everyday lives (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2002)—which is basic youth work knowledge, from our personal perspective. Instead it offers “best practices” and interventions (therapy in the medical model terms) that are allegedly proven ways to cure, help, guide, or ameliorate. This focus in professional development discloses for us what is not youth work, as we understand it. Youth work does not use the medical model and its logic—for example, the focus on diagnosis and treatment; it does not

60    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

exclude the young person’s everyday life-worlds, their meanings, and their understanding of their lives and how it is understood and responded to by others. And finally, youth work is not embedded in an expert/power frame, where expert defines and acts alone and without involving the young person in the co-created processes they enter into together. What is missing from how professional development is typically delivered to youth workers is both the deliberate attention to young people in their everyday lives and the reality that youth workers as employees are not free (and typically not powerful enough) to implement new knowledge in their agencies. Typical professional development for youth workers focuses on clinical interventions and not on addressing these limiting structures on a youth worker’s ability to implement new practices. More powerfully, a professional development focus on clinical practice is in reality program change, even agency change, and these are entirely different than individual practitioner change; more on this in the final section. All of this can be analyzed and understood as youth worker expertise and professional development at a social institutional level. What is Youth Worker Expertise? Simply put, youth worker expertise is the everyday appropriate use by a youth worker of their knowledge of how to work together with young people to enhance the youth’s everyday lives and their longer-term life-chances. Youth worker expertise lies in its use—it is an active praxis. Its truth is in its doing and the consequences of this on/for a young person, a youth group, a population of youth, and on/for family, community and society (Schon, 1987). Unlike surgery, for example, which may have to be done only once, youth work is an ongoing, often years-long, continuous process (depending on the youth work sphere). There rarely is a one-shot intervention, especially in that family of youth work that is based primordially and existentially on worker–youth (meaningful) relationship. Of course all of this is specific to only some members of the community of youth work practitioners, to some communities of practice. Professional Development as Enhancing Youth Worker Status In addition to contributing to youth worker development and expertise, and by extension to the possibilities of program and agency change to more effective services and programming, professional development has other consequences for the multiple communities of practice called youth work.

Youth Worker Professional Development    61

First, youth work, like other occupations, has enhanced legitimacy, authority, and hence power when workers are perceived and treated as professionals legally, socially, and politically. Professional development can confer this because it is a way to meet the societal, legal, and professional expectation, if not requirement, that the worker be up to date in relevant, quality knowledge and practice expertise. This ties to credentialing, licensing, and certification. Second, this signals other professionals that youth work is a profession and is to be taken as such; it is a serious, although different, praxis of work with and on behalf of young people. Third, it may legitimize youth workers’ political and policy voices for participation in setting community moral goals and compacts for their work and for particular polices, funding, priorities, and preferred interventions. It may legitimize youth worker(s) as spokespersons for and with young people. Fourth and related, professional development contributes to the sociopolitical status of youth work(ers) by showing that there is ongoing professionalization of the field. In turn, this feeds its clinical, programmatic, and sociopolitical legitimacy, then authority, and practical and symbolic power: Youth workers become more likely to be invited to the table where policy, program, and funding decisions are made. NEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH WORK PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT We have shown that youth work has many communities of practice. Each has characteristics unique to its community, while also sharing practices, history, or philosophy. This makes it possible to talk about professional development in the youth work field analytically, but often not practically because of the many differences between the communities of practice that exist. Moving forward, to ensure high-quality youth work practice, we encourage professional development efforts to acknowledge the domains of youth work they might best support and continually emphasize that this work is agency-based and therefore anything that is taught must consider if and how it can be incorporated into agency practice and culture. Given this basic, and for us primary, framework of youth work professional development, we propose several questions to guide ongoing professional development design and practice. What Is Missing From Youth Work Professional Development? Youth work expertise has been shown to be organizationally contingent, and every worker must learn to “deal with” their employing agency, as well

62    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

as young people. Crucial is the next obvious point: Expertise in working with young people—both in general and with any individual—is also contingent on whether and how well each worker manages his or her role with their employing agency. This point is especially critical for youth work practice in all domains. To continually work to prevent the system and organization from harming young people and not direct attention to system and organizational change results in the perpetuation of a system that is not good for kids. The individual youth worker may be understood as skillful and indeed caring for the young people they have a connection with, but they fail young people in the organization and in the community overall by not working to create an environment where all young people involved are prevented from being harmed. Professional development of youth workers must recognize this and prepare youth workers for agency-based work. Indeed, professional development on how to be more effective with young people must include content on how to use their knowledge/expertise in the worker’s organizational and community contexts. Professional development should also focus on how to change the employing agency. Organizational development and transforming one’s agency into a “learning organization” must become necessary topics in youth worker professional development, both during initial education and later in employee training and development. Can Professional Development Produce More Effective Outcomes for Young People? Enhanced practitioner knowledge of certain material is only probabilistically related, and not necessarily causally, to worker expertise, and this is not necessarily causally connected to empirically demonstrable effective practice with young people. There are many and different types of actual, mundane contingencies in all of youth work. Given all of this, is it reasonable to assume that short- to longer-term professional development focused on worker knowledge/expertise will increase the effectiveness of youth work with youth? To say no is to drop into a deep rabbit hole of hopelessness because without professional development to enhance worker competence in all dimensions (“worker competencies”), what is left? Can continuous learning about youth and their everyday lives and on “how to work with them” support youth programs and services to become more effective? Youth work in all its communities of practice is surely changing in name and in practice, away from artistic, craft-like, intuitive and/or philosophically based work and toward evidence-based, lessons learned, and empirically based “best practices.” Worker must know these and know that they

Youth Worker Professional Development    63

may be assessed as a worker in using these and how their work may be evaluated using these. This is a new form of the older “community standards” criteria, where work was guided by a community compact (Damon, 1997), and practices were deemed successful when they satisfied community concerns and provided opportunity the community wanted for their young people. If all of this turns out to be true, does professional development become largely or solely an exchange of methods and techniques? Who came and will come to youth work for this? Better to be a psychologist and get paid more, work shorter hours, and have an office and colleagues! We are not sure that professional development will necessarily or even probabilistically lead to better youth work with young people. If it does, it may be because youth work is so distorted by the demands of “scientific practice” that it is no longer youth work (as we understand and value it). Can Professional Development Save the Youth Work Field? The future of the youth work enterprise taken as a whole depends on how the practice works and is judged by relevant, authoritative, and powerful publics, including funders and public monies: Government matters here, and more or less so depending on country and historical moment (with policy and social context especially important). Indeed it may be that youth workers are being diminished in several countries, such as currently in Britain (Nicholls, 2012). Defund university-based training programs and no youth workers will be produced. Take away youth work certification and no youth workers will be hired as “youth workers.” Don’t fund youth worker-staffed youth programs and services or fund “performance-based contracts” with businesses, as in the UK, and youth workers become in all senses “redundant”—let go, not hired, irrelevant, and not “justifiable” at that salary. This is not fantasy; it is happening today in several countries. Youth work, as a named profession with (alleged) expertise in “working with youth” effectively and consequentially, is being delegitimized, marginalized, extinguished, defunded, and made redundant. Professional development may slow down the delimiting of youth work, youth worker, and youth work practice, but may not be able to save the field – except by helping to transform it into a technology or analog of medicine, psychology, social work, and counseling practice. When the ideal is empirically based, nosologically grounded, scientific (almost medical model) practice, this may benefit young people—whatever it is named. But it will not be youth work in any family of youth work practice we value: a relationship-based practice focused on enhancing a young person’s courage to craft a vocational and occupationally authentic lived-self.

64    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

Where Does This Leave Us? As educators we have to and do believe in the effectiveness of learning to enhance life for individuals and for enriching the society and culture—for politics, work, civic life, family, and all the rest. And we obviously have to believe in “knowledge” in its many forms, including scientific, folk, local, and all the rest. As university-based academics, we are sworn to produce, diffuse, and translate scientific (and some other types of) knowledge and knowing into useful forms, morally grounded (and legally required in our case) to help individuals, the community, and society prevent and engage the “problems” of youth. By extension, we have to actively participate in providing and supporting professional development for youth workers locally to internationally. Yet we wonder about our practice, as scholars, about the professional development enterprise (and industry), its purpose, methods, substance, and consequences. As scholars we must examine our world at least analytically and critically. Do not read this as denying the value or results of professional development. Rather read it as our partial analysis, speculations, reflections, and prognostications on this social institution and how it is and could be focused and practiced. In the end, we too wonder whether and hope that youth workers will survive the current plagues of the particular viruses of “accountability” and “proof” as now demanded. Maybe professional development’s next focus should be on reframing and reforming these. For example, what other frames can be imagined for assessing youth work effectiveness? How Do We Move Forward? What are the roles of professional development in all the topics, issues, analyses opened up in this chapter? The role of professional development is to show youth workers and others how to engage these issues so they can choose to take a role in crafting their field, their practice, and the ethos, context, and conditions of their work. That is, professional development should be about, in part, clarifying what is and should be youth work. Further, and based on our work listening to youth workers in a variety of settings in the U.S. and internationally, professional development should focus on the seeming frequent inarticulateness of workers, which transforms for many workers the mundane into the ineffable. What often makes youth work a powerful practice in the lives of young people is its ongoing, basic focus on being with and working with young people in ways that eventually become taken for granted and therefore invisible. We have seen

Youth Worker Professional Development    65

a value in professional development opportunities that invite workers to reflect, name, and shape the narrative of what they do. Workers in the current environment must be able and willing to tell what they see, how they make sense of it, why they did what they did (and did not do, something else or nothing), and what effects they observed (“measured” how), and what happened next, and on and on: This is mundane, reflexive, and reflective practice. It is the ground of expertise (Groopman, 2007) and of both science-based practice and evaluation. Beyond this, professional development must focus on mastery of the worker-as-employee-inorganizational-context as an expertise; agency work, like work with youth, must become core youth work knowledge. CONCLUSIONS We began this chapter with a quote: Ineffective assistance of counsel, or bad lawyering, constitutes a violation of a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. (California Innocence Project, ADD)

The questions and issues of what youth work is, how it is socially and politically organized, how it is practiced and evaluated, and what its future is are all related to the future of youth work professional development. A hoped-for result of this chapter was to show the complexities of youth work as an occupational family with some member family groups semi- to fully professional and thus the problematic nature of professional development practice. Youth work is also importantly an organizational-based field: fully influenced by its organizational structure and by its varied locations in the social institutional fabric. When all of this is done we are hopefully left with a deeper and richer orientation to the institution and practice of professional development—to a family of orientations and practices, located structurally in a vast array of settings, given multiple cultural, professional, and personal meanings—and proposed as a strategy for continued professionalization and professionalism and more effective and “up to date” practice with youth. In our electronically wired world, professional development is a frame for staying current, a professional moral responsibility. It is also a seemingly safe space for gathering youth workers and providing across multiple youth work families’ common frames and language and knowledge for understanding young people and (effective) work with them. On these terms, we offer little resistance, however we may challenge and differ with the context of these craft orientations and their understanding of young people and their explanations of their acts and actions. However, we prefer alternative framings of youth work and the very terms used to tell and make sense of

66    M. L. BALZERMAN and R. VeLURE ROHOLT

the work and the young people. Professional development as a space for reflection and crafting of professional identity has validity to us. The question is how to best use this space for kids, for the community and society, for the field, and for youth workers. For us that is the bottom line. The discursive chapter worked at positioning professional development as an institution, a space, and a practice in the reticula of youth work as communities of practices, as organizationally bound work, and as a moral space for improvement of worker and practice. The presumption is that once “delivered” and used by a worker, the worker will better serve each young person using the most effective knowledge and practice given each youth and their life situation. There may be major disconnects in this idealized process on the knowledge on offer, on the degree to which the worker learned it, whether it was/is approachable for any specific young person, whether it was used appropriately so, and the like. Professional development is a complex process, as we have shown, and this idealized use of “knowledge” may be more ideal-type than actual and real. To that extent, professional development based on the transmission and use of scientific knowledge is problematic. This is our proposed agenda, one never able to be completely achieved. REFERENCES Argyris, C. & Schon, D.A. (1992). Theory in practice: Imaging professional effectiveness. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Baizerman, M. (1998). It’s only human nature: Revisiting the denaturalization of adolescence. Child and Youth Care Forum, 28(6), 437–448. Baizerman, M., & Magnuson, D. (1996). Do we still need youth as a social stage? Young, 4(3), 48–60. Baizerman, M., & Compton, D. (2009). What did we learn from case studies about managing evaluation. New Directions for Evaluation, 121, 79–86. Brown, D., & Warfield, R. (2014). America’s culture of professionalism: Past, present, and prospects. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Catalano, R., Berglund, M., Ryan, J. Lonczak, H., Hawkins, J. (2004). Positive youth development in the United States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth development programs. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 591, 98–124. Damon, W. (1997). The youth charter: How communities can work together to raise the standards for all of our children. New York, NY: Free Press. Dreyfus, S. (2004). The five-stage model of adult skill acquisition. Bulletin of Science Technology and Society, 24(3), 177–181. Eaton, J. (1962). Stone walls do not a prison make. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Youth Worker Professional Development    67 Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Hoffman, R., & Feltovich, P. (2006). The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Etzioni, A. (1969). The semi-professions and their organization: Teachers, nurses, social workers. New York, NY: Free Press. Fusco, D. (Ed.) (2011). Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical issues. New York, NY: Routledge. Ginwright, S. & Cammarota, J. (2002). New terrain in youth development: The promise of a social justice approach. Social Justice, 29(4), 82–95. Groopman, J. (2007). How doctors think. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel (2016). Retrieved from: https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/ineffective-assistance-of-counsel/ James, A., & James, A. (2004). Constructing childhood: Theory, policy, and social practice. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Kong, K. (2015). Professional discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lefton, W. R., & Rosengren, M. (1970). Organizations and clients. Indianapolis, IN: Merrill. Lesko, N. (2001). Act your age: A cultural construction of adolescents. New York, NY: Routledge. Nicholls, D. (2012). For youth workers and youth work: Speaking out for a better future. Bristol, U.K.: The Policy Press. Schon, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books. Schon, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass VeLure Roholt, R., & Baizerman, M. (2013). Civic youth work primer. New York, NY: Peter Lang. VeLure Roholt, R., Baizerman, M., Rana, S., & Korum, K. (2013). Missing from the youth development literature: The organization as host, cage, and promise. New Directions for Youth Development, 139, 13–26. Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

This page intentionally left blank.

SECTION II HOW SHOULD YOUTH WORKERS BE PREPARED?

This page intentionally left blank.

CHAPTER 4

NOT “ANYONE CAN DO THIS WORK” Preparing Youth Workers in a Graduate School of Education Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Mandy Savitz-Romer, and Deepa Vasudevan Harvard University

In the United States today, there is a growing conversation about how to effectively train and support the professional development of youth workers. Quinn (2012) has described the developing youth work field as a “patchwork of efforts” (p. 207) by national agencies, direct service programs, and higher education institutions trying to develop a cohesive but flexible set of standards, norms, and language for this work. Efforts to professionalize this workforce in the U.S. have primarily emerged from the afterschool and out-of-school time sector (Halpern, 2000; National Afterschool Association, 2009). However, because of the pressure on programs to conform to funder expectations and test-driven school culture, there is concern that professionalizing through the lens of afterschool will narrow the full potential and

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 71–90 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

71

72    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

contributions of this work (Fusco, Lawrence, Matloff-Nieves, & Ramos, 2013; Pittman, 2004). However, at the heart of these debates there appears to be a unified desire for public legitimacy—that is, a recognition of youth workers’ common qualities and skillsets that will both guide practice and shift “the public perception that anyone can do this work” (Stone, Garza, & Borden, 2004, p. 4). We understand this call as entailing manifold desires, including (1) recognition from both within and outside the field of the body of knowledge and skills required to work with young people, (2) a move towards research-based practice rather than reliance on instincts alone, and (3) related public acknowledgment of the value and worth of this work, which includes financial remuneration. In this chapter, we define youth work in accordance with Karen Pittman (2004), whose conceptualization of the profession moves us away from time, place, or population-based definitions. Thus, we understand youth workers to be individuals who work “with or on behalf of youth to facilitate their personal, social, and educational development and enable them to gain a voice, influence, and place in society as they make the transition from dependence to independence” (PAULO, 2002, p. 1). In addition, we note that these professionals typically work alongside teachers, counselors, principals, and community-based providers. In so doing, we define youth work by both its purpose and by the kind of practice it entails, while also recognizing that this work is practiced in, and has outcomes for, in-school and out-of-school settings. We believe that this all-encompassing definition is particularly critical given the emerging popularity of community schools and comprehensive student support systems, both of which have blurred the lines between the roles of schools, communities, and social service agencies. Because youth workers draw on a toolbox of approaches from multiple disciplines and work in multiple contexts (Fusco, 2012), preparing these professionals in preservice programs designed to train teachers, counselors, or social workers is not sufficient for supporting their diverse needs. Thus, the question remains: How can higher education best support the unique training of youth workers? Based on our understanding of youth work, we argue that effectively supporting the professional readiness of youth workers requires a set of pedagogical and curricular practices that are unique to the field and can be effectively met through a graduate program. We begin by briefly highlighting theoretical research that speaks to the unique role of youth work in supporting child and adolescent development and summarizing efforts to train and support the ongoing professional development of youth workers today. At the core of this chapter, we describe an evolving model of preparing youth workers that has grown over the last 25 years by an interdisciplinary group of faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, arguing that graduate schools of education may be fertile contexts for this work. The Prevention Science and Practice program pairs coursework that supports the use

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     73

of theoretically driven, empirically grounded, strengths-based practice, with an intensive internship supervised by an experienced practitioner. We highlight four principles that guide our practice in training youth workers: (1) reflexive practice, (2) ecological systems frameworks, (3) culturally and contextually responsive practice, and (4) praxis. As we discuss each principle, we describe a set of pedagogical approaches and curricular activities that we believe support our students’ growth. Finally, we argue that training youth workers alongside preprofessional school counselors, teachers, administrators, and educational researchers helps each set of actors prepare for their profession by engaging in dialectical learning with other support providers, fostering a deeper appreciation among individuals who work with youth. We conclude by discussing current tensions within our program to further illuminate the complexities of this interdisciplinary work. PREPARING YOUTH WORKERS IN CONTEXT Prevention science research bolsters our assertion that youth workers should be trained in programs that are developed to suit contextual needs. Knowing that every interaction occurring in a child’s life impacts his or her development across time, domains, and ecological contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Masten & Cicchetti, 2010; Sameroff, 2010), as well as the interrelated nature of these pathways, educators engage in best practices through which schools and community-based organizations can effectively nurture holistic development. This includes creating structures and routines that provide youth with clear boundaries and expectations, allowing multiple opportunities for youth to engage as creative and/or civic actors, providing youth with a sense of agency and voice, and providing supportive relationships with positive adult role models (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 2004; Scales, & Leffert, 1999). A parallel body of research suggests that nurturing environments must exist across school, community, and home contexts (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Masten & Cicchetti, 2010; Sameroff, 2010; Youngblade, Theokas, Schulenberg, Curry, Huang, & Novak, 2007) and that bridging these contexts is critical (Noam, Biancarosa, & Dechausay, 2002; Noam & Fiore, 2004). Taken together, this research suggests that youth workers must draw on a unique set of wisdom, which spans the fields of education, human development, and social work (Fusco, 2012) and arguably includes insights from the fields of community organizing and public health. Given this, there are compelling reasons to recognize and prepare youth workers as a separate field of professionals. Still, little is known about how and where the training of youth workers might best occur. Although not all youth work takes place in schools, we see several inherent benefits to training youth workers in schools of education. First, school

74    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

is a central context of human development and, as such, understanding schooling in the United States is a central task for many youth workers. Second, youth work is increasingly measured by standards that mirror those of schools; although we do not always agree with these standards and can find them to be limiting, we believe that understanding and engaging in these standards is critical for long-term success in the field and for young people. Third, schools of education offer youth workers access to courses that are directly relevant to the breadth of their field, such as partnering with families and community-based agencies, counseling, educational policy, nonprofit financial management, and pedagogy. Finally, by learning in this context, youth workers practice partnering with other types of educational providers—a process that often includes learning to grapple with questions of ideology and power. PREPARING YOUTH WORKERS TODAY: A STATE OF THE FIELD As discussed in other chapters, the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of youth work has resulted in an ongoing set of conversations regarding (1) what we should consider to be the unifying body of knowledge in this field; (2) how we should prepare and offer continuous training for youth workers; (3) when the training of youth workers should occur (preservice vs. inservice, undergraduate vs. graduate); and (4) who should be responsible for developing these pedagogical and curricular strategies and, if necessary, offering a process for credentialing. For a deeper discussion of these issues, we direct readers to other chapters of this book, as well as to Dana Fusco’s 2012 volume, Advancing Youth Work: Current Trends, Critical Questions. Here, we briefly summarize prior work that addresses the preparation of youth workers. What Is the Unifying Body of Knowledge? Articulating the central competencies of youth work has been challenging for the field, in part because youth workers play diverse roles in diverse settings. In their cross-analysis of 14 sets of competencies from state coalitions, national nonprofits, and foundations across the U.S., Starr, Yohalem, and Gannett (2009) identified some common ground, including expectations that youth workers should be knowledgeable and capable of: curriculum development and implementation; ethical conduct; family and community partnerships; health, safety, and nutrition; child and adolescent development; cross-cultural competence; positive guidance strategies; ongoing professional development; program management; and addressing environmental/context-based

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     75

concerns. At the same time, the authors note differences among currently articulated competencies, perhaps emerging as a result of the highly contextualized nature of youth work by location, population, labor demands, and unique community needs. Increasingly, youth-serving organizations are adopting the ideals of positive youth development (Huebner, Walker, & McFarland, 2003), but understanding the competencies that are embedded in this concept—the set of tools and understandings that are necessary for practitioners across these many developmental, contextual, and content-based settings—has been a central task of professionalization efforts over the last 15 years. As will be described below, our program seeks to marry a skills-oriented approach with a more theoretical approach to the work, drawing on insights from the fields of education, developmental and community psychology, public health, and community organizing, while utilizing the tools of youth development, workforce development, counseling, and organizing. Preparing Youth Workers There is no one professional pathway or nationally coordinated professional development system for youth workers in the U.S. (National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth, 2012), and only a few established higher education degrees are dedicated to youth work in this country (Curry, Richardson, & Pallock, 2011). However, scholars have surveyed the youth work landscape and have identified several notable professional and academic programs run by independent agencies, intermediaries, state organizations, and both public and private higher education institutions (Fusco, 2012; Wisman, 2011). These professional opportunities vary greatly in regards to format, length, and content, but all appear to focus on key features of positive youth development. Additionally, while there is no unifying approach to training youth workers through preservice or inservice programs, both undergraduate and graduate programs are stepping in to support the training of professional youth workers (e.g., Curry et al., 2011, Mahoney, Levine, & Hinga, 2010). While the majority of programs in the academy are situated at the undergraduate level, graduate offerings do exist for the experienced youth work provider or someone shifting from within a similar field. For example, graduate programs at the University of Chicago, Illinois and Clemson University both feature the option for a specialized program in youth development, among others. The pioneering work of University of Minnesota resonates with our own experiences developing a youth work oriented program within a school of education. Stein, Wood, Walker, Kimball, Outley, and Baizerman (2005), faculty of the youth development leadership master of education (MEd) program, a professional studies graduate program housed in the

76    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), describe their degree as a “flexible, student-centered graduate degree program for experienced youthwork practitioners” (p. 303). Coursework is framed around (1) the everyday lives of youth, (2) the pedagogy of experiential learning, (3) practical aspects of doing youth work in organizational contexts, and (4) the community as a context for youth development. The authors write: Many students enter the program believing they will gain knowledge and skills that will help them do their work better or looking for the way to “fix” the kids they work with. They come to recognize that youthwork is more than just a quick fix and a bag of tricks. They discover new ways of seeing and being in the world that honor the strengths and gifts of youth, that humanize youthwork, and that encourage voice and spirit. (Stein et al., 2005, p. 319)

Here, the authors speak to the underlying role of positive youth development, which cuts across the field of youth work and the set of competencies that guide effective practice. Additionally, this speaks to the idea that “not everyone can do this work”; the program’s faculty members intentionally shift the focus from concrete skills to the “interplay of scholarly understanding, reflective practice, transformative experience, and active demonstrations of leadership in the field and in the community” (Stein et al., 2005, p. 303). The philosophies and framing of this program are salient to the graduate program we describe below. THE PREVENTION SCIENCE AND PRACTICE PROGRAM The Prevention Science and Practice (PSP) program was founded in 1992 by a group of faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.1 Formerly called risk and prevention (Mason & Nakkula, 2008), the program supports graduate students’ learning to “promote positive educational, personal, and social outcomes for children and youth, and strengthen the schools and communities that shape their development” (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2015, n.p.). In its early years, the program intentionally sought to build on concepts from public health and applied human development to train practitioners and researchers interested in promoting healthy behavior in school and community settings (e.g., Mason & Nakkula, 2008; Nakkula & Ravtich, 1998; Selman, 2002; Selman & Dray, 2007). The program’s founding director, Robert Selman, and faculty possessed expertise in the fields of developmental and community psychology, psychiatry, social work, public health, and education. From its inception, PSP was designed for practitioners planning to work outside the traditional roles of classroom teachers, administrators, and social workers (Mason & Nakkula, 2008). Using a tripartite partnership model (university, community, public

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     77

schools), the program allows research-oriented faculty and students to partner with practice-oriented providers and students, such that research and practice might better to inform each other. The foundation of this program is a field-based practicum, in which faculty place students in a school or community-based organization where they work two days per week under experienced practitioners to support the academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary development of youth. These internships provide a context in which students can apply learning from coursework and test out emerging ideas and skills. Over the last 25 years, the PSP program has evolved to meet the shifting needs of school- and community-based youth serving organizations. However, several program tenets have remained constant (Mason & Nakkula, 2008). First, all students continue to take a core class on the theory and science of prevention and intervention work, including the strategies typically used to understand, measure, and support children and youth who face environmental risks. Second, all students participate in a field-based practicum, along with a corresponding practicum course to support indoctrination into their role. Third, PSP coursework has always positioned itself at the nexus of research and practice, drawing from research to inform effective practice and drawing from practice to inform effective research and theory development. Today, the program consists of three strands, one for prevention researchers, one for school-based counselors, and one for prevention practitioners who are typically entering the field of youth work. Although PSP students are trained together—ensuring that they share a common theoretical and practical knowledge base—it also offers specialization through practicum sites and aligned coursework for each professional pathway. In this chapter, we highlight the prevention practice strand of the PSP program, which serves students who intend to become youth workers or leaders in the field of youth work. To do this, we describe the four overarching principles that explain our pedagogical and programmatic approach to this work: reflexive practice, ecological systems frameworks, culturally and contextually responsive practice, and praxis. Although the practices we describe have not occurred simultaneously, we wish to share programmatic experiences at a school of education that have informed how we think about training youth workers at the graduate level. Fostering Reflexive Practice The first principle on which we believe effective training of youth workers relies is that of reflexive practice. Nakkula and Ravitch’s (1998) hermeneutic theory for applied development suggests that practitioners must constantly consider the ways in which their own lived experiences shape

78    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

their interpretations of others’ lived experiences, particularly interpretations of colleagues and youth. Drawing on this theory, we see engaging in reflexive practice as necessary groundwork for practitioners to form meaningful connections with youth and to support youth in developing their own interpretations of the world, interpretations that enable and restrict the ways in which young people understand their possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Reflexive practice allows professionals to remain aware of the ways in which their interpretations may be influencing their work and is particularly important for youth workers, who are often engaged in coconstructing meaning making with the children and youth that they serve. The PSP program incorporates reflexive practice before the official start of the academic year, by requiring students to attend a two-day, pre-orientation retreat intended to set the stage for engaging in reflexive, as well as culturally and contextually responsive, practice. Students share with each other their stories of what has brought them to this work, which surfaces multiple interpretations of youth work, ranging from frustrating personal experiences to desires for better training to a commitment to social change. While we do not intervene in this storytelling, we use this opportunity to highlight the diverse lived experiences of the cohort itself. By beginning each year with an emphasis on the importance of identity, assumptions, language, and reflection, we model honest sharing among the cohort, which we believe is essential for reflexive practice. Additionally, faculty members regularly assign guided and open-ended journaling across the program. Through journaling, students reflect on problems of practice, interactions with youth, and the development of their professional identities; often, students draw on theories of learning and development presented in their courses, making connections between these texts and their practicum work. Members of the teaching team respond to students’ entries and encourage them to share from their journals in class to further examine their experience as practitioners. We see the cycle of practice, reflexive writing, sharing with peers, and continued field experience as a process of defining and redefining students’ professional identities and practices. We have found that journaling inspires reflective practice that students continue post-graduation. Reflexive practice is not unique to the field of youth work. Counselors, classroom teachers, administrators, and other social service providers all must engage in reflexive practice in order to best meet the needs of youth. This reality reinforces the utility of training youth workers in a school of education, where many others are engaging in the difficult, but important work of self-examination and intentional practice. At the same time, reflexivity serves a particular function in youth work: Social and emotional learning are often central tasks of the spaces in which youth workers operate, in part because identity development is a central task of youth development.

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     79

Youth workers must both engage in reflexive practice and support reflexivity among children and adolescents. Developing an Ecological Systems Mindset The second principle that underlies our program is ecological systems thinking, the idea that individuals are nested in a set of systems and contexts that change over time (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). By introducing and incorporating this perspective across our graduate program, we ask practitioners to consider the influences of multiple contexts, social forces, and relationships on children’s lives and to remain aware of the ways in which local environments (e.g., family systems) are influenced by broader societal realities (e.g., poverty, violence, racism, homophobia, legal marginalization) and, in turn, influence the lived experiences of youth. The PSP program builds on this theory in three ways: first, to reinforce the importance of thinking about children and youth as individuals nested within settings; second, to remind our students that they can intervene across contexts when working to support youth; and, third, to highlight the critical value of collaboration among youth-serving professionals. To aid in students’ learning of these concepts, course syllabi reflect the nested experiences of children and adolescents. In their core year-long theoretical course, PSP students explore different ways that theorists and educators have written about the protective, promotive, and risk factors affecting child and youth development, which includes reading texts that push back against these constructs altogether. Together, we explore theories central to the fields of developmental and prevention science, including the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner, John D. Coie, Paulo Freire, Cynthia Garcia-Coll, Ann Masten, Julian Rappaport, and Seymour Sarason, among others. Because a key assumption of the program’s curriculum is that setting-level factors must be considered in conjunction with individual-level factors for effective youth work to occur, we often ask our students to consider setting-level influences on the youth with whom they work through assignments and class discussion. Over the years, we have continued to add readings to our syllabi that specifically push students to consider structural inequality and the role of institutional and environmental factors in shaping the experiences of individuals (e.g., the works of Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Shawn Ginwright, Eve Tuck). In light of ecological systems thinking, the program also encourages students to collaborate with youth, family members, classroom teachers, school- and district-based administrators, social workers, and the nonprofit community. Although conversations about partnerships occur across PSP courses, these discussions are central to the curriculum of the practicum

80    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

courses. Here, conversations about collaboration are grounded in other elements of the PSP framework, such as strengths-based thinking, reflexivity, cross-cultural competencies, and praxis. Students role-play their interactions with different stakeholders, discuss the challenges and benefits of interagency collaboration, and learn about comprehensive student support models (e.g., Adelman & Taylor, 2006; American School Counselor Association, 2012; National Center on Response to Intervention, 2010). Simultaneously, on site, supervisors encourage students to practice collaborating with parents and other stakeholders and subsequently evaluate them on their ability to become progressively comfortable and capable in these interactions. Locating this program in a graduate school of education further reinforces this ecological perspective. As discussed earlier, this educational context allows youth workers to learn alongside others in youth-serving organizations, and it allows other professionals to better understand the critical role that youth workers play in fostering healthy development. Similar to reflexive practice, reinforcing ecological systems thinking is not a skill unique to the field of youth work. However, because youth workers are uniquely positioned to communicate with caretakers, teachers, out-ofschool time providers, and community organizers, it is a particularly critical skill for this field. As noted above, over the years we have added readings and discussions that explicitly seek to push students’ understanding of the role that institutional and structural inequality play in shaping individuals’ life experiences, as well as the importance of thinking cross-culturally when considering how to best support youth development. Adopting Culturally and Contextually Responsive Practices Culturally and contextually responsive practice is a third key principle upon which we situate our training of youth workers (see Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris & Alim, 2014, among others). In many ways, this principle connects the first two: In order to engage in culturally and contextually responsive practice, one must be both a reflexive practitioner and able to understand the multiple influences of ecological systems on our interpretations of self, other, and world. Culturally and contextually responsive practice requires an ability to think about one’s own perspective and the perspectives of others simultaneously, while engaging in the evolving traditions, practices, and everyday lived experiences of diverse communities; in this sense, it reflects the notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy, which seeks to “perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling and as a needed response to demographic and social change” (Paris & Alim, 2014,

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     81

p. 88). Practitioners who are skilled in this way are able to communicate across differences in ways that value other peoples’ funds of knowledge (e.g., Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992). They are able to adapt and adjust their prevention programs, group activities, and individual support plans to meet the needs of diverse learners from various backgrounds and respond to the ways in which dominant culture and ideologies pervade young people’s experiences with institutions such as schools. And they are able to set aside their own assumptions to better explore the lived experiences of their students. This skill is particularly important for youth workers, who must not only engage in this type of practice themselves but also must help youth learn to communicate with people from different cultural and contextual backgrounds, a central tenet of the framework for 21st century learning (http://www.p21.org/). In PSP, we ask all members of our community, including site supervisors, to continually practice being culturally and contextually responsive, as it is our belief that this is an ever-evolving practice that one never becomes fully “competent” in this respect. Therefore, during pre-orientation, as we engage in our first experience with reflexivity, we immediately focus on questions of culture and context. We revisit these topics regularly in a set of programmatic activities that include biweekly, optional peace circles, a midyear workshop, and an end-of-the-year group reflection. Often, additional school-wide events supplement students’ opportunities to engage in conversations about culture and context. Related to this, we seek to integrate this principle throughout coursework rather than a one-time conversation. For example, in the core practicum course for youth workers, students spend the first six weeks of class reading articles that push them to think more deeply about their own cultural and contextual assumptions about schools and schooling, communities, youth and families, and ethical guidelines. To develop culturally and contextually responsive competency, we include readings from the fields of human development, education, social work, public health, and community organizing, to ensure that students have multiple theoretical lenses to engage in this work.2 By drawing on multiple fields, we find that students are able to consider cross-cultural and cross-contextual questions from numerous perspectives, including writing that presents a strengths-based view of children, families, and schools. A third way that we center cultural and contextual responsiveness is to also support our site supervisors in this area. A decade ago, we began hosting regular meetings for our site supervisors that, over time, have led to a full-day professional development conference that offers an opportunity for connections across organizational contexts and professional roles. In the course of creating this professional development experience, we have found that site supervisors frequently raise issues of culture and context,

82    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

both because they want interns comfortable with cross-cultural relationships and because they, themselves, struggle to give constructive feedback in this area. In response, we have tried different approaches to supporting these critical conversations between supervisors and students by facilitating three-way conversations midyear with supervisor–intern pairs, fostering spaces in which site supervisors can advise and support each other in problems of practice, and connecting our supervisors with guest speakers who have expertise in this arena. Although we find that this continues to be a challenge, it is our hope that these multiple approaches to supporting site supervisors will, in turn, support the growth of our students in this realm. Many of our colleagues across the graduate school of education have also centered on culturally and contextually responsive work. School-wide initiatives have reinforced our programmatic commitment, also providing students across programs with a common language through which to collaborate around issues of culture, identity, race, class, and diversity. Because culturally and contextually responsive practices are often learned by interacting with—and acting upon—the world, this principle also serves as a bridge to our fourth principle: praxis. Engaging in the Work of Praxis The final principle underlying our preparation of youth workers is that of praxis, which is described by Freire (1970) as the “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (p. 36). By engaging in praxis, one learns through active participation alongside continual reflection; thus, this requires that students be engaged in hands-on learning experiences where they can test, apply, and revise what they believe to be true about young people, schools, community-based organizations, and the field of youth work. It means allowing students to try out promising practices in local settings, such that they can begin to understand, critique, and adjust these practices to meet the needs of the youth they seek to serve, as well as their own pedagogical style. And it means pushing students to move beyond what they already think they know toward a type of critical inquiry that bridges the insights of research with the everyday practices of local communities and individual youth. This principle also captures our program’s commitment to train practitioners who will draw from research to inform practice and draw from practice to inform research. Most significantly, the PSP program encourages praxis through its practicum requirement. Each student in the prevention practice strand is assigned to a community- or school-based site, with a supervisor who we consider to be an expert in the field of youth work.3 The content areas of our sites vary widely: Some students are working in sexual health, while others

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     83

are supporting civics education and youth empowerment or working with students in schools and alternative educational placements. Both students and site supervisors engage in a series of meetings and an on-site interview before ranking their choices for a site placement. Although we try to match students with their content area of interest, we are clear that the supervisory style, nature of the work, and culture of the organization matter as much as the content itself. Over the years, we have found that the types of skills students gain on site (e.g., individual counseling work, group work, lesson planning, family outreach, staff training, program management) are more important than the content area in which they are working. Site-based internships, in conjunction with our core course, embody praxis, allowing students to continually test, apply, and revisit their assumptions about themselves and others, applying new insights from coursework, and reflecting on the experience in class. The program also seeks to reinforce praxis by teaching data-based decision-making. In collecting and analyzing information about the one’s school, organization, or students, one is gathering information to help inform his/her future actions. Data are increasingly used in out-of-school settings to spark conversations, drive continuous improvement, and identify assets in communities and programs (Pittman, 2013). PSP students engage in data-based decision making regularly on site, as they observe their supervisors collecting and analyzing relevant data about students, partnering programs, interventions, and organizational structures. At the same time, all of our core classes include assignments that require students to engage in data-based decision making. For example, in their core theoretical course, students build toward the creation of an original program targeting the positive development of children or youth. To do this, they must consult local and national data to identify and justify a need, understand best practices around addressing this need, and develop a theory of change about how to influence intended outcomes. In their practicum courses, students develop asset maps that can inform small-scale prevention or promotion projects, which they eventually implement on site. These projects reflect one way that courses support data-based decision making as a form of praxis. Finally, we ask students to confront problems-of-practice with their colleagues. Typically, this occurs through a “critical friends” process, a structure of exploring one’s practice and the assumptions underlying it (Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 1998). The critical friends protocol allows for deep engagement in a problem through the sharing of the dilemma as well as a series of probing questions and observations from listeners so that the presenter can consider some of his or her own assumptions and concerns from new perspectives. Interestingly, we find that students’ problems of practice often involve relationships with supervisors and other adults, as well as structural issues in their organizations. In this sense, the critical

84    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

friends process provides an opportunity for students to engage in praxis around their relationships with colleagues and their professional identities, as well as their relationships with youth. There is significant research on the utility of praxis in training teachers and other human service professionals, and, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, there are many programs that draw on the principle of praxis. In the context of training youth workers, specifically, we see several benefits to this approach. First, students are better able to access theoretical and empirical lessons from research when they are given opportunities for application. Second, in the process of doing, we find that students are better able to re-evaluate and revise their original assumptions about youth, parents, communities, schools, and their own professional identities. Most importantly, we find that learning through acting upon the world is most akin to the type of learning that continues as our students move into full-time youth work. Because of this, understanding how to engage in reflexive praxis is a key competency for our students, and a critical example of how building on the best practices of teacher and counselor education has allowed us to support the preparation of students in the field of youth development. DISCUSSION Having described the history of the Prevention Science and Practice program and a set of principles that underlie how we approach the training of youth workers, we conclude this chapter by identifying three ongoing tensions in our model: (1) its location in a private graduate school, (2) its location in a school of education, and (3) evolutions in our thinking about cultural and contextual responsiveness. Locating our program in the setting of a graduate school is powerful in that it helps recognize youth work as having both scholarly and practical significance and it may influence the introduction of this profession into other school- and community-based fields. We appreciate the ways in which the fields of prevention science, school counseling, positive youth development, and community organizing have contributed to a body of researchbased knowledge upon which the practice of youth work can build; we believe that this body of knowledge challenges the notion that “anyone can do this work.” At the same time, locating our program in a private graduate school creates both educational and opportunity costs for our students, most of whom will return to working in an underpaid field. This likely limits our ability to attract students from low-income communities, which are often central contexts for youth work. We recognize this as one of the largest limitations of our program and believe that it would require intensive fundraising to address this particular issue adequately. We also recognize

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     85

that professionalizing the field of youth work may narrow the breadth and depth of practices. Licensure, standards, and accountability measures not only prescribe the body of knowledge considered part of youth work, but they are also costly and thus limit the diversity of practitioners in this field.4 We also see locating our work at a graduate school of education as powerful in that it allows us to expose youth workers to the language and culture of schooling. We appreciate the opportunity to provide our students with insights into this central context of youth development, which in turn facilitates other school-based providers to appreciate the many social, emotional, psychological, and political outcomes of youth work. However, in the moments when education becomes conflated with schooling, there are serious complications to centering youth work in this context. At our institution, most faculty are familiar with teaching students who will become schoolbased practitioners, educational policymakers, or researchers. This can lead to an overly narrow focused on school-based activities; we lack a breadth of courses on juvenile justice, social services, community-based organizations, and other critical nonschool settings. Our career services and alumni relationships are also largely rooted in school-based settings, although we are continually working to change this. Additionally, despite a recent interest among educators in noncognitive factors and social emotional learning, we continue to struggle to create spaces that cut across classrooms, clinical settings, and community organizing initiatives—the types of spaces that are often populated by youth workers. These spaces are important if we intend to disrupt assumptions about education as schooling while recognizing the deep importance of school in young people’s lives. It is our hope that by integrating the voices of students with community-based and out-of-school time mindsets into our graduate school of education, we begin to broaden ideas about youth development and learning across our school. A third tension in our work is how best to talk and teach about culturally and contextually relevant practice given that youth work sits at the nexus of multiple fields and disciplines that address questions of cultural and power differently. While we see experiences with reflexivity and cross-cultural communication as central to our work, we have struggled to balance our different disciplinary approaches to this work and to listen to our students’ insights about where this work should be going. By way of example, over time we have moved from talking about cultural competencies to talking about cultural and contextual responsiveness; now, we are beginning to move toward the language of cultural humility (Chávez, 2012; Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998; Waters & Asbill, 2013). Cultural humility requires a “lifelong commitment to self-evaluation and self-critique, redressing power imbalances, and developing and maintaining mutually respectful, dynamic partnerships based on mutual trust” (Chávez, Minkler, Wallerstein, & Spencer, 2007, p. 106). In this way, our faculty aim to create syllabi that reflect

86    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN

our evolving understandings of best practices in supporting cultural and contextually relevant practice. Lastly, we continue to struggle to identify a set of pathways through which our students—often coming out of entry-level youth work positions into our program—can continue to grow and become leaders in this field without losing sight of the importance and value of direct service work. Professionalization of a career requires the identification of a path, or set of paths, that students can follow as they grow and expand in their expertise. Our students often describe feeling a tension between direct service work and leadership in the field. Our students want to be able to grow as professionals, but, in reality, growing as a youth worker often requires a move into a supervisory position and away from direct service work with youth, often the very essence of why our students first entered the field. How can universities and training sites support the development of a career ladder for youth workers? What would this look like? And how can we better align the preservice training of youth workers with ongoing inservice training for those in the field? These are the larger questions that we continue to ask our students and ourselves. While we struggle with these tensions, they also motivate us. We look forward to continuing to contribute to shaping of a language, a set of resources, and a core body of knowledge that can inform youth work. We anticipate the many ways in which we will learn from our students, the young people with whom they work, and our colleagues throughout this process. As educators and learners, we embrace the puzzles and promising practices of youth work training as parts of our larger goal: to best prepare a group of professionals to enter the workforce ready to advance the field, and support the developmental needs of youth and the contexts in which they develop. NOTES 1. Over the last thirteen years, elements of the program have been written about in more detail elsewhere: for example, Nakkula, Ayoub, and Selman (1993), with a focus on the practicum placements; Nakkula, Ayoub, Noam, and Selman (1996); Nakkula and Ravitch (1998), with a focus on hermeneutic research and practice; Selman (2002), with a focus on the relationship between research and practice; and Mason and Nakkula (2008), with a focus on the counseling element of the program. We are grateful for the historical insights and institutional memory that these articles provide. 2. We have found this interdisciplinary approach to be critical. While the fields of psychology, social work, and education have traditionally taken a risk-based perspective on discussing youth, families, and communities—challenging our programmatic commitment to a strengths-based perspective—these fields also provide key theoretical underpinnings for our work. Community organizing, in contrast, has traditionally taken a strengths-based lens in its descrip-

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     87 tions of children and families, but sometimes takes a more deficit-oriented stance toward schools and other institutions. 3. This designation is partially based on the amount of time that supervisors have spent in the field; however, it is also the result of conversations with local colleagues about the work of partnering organizations and conversations with supervisors about their desire to support the training of interns. 4. Our programmatic goal is to articulate a set of flexible competencies that all youth workers must have and a research-based set of practices upon which they can build. We highlight the word flexible because these competencies are broad enough that the specific ways in which they are enacted can change across developmental periods, cultural contexts, and organizational structures. Our approach builds on that of organizations like the National Afterschool Association (2011), which focuses on core knowledge, competencies, and dispositions, but we seek to further consider the ways in which context matters for youth-serving professionals.

REFERENCES Adelman, H. S., & Taylor, L. (2006). The implementation guide to student learning supports in the classroom and schoolwide: New directions for addressing barriers to learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. American School Counselor Association. (2012). ASCA national model: A framework for school counseling programs. Alexandria, VA: Author. Annenberg Institute for School Reform. (1998). Critical friends groups in action: Facilitator’s guide. Providence, RI: Brown University Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513–531. Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L., Ryan, J. A. M., Lonczak, H. S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). and Social Science, 591(1), 98–124. Chávez, V. (2012). Cultural Humility: People, Principles and Practices [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaSHLbS1V4w Chavez, V., Minkler, M., Wallerstein, N., & Spencer, M. S. (2007). Chapter five: Community organizing for health and social justice. In L. Cohen, V. Chavez, & S. Chehimi (Eds.). Prevention is primary: Strategies for community well being (pp. 95–118). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Curry, D., Richardson, R., & Pallock, L. (2011). Aligning educational program content with the U.S. youth work standards and competencies. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 24(4), 24–32. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder. Fusco, D. (2012). Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions. New York, NY: Routledge. Fusco, D., Lawrence, A., Matloff-Nieves, S., & Ramos, E (2013). The accordion effect: Is quality in afterschool getting the squeeze? Journal of Youth Development, 8(2), 4–14. Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

88    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN Harvard Graduate School of Education. (2015). Prevention Science and Practice/C.A.S. in Counseling. Retrieved from http://www.gse.harvard.edu/masters/psp Halpern, R. (2000). The promise of after-school programs for low-income children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15(2), 185–214. Huebner, A. J., Walker, J. A., & McFarland, M. (2003). Staff development for the youth development professional: A critical framework for understanding the work. Youth & Society, 35(92), 204–225. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491. Mahoney, J. L., Levine, M. D., & Hinga, B. M. (2010). The development of afterschool program educators through university-community partnerships. Applied Developmental Science, 14(2), 89–105. Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41(9), 954–969. Mason, M. J., & Nakkula, M. (2008). A risk and prevention counselor training program model: Theory and practice. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 29(5), 361–374. Masten, A. S. & Cicchetti, D. (2010). Developmental cascades. Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 491–495. Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132–141. Nakkula, M. J., Ayoub, C., & Selman, R. L. (1993). Risk and prevention. Education: Alumni Bulletin, 38(1), 5–7. Nakkula, M. J., Ayoub, C., Noam, G. G., & Selman, R. L. (1996) Risk and prevention: An interdisciplinary master’s program in child and adolescent development. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 11, 8–31. Nakkula, M. J. & Ravitch, S. M. (1998). Matters of interpretation: Reciprocal transformation in therapeutic and developmental relationships with youth. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. National Afterschool Association (NAA). (January 2009). National afterschool association code of ethics. Retrieved from http://naaweb.org/images/NAACodeof Ethics.pdf National Afterschool Association (NAA). (2011). Core knowledge and competencies for afterschool and youth development professionals. Wellesley, MA: National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST). National Center on Response to Intervention. (2010, April). Essential components of RTI: A closer look at Response to Intervention. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Response to Intervention. National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD). (2012). Developing a professional development system for youth service professionals. Retrieved from http://www.ncwd-youth.info/information-brief-35 Noam, G. G., Biancarosa, G., & Dechausay, N. (2002). Learning to bridge—bridging to learn: A model and action plan to increase engagement between schools and after-school programs in Boston. Cambridge, MA: Program in Afterschool Education and Research (PEAR), Harvard University, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Not “Anyone Can Do This Work”     89 Noam, G. G., & Fiore, N. (2004). Chapter one: Relationships across multiple settings: An overview. In G. G. Noam & N. Fiore (Eds.), New directions in youth development: The transforming power of adult-youth relationships (pp. 9–16). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2014). What are we seeking to sustain through culturally sustaining pedagogy? A loving critique forward. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 85–100. PAULO. (2002). National Occupational Standards for Youth Work. Retrieved from http://www.youthworkwales.org.uk/creo_files/upload/files/National%20 Occupational%20Standards%20for%20Youth%20Work%202002.pdf Pittman, K. J. (2004). Reflections on the road not (yet) taken: How a centralized public strategy can help youth work focus on youth. New Directions for Youth Development, 104, 87–99. Pittman, K. J. (2013, September 20). Back to school, with better data! Ready Thoughts. Retrieved from http://www.readyby21.org/newsletter/ready-thoughts/ back-school-better-data Quinn, J. (2012). Advancing youth work: Opportunities & challenges. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 201–215). New York, NY: Routledge. Sameroff, A. (2010). A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture. Child Development, 81(1), 6–22. Scales, P., & Leffert, N. (1999). Developmental assets: A synthesis of the scientific research on adolescent development. Minneapolis, MN: The Search Institute. Selman, R. L. (2002). Risk and prevention: A bridge to cross between theory and practice. In A. H. Dellasandro (Eds.), Science for society: Informing policy and practice through research in developmental psychology. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development (vol. 98, pp. 43–54). New York, NY: Wiley Periodicals Selman, R. L., & Dray, A. J. (2007). Risk and prevention. In K. A. Renninger, & I. E. Sigel (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., pp. 378–419). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Starr, B., Yohalem, N., & Gannett, E. (2009). Youth work core competencies: A review of existing frameworks and purposes. Washington DC: Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. Retrieved from http://www.niost.org/pdf/Core_Competencies_Review_October_2009.pdf Stein, J. A., Wood, E., Walker, J. A., Kimball, E. M., Outley, C. W., & Baizerman, M. (2005). The youth development leadership experience: Transformative, reflective education for youth work practitioners. Child & Youth Care Forum, 34(4), 303–325. Stone, B., Garza, P., & Borden, L. (2004). Attracting, developing, and retaining youth workers for the next generation. Wingspread Conference Proceedings, November 16–18, 2004. Washington, DC: National Collaboration for Youth. Retrieved from sparkaction.org/sites/sparkaction.org/files/nydic/documents/ wingreportcomplete.pdf Tervalon, M., & Murray-Garcia, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education.  Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Undeserved, 9, 117–125.

90    G. BRION-MEISELS, M. SAVITZ-ROMER, and D. VASUDEVAN Waters, A., & Asbill, L. (2013, August). Reflections on cultural humility. CYF News. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ families/resources/newsletter/2013/08/cultural-humility.aspx  Wisman, M. (2011). Youth work practice: A status report on professionalization and expert opinion about the future of the field. New England Network for Child, Youth and Family Services. Retrieved from: http://www.proyouthworkamerica. org/page/YouthWorkPractice.pdf Youngblade, L. M., Theokas, C., Schulenberg, J., Curry, L., Huang, I., & Novak, M. (2007). Risk and promotive factors in families, schools, and communities: A contextual model of positive youth development in adolescence. Pediatrics, 119(S1), S47–S53.

CHAPTER 5

BUILDING PATHWAYS FROM RESEARCH TO PRACTICE Preparing Youth Development Professionals through a Blended Online Master’s Degree Program Barry A. Garst, Edmond P. Bowers, William Quinn, and Ryan J. Gagnon Clemson University

With over 6.5 million youth nationwide participating in some type of outof-school time (OST) programming, youth work has a tremendous scope (Foundations, Inc. & The After-School Corporation, Inc., 2010). Expansion and recognition of the emerging profession of youth development depends on accumulated evidence that justifies its effectiveness for promoting positive youth well-being (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 2004). Youth development professionals need a range of knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations to develop the necessary readiness for providing high-quality youth work (Larson & Walker, 2010), and increasing attention has been devoted to properly preparing frontline youth workers

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 91–108 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

91

92    B. A. GARST et al.

as well as youth development leaders and professionals (Borden, Craig, & Villarrual, 2004; Garst, Baughman & Franz, 2014; Wisman, 2011; Yohalem, Pittman, & Moore, 2006). One of the pathways to build a vibrant youth development professional workforce with greater competencies and influence is by establishing university-based degree programs in this discipline (Borden et al., 2004). A diverse set of university-based youth development degree programs have emerged over the past decade, including traditional, blended, and online programs (Allen & Seaman, 2013). Although there has been significant growth in the number of online programs, we know little about the effectiveness of online instruction for achieving educational objectives (Berjerano, 2008). The work reported in this chapter sought to understand learning outcomes associated with Clemson University’s online Master of Science degree program in youth development leadership (YDL). Specifically, we discuss program design, structure, and outcomes based on an assessment of YDL graduates who completed the program between 2007 and 2014. We address (1) strengths and limitations of the degree program format, (2) youth development competencies that YDL graduates learned in the program, (3) courses and skills applied to youth development practice, and (4) professional impacts that YDL graduates associate with their degree. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Theoretical Basis of Youth Work In the U.S., there are thousands of community-based programs that seek to promote positive outcomes and in young people (Roth & BrooksGunn, 2003; Vandell, Larson, Mahoney, & Watts, 2015) and numerous U.S. organizations that seek to provide such programs, including 4-H, Boys & Girls Clubs, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, and Girls Inc. These efforts are often derived from theories and philosophies of the positive youth development (PYD) perspective (Lerner et al., 2013). PYD scholars posit that all young people have strengths and their contexts can provide resources to them (called “developmental assets”) (Benson, Scales, & Syvertsen, 2011). When the strengths of youth are aligned with the resources in their contexts, PYD is promoted. OST programs constitute one of the key contexts for developmental assets that promote PYD. Given the importance of OST activity participation as a developmental asset in promoting positive outcomes in youth (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Mahoney, Larson, & Eccles, 2005; Vandell et al., 2015),

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     93

it is important to understand what characteristics of OST programs facilitate positive outcomes. Educational Strategies and Pathways for Youth Workers Key to providing high-quality OST programs that promote PYD are skilled, dedicated, and competent youth workers (Yohalem et al., 2006). In turn, a key factor in producing “high-performing” youth workers is professional development (i.e., training and education) to build staff knowledge and competence in such areas as child and adolescent development, programming, and evaluation (Astroth, Garza, & Taylor, 2004; Johnson, Rothstein, & Gajdosik, 2004). However, youth workers often receive little training and report a lack of formal education in relevant content areas (Fusco, 2003; National Afterschool Association, 2006). To address this gap, scholars and leaders in the field of youth development have called for a more formal level of professionalism that requires some educational qualifications (Mahoney & Warner, 2014). One strategy for addressing the educational and training needs of youth workers has been the development of core competency models and then mapping educational opportunities to specific competency areas. Core competencies are clearly identified knowledge and skills that “articulate what it is that adults working with children and youth need to know in order to deliver high quality, developmental programming” (Starr, Yohalem, & Gannett, 2009, p. 3). Youth work competencies establish standards of practice that serve as a basis for career development systems. The National Afterschool Association (2011) developed a set of core knowledge and competencies for afterschool and youth development professionals, and these competencies outline knowledge and skills youth workers need to provide high-quality afterschool and youth development programming and support the learning and development of children and youth. These competencies include child and youth growth and development; learning environment and curriculum; child/youth observation and assessment; interactions with children and youth; youth engagement; cultural competency and responsiveness; family, school, and community relationships; safety and wellness; program planning and development; and professional development and leadership. Competency models such as this have been used to design professional development opportunities for youth workers (Garst, Hunnings, Jamison, Hairston, & Meadows, 2007; Stone & Rennekamp, 2004; Vance, 2010). Little research has examined whether professional development and education are related to growth in these youth development-related competencies. In addition, some argue

94    B. A. GARST et al.

that practical fieldwork and experience-based training is a more suitable path to professionalization of the youth development work force (Astroth et al., 2004; Wisman, 2011). Several university–community collaborations have developed to link these paradigms (e.g., Mahoney & Warner, 2014). Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Degree Programs Education and professional development opportunities for youth workers are a patchwork of state, university, and organizational initiatives, and these entities “approach the professionalization of youth work from a variety of angles, sometimes together and sometimes separately” (Wisman, 2011, p. 7). Although a small number of IHE programs supporting the needs of youth development professionals have existed since the 1980s, credit-bearing options have increased in recent years (Foundations, Inc. & The After-School Corporation, Inc., 2010), with credentialing and certificate programs emerging in community colleges. Assembling relevant academic courses has not always been easy for those interested in becoming youth development professionals. Borden et al. (2004), in an overview of the history and evolution of IHE degree programs, reflected on the challenges associated with compiling the necessary courses to prepare oneself for youth development work. They noted that professionals had to cobble together courses from a myriad of disciplines and that existing degrees were often not specific to youth development work. A 2010 report about higher education opportunities for OST youth development professionals noted that IHEs were partnering with afterschool programs providers to develop certificate programs, OST-focused courses, and OST-based practicums, which would be integrated into existing IHE degree programs. These programs are often interdisciplinary and housed in diverse academic departments (Foundations, Inc. & The After-School Corporation, Inc., 2010). The IHE benefits of serving youth development workers are numerous, including increasing nontraditional student enrollment, building a robust system of skill-building and professional development for OST youth workers, introducing youth workers to a career path linked with a network of related fields, and ultimately improving experiences for youth through the preparation of more highly skilled staff. IHE Online and Blended Degree Programs Unfortunately, many youth development professionals working in OST settings are often not connected with educational opportunities available through higher education (Foundations, Inc. & The After-School Corporation, Inc., 2010). To address the needs of these working professionals,

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     95

many IHE youth development-related degree and certificate programs offer courses scheduled in the evening, on weekends, online, and/or as intensive, compressed courses. A growing number of web-facilitated, blended/hybrid, and online certificate and youth development degree programs have been designed for individuals whose professional schedules will not allow them to attend traditional in-person classes or who live too far away to do so (Borden et al., 2004). Traditional courses are those where no online technology is used and content is delivered face-to-face either orally or in writing. With webfacilitated courses, 1–29% may be delivered using web-based technology to facilitate what is basically a face-to-face course. Blended or hybrid courses generally blend 30–79% of online instruction with some amount of faceto-face delivery. In addition, blended/hybrid courses incorporate online discussions and often have a reduced number of face-to-face meetings. IHE online courses are defined as courses in which at least 80% of the course content is delivered online (Allen & Seaman, 2013). Blended courses use more than one modality to maximize student learning outcomes and overcome weaknesses of fully online instruction by using a range of instructional sequencing and delivery strategies to enhance student learning and satisfaction. This is important, as evidence suggests that blended delivery methods have been found to provide “clearer and more learner-centered instructions” (Lim, Morris, & Kupritz, 2006, p. 35) than online delivery methods. Singh and Reed (2001) proposed a typology of blended learning that describes the variety of this form of instruction. The typology includes: (1) offline and online learning; (2) self-paced, live, and collaborative learning; (3) structured and unstructured learning; (4) custom content with off-the-shelf content; (5) work and learning; and (6) ingredients blending synchronous physical formats, synchronous online formats, and self-paced, asynchronous formats. The authors proposed that the benefits of blended instruction include easy access to information, increased student interaction, improved pedagogy, personal presence, and cost effectiveness. With IHE blended courses in mind, we now examine a youth development leadership Master of Science graduate degree program designed by Clemson University using a blended approach to instruction. Clemson University’s Youth Development Leadership (YDL) Graduate Program The academic discipline of youth development has been visible and growing for many years at Clemson University. A multidisciplinary faculty, representing education, human development, family science, parks and recreation, sociology, and psychology, built a collaboration to promote the well-being and success of young people. This initiative was intended to strengthen youth-serving organizations by preparing professionals with

96    B. A. GARST et al.

leadership skills to reflect the growing movement in PYD. To be leaders of organizations, it was determined that a graduate-level program would be optimal for preparing such professionals. A conceptual framework for the program was built that included youth development theories, human development, youth program development and assessment, and cultural and ethnic diversity. In addition to content courses to prepare professionals in the field of youth development, additional courses were included with the aim of preparing professionals who would have the competencies to be leaders of youth-serving organizations. Therefore, additional courses included grant-writing, staff and volunteer recruitment and retention, and leadership skills and organizational development. Because the proposed curriculum reflected a graduate-level education, a statistics course was included as a requirement of the degree that would prepare professionals to both interpret and evaluate research pertaining to youth development that would contribute to valid policy and program decisions. The youth development research and evaluation emphasis is an essential part of the development of a discipline or profession. Finally, a master’s project capstone experience was embedded into the curriculum to provide students with an opportunity to conduct an independent research project advised by a faculty advisor. Some examples of independent projects include program evaluations, community youth master plan initiatives, and environmental scans of youth well-being. Clemson University was an early adopter of distance education technologies and methodologies. The faculty envisioned that such an approach would accommodate current youth-serving professionals who would be considered nontraditional students (e.g., professionals working full or part time while also pursuing an academic degree) and would not be expected to leave a job or uproot their families to move to campus. The rapid evolution of online learning technologies would accommodate such working professionals. The first cohort of M.S. youth development leadership degree students enrolled in January 2006. A cohort model was used in which all students enrolled would begin the first course together. This model was economically feasible as a way to deliver each course in sequence building one upon another. In addition, this model provided nontraditional students with opportunities to overcome geographical distance to build a professional network of like-minded professionals who could share their experiences and challenges with each other. In the Clemson YDL program, the cohort accepted each year was required to participate in a 3-day on-campus orientation. During this visit, students would meet and get to know their classmates personally, meet the faculty, learn distance education technologies from the computer center staff, and begin the first course, Foundations of Youth Development. In addition, students completed team-building activities in a camp setting that provided shared experiences for the students to build cohesion.

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     97

The YDL courses were offered in an accelerated format in which courses were taken consecutively with each course being seven weeks long. A weekly 90-minute synchronous class was required in each course during which the instructor and students were engaged online in real time through the Adobe Connect platform.  Instructors supplemented synchronous meetings in some courses with recorded lectures for students to review prior to the weekly meeting. Student teams often made presentations to the class during these synchronous meetings. Whereas each faculty member created a unique structure for a course with varied activities, all instructors used the Blackboard platform to incorporate weekly discussion board questions to encourage class interaction. Instructors assigned scholarly papers to facilitate critical thinking and administered quizzes or exams to assess acquisition of knowledge. Two courses were completed each semester including summer sessions, which allowed students to complete the required 12 courses in six semesters (or two years). Thus, the first YDL cohort graduated in December 2007, and between that time and December 2014, a total of eight student cohorts or 122 students completed a YDL MS degree. While online nontraditional programs such as Clemson University’s YDL graduate program have grown, few have evaluated the impact of their programs in preparing youth development leaders to strengthen youth-serving organizations within communities. Purpose In this chapter we examine the results of a 2015 Clemson University assessment of the YDL program. The purpose of this project was to better understand how the program may be linked to the practice of youth development leadership; to identify individual, organizational, and community outcomes associated with the program; and to discover strengths and limitations of the current YDL program model. The following research questions were explored: 1. How satisfied are graduates with the YDL program model and what are the strengths and limitations of that model? 2. How does YDL program completion relate to youth development leadership competencies? 3. What courses and related skills have YDL program graduates learned and applied to the practice of youth development leadership? 4. What professional opportunities do YDL program graduates associate with degree program completion?

98    B. A. GARST et al.

METHODS Data were collected via an online survey from 95 graduates of Clemson’s YDL program based on contact information in an Alumni Relations database. The survey was developed by YDL faculty and informed by the relevant literature based on the study questions. Graduates were recruited via three emails (initial email plus a follow-up email 2 and 4 weeks later) distributed through Clemson Alumni Relations, two Facebook posts to the YDL Facebook page, and direct emails from the YDL program coordinator. Sixty of 95 graduates completed surveys for a response rate of 62% (Shiha & Fan, 2009). The survey instrument included 47 questions that measured self-reported changes in knowledge, skills, and aspirations. Respondents answered questions about demographics, past and current youth work experience, opportunities associated with YDL degree completion, satisfaction with program characteristics and instructional support, levels of youth development competencies before and after YDL degree completion, skills use of specific skills from YDL degree courses, and challenges associated with YDL degree completion. RESULTS Participants This section details the major findings from the YDL program assessment across the quantitative and qualitative survey data. Survey respondents were primarily female (n = 42, 72.4%). People provided racial identifications as White (n = 36, 62%), African American (n = 17, 29.3%), Hispanic (n = 3, 5.2%), or representing multiple races (n = 2, 3.4%). Respondents’ ages ranged from 25 to 65, with most respondents in the 25–34-year-old category for an average age of 37.56 years (SD = 10.15). A majority of respondents reported an annual household income of $25,001–$50,000 (28.8%). Representation from each cohort group was as follows: 2006—5.1%; 2007—6.8%; 2007—3.4% 2008—8.5%; 2009—13.6%; 2010—6.8%; 2011—18.6%; 2012— 28.8%; and 2013—8.5%. Ratings of YDL Program Components The first research question was, “How satisfied are graduates with the YDL program model and what are the strengths and limitations of that model?” with a response scale of 1 = Unsatisfied to 5 = Completely Satisfied. Respondents were asked to rate various YDL program components (Table 5.1). The on-campus orientation (4.70, SD = 0.54), the cohort model (4.68,

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     99 TABLE 5.1  Mean Levels of YDL Program Satisfaction (Ranked by Mean Score on a scale of 1 = Unsatisfied to 5 = Completely Satisfied) (N = 54)

a

Program Component

Mean (SD)a

On-Campus Orientation

4.70 (0.54)

Cohort Model

4.68 (0.70)

Course Offerings

4.46 (0.61)

Use of Adobe Connect

4.53 (0.64)

Evening Synchronous Meetings

4.50 (0.75)

Self-Directed Readings

4.46 (0.66)

Blackboard Platform

4.44 (0.84)

Master’s Project

4.44 (0.82)

Spring Campus Visit and Research Forum

4.33 (0.93)

Support Services

4.29 (1.03)

Discussion Board Questions

4.16 (0.91)

Group Assignments

3.73 (1.12)

Prerecorded Lecture

3.67 (1.36)

Responses indicating N/A were not included in analysis.

SD = 0.70), course offerings (4.46, SD = 0.61), use of Adobe Connect (4.53, SD = 0.64), and evening synchronous meetings (4.50, SD = 0.75) were the five highest-rated program components. The next five highest-rated components included self-directed readings (4.46, SD = 0.66), Blackboard™ platform (4.44, SD = 0.84), master’s project (4.44, SD = 0.82), spring campus visit and research forum (4.33, SD = 0.93), and support services (4.29, SD = 1.03). Group assignments (3.73, SD = 1.12) and prerecorded lectures (3.67, SD = 1.36) were the two lowest-rated program components, yet these ratings were still above the 3.0 (neutral) average for the scale. Competencies Developed Through the YDL Program The second research question was, “How does YDL program completion relate to youth development leadership competencies?” Respondents were asked to rate their level of competence as a result of participation in the YDL program based on the aforementioned ten core competencies (National Afterschool Association, 2011) used to guide the YDL program curriculum. A retrospective posttest approach was used to allow respondents to reflect on their competence level before starting the program and compare it with their competence level after completing the program on a 1 = poor to 5 = excellent Likert scale. Retrospective approaches are an effective strategy for identifying program outcomes that also reduce the influence of response-shift bias

100    B. A. GARST et al.

(Marshall, Higginbotham, Harris, & Lee, 2007; Sibthorpe, Paisley, Gookin, & Ward, 2007). Paired samples T-Test results indicated significant (p ≤ .001) pre- to post-program growth in each of the ten competency areas. Prior to entering the YDL program, graduates rated themselves as having a neutral level of competence; however, upon completion of the program, graduates reported an “excellent” level of competence in many of the areas. Skills Learning Through the YDL Program and Applied to Practice The third research question was, “What courses and related skills have YDL program graduates learned and applied to the practice of youth development leadership?” Because this study sought to identify courses that were most useful for youth development practice, respondents were asked to rate each YDL course based on skills both learned and applied to their current youth development practice on a 1 = not at all to 4 = a lot Likert scale. Table 5.2 shows the skills and associated courses based on respondents’ ratings. Based on this list, skills that were both learned and practiced by graduates were associated with the following courses: “Creative and Ethical Leadership” (3 skills), “Child and Adolescent Development” (2 skills), “Youth Development Programming” (2 skills), “Youth Development in a Global and Diverse Society” (2 skills), “Foundations of Youth Development” (2 skills), “Management of Staff and Volunteers” (1 skill), “Assessment and Evaluation of Youth Programs” (1 skill), and “Special Topics in Youth Development Leadership” (1 skill). In general, YDL graduates reported that they learned and/or applied each of these skills “some” or “a lot”; however, responses to individual items varied. Professional Opportunities Associated With YDL Degree Completion The fourth research question was, “What professional opportunities do YDL program graduates associate with degree program completion?” Respondents identified opportunities that became available to them because of their degree. The three reasons for pursuing a YDL degree identified most often were to pursue a position outside of their current organization (25.4%), for academic advancement toward a higher degree (25.4%), and to advance within their current organization (15.3%). Respondents were then asked, “What opportunities became available to you as a result of completion of the YDL program?” Almost 35% of respondents (33.9%) indicated that they maintained their current position with greater responsibility. Close to 30% (28.8%) received a pay increase or were promoted to a higher

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     101 TABLE 5.2  Course-Specific Skills Applied to Practice According to YDL Program Graduates (Ranked by Mean Score on a scale from 1–4 [N = 47]) Skill

Mean (SD)

Professionalism in youth work

3.72 (.75)

Application of theories and principles of child & adolescent development

3.61 (.77)

Recognizing physical, cognitive, and psychosocial processes of development

3.58 (.72)

Modeling ethical leadership behaviors and encouraging others to follow

3.55 (.83)

Considering diversity of program participants

3.50 (.72)

Cultural competency skills

3.49 (.88)

Application of the theory of youth development

3.45 (.75)

Leadership methods or approaches

3.39 (.82)

Identification of causal factors of stress between staff and volunteers

3.27 (.88)

Application of program evaluation and assessment skills

3.21 (.82)

Creating organizational partnerships

3.16 (1.04)

Implementing an outcome-based youth program

3.15 (1.07)

Evaluating program results to inform program or organizational improvement

3.12 (.98)

Using strategy to become more innovative or specialized

3.10 (.99)

Creating a logic model to guide a youth development program

3.04 (1.00)

Application of research or evaluation skills to organizational programs

2.98 (1.05)

Organizational collaborations to create innovative or specialized programs

2.88 (1.30)

Recruitment of family members to participate in organizational programs

2.79 (1.01)

Understanding statistical tests or methods used in research and/or evaluation

2.75 (.86)

Initiation of grant related activities

2.69 (1.14)

Collaboration with organizations to raise funds

2.69 (1.21)

Development of program offering targeting parents or family members

2.69 (1.07)

Improving staff management systems

2.61 (1.11)

Using statistical findings in research and/or evaluation

2.59 (1.08)

Establishing volunteer management systems

2.44 (1.17)

Collaborating with other organizations on a research or evaluation project

2.35 (1.24)

position (15.3%) by their current employer. Ten respondents (16.9%) left their previous employer for a higher-level position in another organization, and 6.8% received a higher pay at their new position. DISCUSSION The purpose of this chapter was to provide an overview and basic evaluation of a graduate degree program designed for youth development professionals.

102    B. A. GARST et al.

The results suggest that the Clemson YDL program completion is linked to increased youth development leadership competencies in a sample of program graduates that represented cohorts across 8 years of the program from 2006–2014. These findings also address a significant gap in the literature, as the impacts of online or blended youth development degree programs on youth development leadership competency growth have been understudied (Vance, 2010). Not only was growth reported across all youth development core competency areas from pre- to post-program, but participants indicated that completion of the degree program led to new professional opportunities and advantages. In this study, the growth that respondents reported across competencies was based on the core competency model that guided the program curriculum; this finding also speaks to the fidelity of the program, a critical dimension of program quality (Berkel, Mauricio, Schoenfelder, & Sandler, 2011; Gagnon, Franz, Garst, & Bumpus, 2015). These findings support the broader literature recognizing the importance of academic and professional education to further advance the youth development field (Diem, 2009; Garst et al., 2014; Wisman, 2011). Although Borden et al. (2004) highlighted the work of a consortium of colleges and universities offering online youth development degrees and certificate programs, they did not provide evidence of program impacts. Thus, there is recognition that tying degree programs to youth work competencies is a contemporary issue facing youth work, yet few formal assessments have explicitly identified this link. Becoming professionally prepared through an academic degree program was clearly impactful for respondents in this study as suggested by the finding that a YDL program degree from Clemson was valuable for career advancement and enhancement. Approximately 69% of respondents reported that their degree helped them to advance in their current position, attributing such benefits as greater responsibility, a promotion, or increased pay as an outcome. The goal of this assessment was to illuminate more than program-relevant outcomes; it was important to understand the knowledge and skills most relevant to youth development leadership and practice. Notable in the findings was the fact that the courses and associated skills identified by respondents as most applicable for their youth development practice reflected a broad swath of the MS degree curriculum, with eight different courses represented in the list of most relevant courses. These findings suggest the broad relevance of Clemson’s YDL program and of a successful model that has been adapted over time. The success of the program can be attributed to both stability and change. The campus orientation, synchronous meetings, cohort model, and course content were stable forces provided with consistent quality. Also notable are the study findings that the most relevant and applied skills that respondents learned in the YDL program were related to

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     103

leadership/professionalism, child and adolescent development, and diversity/cultural competence, skills that have been identified among those central for success in the new global economy (Symonds, Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011). Application of these skills within youth development leadership settings may also address some of the challenges of youth work identified by Larson and Walker (2010) such as maintaining consistency and professionalism in leaders’ interactions with youth, reconciling organizational systems and youth development, accommodating different leadership styles and philosophies among front-line staff, and mediating youth’s relationships with community members and institutions. The fact that some course-related skills, such as those associated with collaboration, staff/volunteer management, and research/evaluation, were identified as less applicable to respondents’ youth work may reflect the nature of respondents’ positions (i.e., they work in positions in which these skills are not central to their work). It may also suggest that some respondents’ youth-serving organizations place lesser value on those skills. For example, the need for youth-serving organizations to pay greater attention to program evaluation (Bialeschki & Conn, 2011; Rennekamp & Arnold, 2009) and to build their overall capacity for program evaluation has been noted in the literature (Arnold, 2006; Taylor-Powell & Boyd, 2008). Respondents may also have identified some skills as less applicable to their youth work because the skills addressed in specific YDL courses may have been less useful relative to the demands of current youth development practice. Contemporary literature about IHE online blended courses suggests that group or individual projects, learning and discussion activities, and class assignments are instructional activities that students found most helpful (Lim et al., 2006). Although the program components identified as most valuable in this study differed from those identified by Lim and his colleagues, the importance of the social dimensions of IHE online blended courses appears to be consistent. In this study, three out of the five program components rated most favorably by respondents (on-campus orientation, cohort model, and evening synchronous meetings) involve student and faculty interaction and communication. It appears that, although nontraditional students may want the flexibility of an online degree they can complete while maintaining their professional and family responsibilities, they also value rich contact with faculty and peers. This finding supports the perspective of Lim et al. (2006), who suggested that “an important consideration in designing online or blended instruction is to include instructional activities and collaboration opportunities that enhance the learners’ emotional engagement with peers and instructors” (p. 35). This study provide additional support for the importance of interactive applications as a part of IHE online degree programs.

104    B. A. GARST et al.

The blended model highlighted in this chapter, in which students completed a majority of their coursework through a self-directed online format but who also had the opportunity for meaningful interaction with peers and adults (through both on-campus visits as well as weekly synchronous meetings during each course), appears to be a particularly strong approach. As working professionals engaged in youth work, students are able to learn from each other as well as from faculty. Through their degree program cohort, these students extend their professional network and gain an experienced peer group through which they can share tips and brainstorm solutions to youth work challenges. A few study limitations need to be acknowledged. Of particular note is that this work is based entirely on self-reported data. This decision was deliberate, given that the purpose was to assess youth workers’ perceptions, attitudes, and thoughts about their experience in the Clemson YDL program, and given the lack of prospective and concurrent data on this sample. The retrospective posttest approach, although methodologically sound for addressing concerns associated with response-shift bias, may not have entirely controlled for threats to validity (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) such as social desirability on the part of the respondents as well as changes that the respondents may have experienced due to history and/or maturation effects that could result in inaccurate recall of past behaviors or thoughts. This approach may have also introduced measurement errors that were due to reporter bias, or different points of reference. For example, “a little” may mean to a respondent that he applied a skill several times a year in his work, whereas to another respondent, applying that skill once connotes “a little.” Finally, as these responses are the sole source of data for this study, results could be biased due to common method variance. In future work, prospective data collection procedures through other methods or multiple informants such as supervisor ratings or researcher observations could complement the professionals’ self-reports. The lack of a pre-post design is understandable in this case, as youth development degree programs are in an incubation state and it may be premature to expect more rigorous designs as the model is still unfolding. Still, some of the findings in this study may have been different through the lens of a different design that would have allowed for better measurement of changes over time. Although this study’s response rate of 62% was quite good, a self-selection bias may also have influenced the study results as the respondents may represent some unique characteristic (e.g., most empowered in their jobs by the degree; more academically inclined) when compared with nonrespondents. Therefore, generalizations should not be made to the entire population of youth workers in the U.S., or to a more diverse sample of youth-serving professionals.

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     105

CONCLUSIONS Online degree programs can make important contributions toward preparing youth development professionals, yet many youth workers are unfamiliar with the availability of these programs. Promoting the educational and professional benefits of IHE online degree programs is an important step for engaging middle- and upper-level youth work administrators who aim to become better prepared to develop high-quality programs and more poised to guide high-functioning organizations. When graduates of IHE youth development degree programs complete their academic programs, we expect them to return to their organizations and communities better prepared to strengthen the organizations with which they are affiliated and contribute to healthier youth, families, and communities. The study described in this chapter provided a clearer, and much needed, understanding of how IHE youth development degree programs may equip youth workers to become successful youth development leaders and, hence, promote stronger youthserving organizations. This study may benefit higher education leadership by pointing to ways to develop online academic opportunities for working professionals in the field of youth development. In particular, high student satisfaction can be reached with on-campus visits, a cohort model, and weekly synchronous meetings. However, there is more to be learned about the relationship between degree completion (and associated competency development) and organizational and community change. Understanding the organizational and community-level impacts made by program graduates will provide evidence needed to better promote these programs. REFERENCES Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the United States. New York, NY: Babson Research Group and Quahog Research Group. Arnold, M. E. (2006). Developing evaluation capacity in Extension 4-H field faculty: A framework for success. American Journal of Evaluation, 27(2), 257–269. Astroth, K. A., Garza, P., & Taylor, B. (2004). Getting down to business: Defining competencies for entry-level youth workers. New Directions for Youth Development, 104, 25–37. Berjerano, A.R. (2008). The genesis and evolution of online degree programs: Who are they for and what have we lost along the way? Communication Education, 57(3), 408–414. Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., & Syvertsen, A. K. (2011). The contribution of the developmental assets framework to positive youth development theory and practice. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 41, 197–230.

106    B. A. GARST et al. Berkel, C., Mauricio, A., Schoenfelder, E., & Sandler, I. (2011). Putting the pieces together: An integrated model of program implementation. Prevention Sciences, 12, 3–33. Bialeschki, M. D., & Conn, M. (2011). Welcome to our world: Bridging youth development research in nonprofit and academic communities. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 300–306. Borden, L. M., Craig, D. L., & Villarruel, F. A. (2004). Professionalizing youth development: The role of higher education. New Directions for Youth Development, 104, 75–85. Retrieved from http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/images/a/ae/Higher_ ed_and_Professionalizing_the_field.pdf Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. (1963). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research on teaching. In N. L. Gage (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 171–246). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L., Ryan, J. A., Lonczak, H. S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). Positive youth development in the United States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth development programs. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 98–124. Diem, K. (2009). Preparing youth development professionals to be successful: How do the needs of Extension/4-H compare to those of other organizations? Journal of Extension, 47(1). Retrieved from http://www.joe.org/ joe/2009february/rb1.php Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. A. (Eds.). (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Foundations, Inc. & the After-School Corporation, Inc. (2010). Out-of-school time: Leveraging higher education for quality. Retrieved from http://www.afterschooled. org/PDF/Higher_Ed_Report_Feb2010.pdf Fusco, D. (2003). A landscape study of youth workers in out-of-school time. Unpublished paper. New York, NY: College of the City University of New York, CUNY Workforce Development Initiative. Gagnon, R. J, Franz, N., Garst, B., & Bumpus, M. (2015). Factors impacting program delivery: Extension, 3(2), 68–82. Garst, B. A., Baughman, S., & Franz, N. (2014). Benchmarking professional development practices across youth-serving organizations: Implications for Extension. Journal of Extension, 52(5), 1–14. Garst, B., Hunnings, J., Jamison, K., Hairston, J., & Meadows, B. (2007). Development of a comprehensive new 4-H extension agents training program utilizing a multi-module approach and the 4-H professional research, knowledge, and competencies. Journal of Extension, 44(6). Retrieved from www.joe.org/ joe/2007february/a3.php Johnson, E., Rothstein, F., & Gajdosik, J. (2004). The intermediary role in youth worker professional development: Successes and challenges. New Directions for Youth Development, 104, 51–64. Larson, R. W., & Walker, K. C. (2010). Dilemmas of practice: Challenges to program quality encountered by youth program leaders. American Journal of Community Psychology, 45, 338–349. Lerner, J. V., Bowers, E. P., Minor, K., Boyd, M. J., Mueller, M. K., Schmid, K. L.,  . . .  Lerner, R. M. (2013). Positive youth development: Processes, philosophies,

Building Pathways from Research to Practice     107 and programs. In R. M. Lerner, M. A. Easterbrooks, & J. Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Developmental psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 365–392). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lim, D. H., Morris, M. L., & Kupritz, V. W. (2006). Online vs. blended learning: Differences in instructional outcomes and learning satisfaction. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED492755 Mahoney, J. L., Larson, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (Eds.). (2005). Organized activities as contexts of development: Extracurricular activities, after-school and community programs. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mahoney, J. L., & Warner, G. (2014). Issue editors’ notes. New Directions for Youth Development, 2014(144), 1–10. Marshall, J., Higginbotham, B., Harris, V., & Lee, T. (2007). Assessing program outcomes: Rationale and benefits of posttest-then-retrospective-pretest designs. Journal of Youth Development, 2(1). Retrieved from http://www.usu.edu/fchd/ people/docs/EXTENSION_PROGRAMS.pdf National Afterschool Association. (2006). Understanding the afterschool workforce: Opportunities and challenges for an emerging profession. Houston, TX: Cornerstone for Kids. Retrieved from http://www.cpshr.us/workforceplanning/documents/06.11_Underst_Aftersc_Wkfrce.pdf National Afterschool Association. (2011). Core knowledge and competencies for afterschool and youth development professionals. Retrieved from http://naaweb.org/ images/PDFs/NAA_CKC_Blue_Cover.pdf Roth, J. L., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2003). What exactly is a youth development program? Answers from research and practice. Applied Developmental Science, 7, 94–111. Rennekamp, R. A., & Arnold, M. E. (2009). What progress, program evaluation? Reflections on a quarter-century of Extension evaluation practice. Journal of Extension, 47(3). Retrieved from http://www.joe.org/joe/2009june/comm1.php Shiha, T., & Fan, X. (2009). Comparing response rates in e-mail and paper surveys: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 4(1), 26–40. Sibthorp, J., Paisley, K., Gookin, J., & Ward, P. (2007). Addressing response-shift bias: retrospective pretests in recreation research and evaluation. Journal of Leisure Research, 29(2), 295–315. Singh, H., & Reed, C. (2001). A white paper: Achieving success with blended learning. 2001 ASTD State of the Industry Report. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development. Starr, E., Yohalem, N., & Gannett, E. (2009). Youth worker core competencies: A review of existing frameworks and purposes. Washington, DC: Next Generational Youth Work Coalition. Stone, B., & Rennekamp, R. (2004). New foundations for the 4-H Youth Development Profession: 4-H professional research, knowledge, and competencies study. Conducted in cooperation with the National 4-H Professional Development Task Force. National 4-H Headquarters, CSREES, USDA. Symonds, W. C., Schwartz, R. B., & Ferguson, R. (2011). Pathways to prosperity: Meeting the challenge of preparing young Americans for the 21st century (Report issued by the Pathways to Prosperity Project). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education.

108    B. A. GARST et al. Taylor-Powell, E., & Boyd, H. H. (2008). Evaluation capacity building in complex organizations. New Directions for Evaluation, 2008(120), 55–69. Vance, F. (2010). A comparative analysis of competency frameworks for youth workers in the out-of-school time field. Child Youth Care Forum, 39(6), 421–441. Vandell, D. L., Larson, R. W., Mahoney, J. L., & Watts, T. R. (2015). Children’s activities. In M. H. Bornstein & T. Leventhal (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science. Vol. 4: Ecological settings and processes in developmental systems (7th ed., pp. 305–344). New York, NY: Wiley. Wisman, M. (2011). Youth work practice: A status report on professionalization and expert opinion about the future of the field. New England Network for Child, Youth, and Family Services. Retrieved from http://www.proyouthworkamerica.org/ page/YouthWorkPractice.pdf Yohalem, N., Pittman, K., & Moore, D. (2006). Growing the next generation of youth work professionals: Workforce opportunities and challenges. Retrieved at http:// www.cornerstones4kids.org

CHAPTER 6

BECOMING A YOUTH WORKER IN A UNIVERSITYBASED COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE Laurie Ross Clark University

Learning is not just a matter of accumulating knowledge. Learning is ontological in the sense that learners become different kinds of people as they learn. —Wortham & Rhodes, 2014, p. 1247

Expert youth workers appear to have a magical ability to read young people’s minds and understand their motivations and triggers. When confronted with a difficult or potentially harmful situation, these youth workers are able to “diagnose” what is happening and choose effective responses more times than not. Unlike novices who can get stuck in figuring out what to do and sidetracked by a desire to be liked by the youth, experts steadfastly keep the young person’s interests and well-being at the center of their analysis and actions. How does one become such a youth worker? Are some people just born for this work? Is time on the job what it takes to eventually “get it”? Is there a role for higher education to prepare youth workers to resolve complex dilemmas of practice?

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 109–125 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

109

110    L. ROSS

As part of a multiyear collaborative action research project, the author and groups of youth workers enrolled in her youth work course at a small, liberal arts university in the northeast region of the United States collected and analyzed hundreds of youth worker dilemma stories. Two related patterns have emerged out of the dilemma analysis with important implications for the professional education of youth workers. One, early experiences in informal settings such as families, neighborhood-based peer groups, and youth programs are important sites where particular forms of youth worker knowledge and expertise begin to develop (Ross, 2013). Lave and Wenger (1991) describe this type of learning as a situated, social process in which participation and a movement from periphery to center in a “community of practice” fosters identity development in which one learns the language, actions, and practices that constitute the community. Two, the analysis of dilemma stories shows that reflection-on-action is critical for youth workers to make meaning of their life experiences in ways that contribute to and strengthen their practice (Emslie, 2009; Schön, 1990). ACTIVATING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE In this chapter, three youth worker dilemma stories are shared. The stories reveal the importance of personal knowledge in resolving complex youth development dilemmas, how reflection activates personal knowledge, and the design features of a university-based community of practice that supports the cultivation of the knowledge, skills, and disposition needed for transformative youth work. Reflection Activates Personal Knowledge Reflection is a process in which one critically examines prior experience in order to improve practice (Wood, Westwood, & Thompson, 2015). Reflecting on practice allows youth workers to become more aware of patterns in youth behaviors and intentional about their responses to daily challenges. While reflection is generally thought of as a technique used during experiential learning and/or on the job, reflecting on one’s nonprofessional life experiences is critical in transforming rich personal knowledge into practical, actionable youth worker expertise. Personal knowledge is knowledge “about oneself as a person and in relationship with others” (Higgs, Titchen, & Neville, 2001, p. 5). Personal knowledge is not simply a matter of having had a collection of life experiences that may be similar to the youth’s. Rather, youth workers with personal knowledge have made meaning of their own life story (Hildreth &

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    111

VeLure Roholt, 2013; Krueger, 1997), have engaged in self-reflection to understand their own biases and preconceived notions about young people (Cusick, 2001), and have synthesized social learning from accumulated life experiences with formal education. Fusco (2012) has stated that the use of self in youth work can be defined as “a nexus of interaction and activity that occurs intentionally, purposefully, and relationally in order to bring about human change” (p. 34) and involves “observing, listening, questioning, communicating, reflecting, acknowledging, accepting, empathy and selfawareness” (p. 37). It is in knowing oneself that one can “know” and “be” with the young people (Fusco, 2012; Krueger, 1997; Spence, 2008). Design Features that Activate Personal Knowledge in a Classroom Community of Practice Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that learning is not the acquisition of knowledge by individuals so much as a process of social participation and a movement from periphery to center in a community of practice. It may seem contradictory for a university classroom to function as a community of practice; however, in the youth worker program described below, two design principles have allowed novices to learn from experienced youth workers’ situated knowledge and for experienced youth workers’ learning to deepen through reflection (Ross, 2012). First, the classroom-based community of practice needs to have experienced youth workers participating alongside traditional college students. Aside from years of experience, youth workers tend to bring gender, age, and racial diversity to the community of practice. While the need for youth workers’ participation may be self-evident, it is worth emphasizing particularly because there can be financial and academic history barriers to youth workers entering a university setting (Ross, 2013). The second design feature is the incorporation of the ecological dilemma resolution (EDR) model (Ross, Capra, Carpenter, Hubbell, & Walker, 2016). The EDR is a dilemma-based pedagogy that helps students (1) activate their personal knowledge; (2) develop patterns of thought needed to conduct comprehensive, yet rapid analysis of dilemma situations; and (3) recognize and navigate the ecological complexity of youth work dilemmas. The EDR centers a youth work curriculum on youth worker dilemma stories in the form of case studies. Case studies have been used in other fields to make tacit knowledge explicit, sharable, and actionable (Cianciolo, Matthew, Sternberg & Wagner, 2006; Curry, Schneider-Munoz, Eckles, & Stuart, 2011; Walker & Walker, 2011). Real-world situations trigger learning and cases simulate reality in a way that forces students to exercise judgment, consider multiple

112    L. ROSS

options, think through implications of courses of action, and reflect on what he or she would do in that type of situation (Ross et al., 2016). The EDR is ecological in that youth workers are guided to consider how contexts, relationships, roles, and systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) shape youth’s and staff’s experiences, which in turn have implications for resolving youth work dilemmas. The EDR then offers a structured way for youth work students to tap into their personal and professional knowledge to analyze and come to a resolution on the dilemma cases. The structure is based on Walker and Larson’s (2012) research that discovered distinct patterns in how expert youth workers approach and resolve complex dilemmas. These patterns break down into a four-part cycle: (1) problem recognition and appraisal, (2) plan formulation, (3) plan implementation, and (4) evaluation and reflection, as shown in Figure 6.1. The use of the EDR in the universitybased community of practice creates an environment in which novice and experienced youth workers learn what it means to be a youth worker and not just learn about youth work (Ross et al., 2016). Making Youth Worker Knowledge and Practice Visible Through Dilemma Stories Youth worker stories are a powerful medium for teaching and learning because they convey the tacit knowledge, skills, and motivations behind the work. The dilemma stories highlighted in this chapter were developed in the context of a university-based course on youth work, in which all students Problem Recognition and Appraisal

Evaluation and Reflection

Plan Formulation

Plan Implementation

Figure 6.1  Dilemma resolution cycle.

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    113

were employed as youth workers or were completing an internship at a youth development organization. The students in the course have a number of assignments that culminate into a final dilemma case study. Students write their youth worker autobiography in which they describe critical incidents that led them to this field and that keep them committed to it. Students also keep guided dilemma journals. Using the EDR as a guiding structure, students provide a deep description of challenges they face in their jobs or internships, discuss the outcomes of their actions, and reflect on how they handle the dilemmas. Students regularly share journal entries in class to get feedback on their approach, to learn how others would handle the problem, and to provide an opportunity to analyze the causes and structure of the problems. For the final assignment, students choose one dilemma to develop into a full case study. They integrate insights from their autobiography into the case. They suggest readings to accompany the case, as well as a training activity. Cases from each semester become the texts for subsequent semesters. IRB approval and student consent to audio-record classroom conversations and use the dilemma journals for research purposes are obtained. DILEMMA STORIES The following three dilemma stories, developed following the procedures discussed above, demonstrate how a classroom-based community of practice facilitates the activation and transmission of personal knowledge. The first is Sarah’s story about handling a conflict between two young people. This story shows how reflection helps Sarah, a graduate student and novice youth worker, to realize that the conflict between the youth triggered her own unresolved feelings about her identity. It demonstrates how she began to see how her own identity struggles—along with the structure of the program— impeded deeper youth development work from happening. The second is Jessica’s story about managing the aftermath of a gang-related shooting that involved members of her organization. Jessica is a highly experienced youth worker who grew up in the same neighborhood where she now works. This story demonstrates how guided reflection questions allow an experienced youth worker to become more insightful and skilled at bringing herself into her work. In the third story, Ricardo—also a highly experienced youth worker with a great deal of personal knowledge—shares his story about a young person who brought a gun into his youth program (Ross, 2013). Student reactions to Ricardo’s story demonstrate how the use of the EDR in a university-based community of practice allowed novice youth workers to learn from experienced youth worker’s personal knowledge. Each of the three

114    L. ROSS

stories provides background information about the youth worker, and then the dilemma is presented in the youth worker’s own words. Story One: A Novice Youth Worker’s Reflection Reveals Limitations in Personal Knowledge Sarah was born in New Zealand and grew up in Singapore. Her father was from Montgomery, Alabama and was raised in a religiously observant Jewish household. Her biological mother was Catholic and was from Thailand. Being biracial in a predominately Asian society made Sarah aware of her race and religion at a very young age. She was at once both an “insider” and “outsider.” She could blend in with the other Chinese kids but also found herself included easily by Malay and Indian children because her skin was dark enough. She realized that her ability to blend in was an advantage when she entered high school or walked around a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. Having these experiences allowed Sarah to interact easily with people. Upon entering college and learning more about identity, she began to contemplate the disconnections that exist in social interactions due to differences in people’s backgrounds and experiences. Sarah’s dilemma arose while she was teaching a literacy class for English language learners at a summer program located on a college campus. The middle school students in her class came from various public schools and the majority of them were immigrants who had only been in the United States for a few months. The students had academic classes in the mornings, an hour for lunch, and about 30 minutes for recess that was held in a large field across from the academic building. Sarah was one of six staff who supervised recess. Sarah’s dilemma and her reflections are presented in her own words: Dilemma It was always hot and humid during recess. The students were given volleyballs, jump rope, and footballs. The boys would gather on one end of the field to play football while the girls played volleyball on the other side of the field. Sometimes gender lines were crossed, but often the girls would complain that the boys were playing too rough and the boys would complain that the girls didn’t know how to play the game and they would return their own sections of the field. One day when I was supervising the students, Imrana came up to me and said that a boy, DJ, deliberately had hit her on the head with a ball. Imrana is from Syria and wears a Hijab. DJ is from West Africa and is a devout Christian. Although I did not teach DJ, I knew he was considered to be one of the “trouble makers” in the program. I had previous interactions with DJ and they had almost all proven to be difficult. He did not seem to like authority and could be extremely dismissive and stubborn.

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    115 I called DJ over. At first he tried to ignore me, but after a minute he reluctantly walked over. He was clearly annoyed that I had interrupted his soccer game. He quickly demanded, “What?” I said, “Please come over here.” He did but his body language was defensive and he rested his weight on a pole that was nearby. I asked, “Did you hit Imrana on the head?” He replied, “No Miss, she just likes to complain.” I said, “Imrana said that you hit her on purpose. If you hit her by accident, that’s okay just apologize.” Imrana said, “No Miss, it was on purpose!” I told Imrana to let DJ tell me his side of the story. DJ said, “I didn’t hit her, okay, Miss, she just always wants to find trouble.” This was when Imrana got really upset. She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. DJ was trying to walk away as I was speaking to him and was muttering under his breath. I looked around for other staff members to see if I could catch their eye, hopefully they would notice that I needed backup and would come over. Trying to keep DJ in front of me long enough to finish the conversation I said, “Just tell Imrana that you’re sorry!” And he barked, “Fine! Sorry, Muslim girl.” That was the last straw. I raised my voice to DJ and said, “Excuse me?” DJ said, “What, I don’t know her name.” Imrana was clearly offended and said, “Miss, we have been in the same class in the morning session for the last three weeks. He knows my name.” I said to DJ, “DJ, her name is Imrana, not ‘Muslim girl,’ which is very offensive. Do you understand that that is extremely offensive? What if someone called you Christian boy?” He said, “I don’t care, they’re only words.” And I said, “Well, sometimes other people don’t think that way and it’s hurtful when you say things like that.” This went on for some time. Eventually he muttered that he was sorry and Imrana decided to let the issue go. However, I was still extremely bothered by the incident. When I told fellow staff members about what happened they all just said things like, “Yeah, DJ’s like that.” I felt extremely defeated. It really bothered me that the staff did not seem to care about the fact that DJ said an incredibly racist thing.

Reflection Upon reflection, there are a few things that were made clear to me. The first is that my perception of DJ was shaped by what I had heard other staff say about him. I hadn’t had much direct contact with him prior to this incident, but the word about DJ was that he was difficult, confrontational, and defensive. On the other hand, Imrana was my student. She was in my class and when I heard that DJ hurt her, I became overprotective of her. However, I now realize that the main thing is that I did not know how to address was the religion issue. I brushed off the underlying tension of religious difference and focused on making DJ apologize to Imrana. I acted impulsively and got angry too quickly. Even though I knew that the students came from very different backgrounds and we received some training in handling cultural differences, I realize I am extremely sensitive to the words that DJ used. I don’t know if it is because of my own background navigating different cultures or what. But on that day, I just wanted the conflict to end. I wanted

116    L. ROSS recess to be over so that we could go back into a cool and comfortable classroom where I could remove my shoes and get back to our lessons. I could have handled it better by setting up a time to have another conversation with DJ and Imrana. I might have asked for the school counselor to be present as well. I still think it is important for DJ to fully understand why it was problematic to call Imrana “Muslim girl.” With greater understanding, perhaps he would be able to offer Imrana a more genuine apology. Our program was not conducive to having such a conversation as the students leave immediately after the program ends, and taking them out of class would have been disruptive. I realize now that sometimes we have to step away from the curriculum to really do the work. That incident would have made for such an important and necessary dialogue not just for DJ and Imrana, but also for all the students in the program. Unfortunately, my own conflicting thoughts about race, religion, and identity clouded my thinking in the moment.

Learning from Limitations in Personal Knowledge Sarah’s story represents the novice experience in a university-based community of practice. The assignment to develop a dilemma case study organized by the components of the ecological dilemma resolution model gave her a structured, reflective opportunity to connect her personal background with how she handled the experience on the field. In her autobiographical comments, she conveyed her ease living among and between various identity groups. In college, she began to question the fluidity of her experience as she learned more about power and privilege. She acknowledged that her personal struggles with these topics may have triggered her to react intensely rather than deliberately in the conflict between Imrana and DJ. While her reflections do not necessarily help resolve the situation with the youth on the field that day, the process gave her pause to consider how her unprocessed personal knowledge may have been a limitation in this situation. She also reflected on how time is structured in her program and the lack of adequate staff training on cultural competence interfered with the program’s ability to actualize positive youth development. Story Two: Reflection On- and In-Practice Deepens Youth Work Expertise During one of the first few weeks of the semester, Jessica shared with the class a dilemma about how a gang-related shooting affected her organization. Jessica, a Latina youth worker now in her mid-twenties, started doing youth work as a peer leader in her mid-teens. Her story was very compelling but raised a lot of questions from the class. We understood what she did in her story. What wasn’t clear was how she knew what to do. In this story, we see how classroom dialogue and reflective writing assignments allow Jessica to

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    117

begin to bring more of herself and her personal knowledge into her practice. Jessica’s dilemma and her reflections are now presented in her own words. Dilemma In the summer of 2010, the city experienced an increase in youth violence that affected our organization deeply. We have outreach sites throughout the city and some of the members of the sites were at war with each other because their location in the city predestined them as lifelong enemies. One night two members were involved in a shooting. Here is their story. Ariel, a 16-year-old self-identified UGE gang member, had been involved with one of our satellite sites for about two years. He was never consistent with his attendance and came mainly to play basketball. Some of the staff described him as one of the troublemakers. He would talk back to us, disrupt games, and refuse to follow the rules. I had reached out to his parents in the past and realized that they probably would not be of any help because they were deep into the gang and drug dealing lifestyle. Samuel, the other member involved in the shooting, was 17 years old and had been coming to our main site since he was 12. When he hit his late teenage years, he began to be more interested in the street life than what we had to offer. His grades began to drop, his school attendance was questionable, and his drive for sports fell. Samuel is affiliated with the Y-Block gang So, going back to the evening of the shooting, it appears that Ariel was on a city bus when he noticed Samuel was also on the bus. Ariel got off the bus and realized that Samuel followed him. They had a verbal altercation and then Samuel pulled out a gun. Ariel tried to run, but he was shot in the leg. Ariel was brought to the emergency room. This shooting happened over a weekend and I didn’t hear about it until Monday when I came to work. I was devastated by the news. My first question was whether anybody was seriously hurt. I found out that Ariel was in the hospital, but not with life-threatening injuries, and Samuel had been locked up. As the news sunk in, I realized that I wasn’t really shocked to hear which kids were involved, but even though they’re not the best kids, it still seemed out of character for them to be shooting at each other. Before this incident, I had been working closely with Ariel’s school to get him reenrolled after he had dropped out. As for Samuel, he had worked with us as part of the summer youth employment program. Based on his strong performance over the summer, we had no sense he would be involved in this type of incident. It’s like, they’re just not those people when they’re with us. We (the senior staff team) sat with the executive director to discuss what to do. Our primary concern was of course the safety of all the kids. We also discussed how this incident affected our organization’s reputation and how our school and law enforcement partners would view us in light of the role some of our members played in the violence. An officer from the gang unit who worked closely with us was clear in his recommendation—he felt we should

118    L. ROSS “boot them.” The decision wasn’t that easy, however. We talked about how Ariel and Samuel were very popular members and if they stopped showing up, they might pull their friends with them. I remained very worried about what was going to happen after Ariel got out of the hospital in terms of retaliation. I wondered if it was best to let them come back in order to keep them closer to us and therefore safer. Ultimately, the executive director’s position was to ensure everyone’s safety he felt it was necessary to suspend Ariel and Samuel’s membership. As it turned out, Samuel was placed with a foster family outside of the city so he wouldn’t be able to return to our center. Ariel was notified that he would not be allowed back until he told us and showed us that he was ready to change his lifestyle. With the immediate situation more or less under control, I reached out to people I knew in the community to get a sense about the level of tension in the gangs. Neither the OGs (Original Gangsters) nor the gang unit thought there was a high degree of risk for a violent act to happen near us. I organized gang awareness talks with the youth at each site. An officer from the gang unit went to each location and had real-life discussions with the young people. He told his own story, how as a young person he grew up in the same circumstances as them—in the projects with a single mother. He had to work hard to change his life. He told them that there are positive support systems for them and that they should keep coming to our organization. About two months after the incident, Ariel came back to us. I arranged a meeting with his mother, other staff, and the gang unit. During the meeting, we noted that his mother was not supportive. At one point when Ariel was trying to explain his plans to change, she told him to shut up. But I really felt it was obvious that he had genuine yearning to change his life. We allowed him to come back with some stipulations, including regular attendance at school and community service. For a while, he complied. He came after school, did his homework, and tried to act positively. Unfortunately this was short lived. Within a few weeks, the gang unit informed us that Ariel was still actively involved with the UGE gang. We had to terminate his membership until he truly decided to change his life.

From Description to Praxis Jessica’s dilemma is powerful. Yet, when she shared the dilemma with the class, we were left with a lot of questions. For example, the class wondered how Jessica knew Ariel’s family was gang-involved. We asked her how she was able to ask Original Gangsters about the likelihood of more retaliation. We wanted to know what she meant by “they’re just not those people when they’re with us.” These types of questions from the class led Jessica to do more thinking and writing that she later shared with the class orally and in her written case study. She wrote about her family and her insights into these young men’s lives. Below is an excerpt of Jessica’s writing.

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    119 My mom’s from a big family and some of my relatives are into the gang life. I’ve seen what violence and gangs do to families first hand. My house was raided when I was five years old. My father was in jail for drug-related charges for most of my early childhood. I’m sure somewhere those things come into how I think about the police and violence. I can understand where the youth are coming from. My mom at some point realized that she wanted a different life. She broke away. So, the family dynamics are interesting; those who are heavily involved and those who are not do not spend much time together. There might be a summer BBQ, but when we see each other people don’t talk about what they are doing. That’s how we can all be together. But I learned early on how to tell when someone is doing something they shouldn’t. It’s not something that I was told or taught as much as it is something I picked up.

Jessica went on to explain her use of the phrase, “They’re just not those people when they’re with us”: Samuel is a perfect example. He is a Hispanic kid living in a poor neighborhood; I understand that he needs to defend himself. But, to be the kid who I found out he was after the shooting? No. I just couldn’t believe it. And after speaking with someone else who I know who’s in the gang? They say the same thing. Samuel has two faces. All summer when he worked in our camp he spoke professionally and was well mannered. But the cops knew him and they didn’t want anything to do with him. We vouched for him and convinced them Samuel had changed. And to his credit, Samuel presented himself that way, so the police gave him the chance. And it worked out; he made it through the summer. But then, about a month and a half later, he’s shooting a kid. When expectations are set for young people, that’s what they follow. If they are expected to be bad, then they’re going to be bad. When young people come into one of our sites, we get to know them and what they like to do. There is a sense of comfort and safety here and we become like another family. But when something like this happens, I always have to ask myself, why doesn’t what we do stay with them when they leave our building? I know the answer. They go back into the real world and everyone is expecting them to be this other person, so they just fall into it. Although a lot of the staff have worked here a number of years, we are not their family. Their family will be with them forever. At some point, there is a line drawn between us and them. Again, we can look at Samuel about how this plays out. His father has been in and out of prison. He is gang involved. So yes, Samuel can be a great kid here with us, but when he goes back home, there are expectations that his family has of him. Given the opportunity, Samuel would want a different life. But how does he explain that to his father without tarnishing their relationship? Ariel’s situation was similar. There weren’t many rules set for him, and there were rumors that his father had given him a gun to protect himself. You have to look at the whole picture. I don’t know at what point we become strong enough, as a youth development movement, to break that kind of cycle for our participants.

120    L. ROSS

Reflection Deepens Practice Jessica’s story shows how experienced youth workers can benefit from participating in a classroom community of practice informed by a dilemma-based pedagogy. From her telling of her story, it appeared to the class that Jessica handled the situation competently and compassionately. Yet, when she initially shared her dilemma in class, she was more descriptive than reflective. She told the class what she did and a little about why she did it. As a result, the class did not understand what values were guiding her or how she knew what to do in the situation. The students posed a series of questions to her grounded in the EDR that had her reflect more deeply on the dilemma and her own background. While she was still left with the question about how to have more significant impact with very high-risk young men, her opportunity to reflect more deeply with novice and experienced youth workers in the class helped her recognize the value of her personal knowledge and prepared her to act more intentionally the next time she worked with this population. Story Three: Transmitting Knowledge Between Experts and Novices in a Community of Practice Ricardo is 31 and has been in the youth work field since he was 16. He works at a drop-in youth center. He is a physically large man, but softspoken and approachable. When he was 14, Ricardo started going to the YMCA to play basketball. His neighborhood was tough and his mom had to work a lot of hours to keep the family going. He said going to the Y “gave me a mental break from having to watch out for where we were walking, and what kids we would run into.” Even though he had the Y, he admitted he still did some “stupid stuff” like stealing cars and going joy-riding. Many of his close friends carried guns: “Sometimes it was like the 4th of July, kids would just let off shots.” He saw his friends graduating from selling weed to cocaine. They would invite him along, asking him if he wanted to make some money. But by that time he had already started working with youth. He wondered, “Why would I do something that isn’t going to show me love back? Especially when these little kids are looking up to me?” A lot of his friends thought he was a “cornball” for choosing work and school over them. Ricardo, however, completed college with a degree in human services. Ricardo’s dilemma and reflections are now presented in his own words. Dilemma Not long ago I dealt with something that I have never had to deal with. The day started normally, but soon Nicki, the GED (General Equivalency Diploma) teacher, approached me, looking worried. She told me that Lisa, one of her students, came into her office during a break, wanting to go home. When asked

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    121 why, Lisa broke down and told her that while she (Nicki) had stepped out to answer a phone call, two students started talking about a recent fight. Anthony, one of the students, said that he didn’t feel safe in the streets and had to do something about it. Lisa pretended to not look, but out of the corner of her eye she saw that Anthony had a gun tucked under his shirt. I quickly realized we didn’t have a protocol for this. I informed the executive director and we talked about calling the police. But then we thought about Anthony. I knew he wouldn’t be a kid that would be pulling out a gun to shoot me. He’s tough; he’s gone through stuff. But I’ve been around some pretty crazy people, and he didn’t come off that way. He had been coming to GED; he had a kid on the way. He was trying to do the right thing. I thought he was probably scared. I thought it was probably not even a real gun and if it was real, I thought it might not be loaded. I thought that he’s probably trying to prevent people from beating him up—versus the “I want to go hurt somebody.” And I thought about him bringing it here was more about him getting here safely, versus him thinking “I’m looking for somebody to shoot.” I didn’t think that Anthony would hurt somebody here. He loves this place. If it was a kid I didn’t know, then I might have thought differently. We decided to pull Anthony into another room to talk rather than call the police. I was quiet at first, but soon I found myself telling Anthony, “Some students have left, we think maybe because they saw a gun on you. Is this true?” Anthony admitted it. He said it was a BB gun. I said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Anthony handed it to me. I have to say, it did look like a gun. Anthony had taken the safety off, the orange part that makes it noticeable that it was not real. When I held it, I knew by the weight that it wasn’t real. While I started to breathe easier, I knew because he took the safety off that it would have been considered a concealed weapon. We talked to Anthony about how dangerous it is to carry a gun and the implications of him carrying a concealed weapon given his criminal background. During this conversation, Anthony admitted that he was having trouble with youth in his neighborhood. We wrapped up by saying that we would give the BB-gun back and we would not alert police but next time our hands would be tied and we would be forced to call. We called his mother to confirm his story; we also connected him with the onsite mental health counselor at the center.

Reflection Thinking back on this incident, I know it’s better to find out what’s going on than it is to jump to conclusions. If we had called the cops we could have easily solved the problem or we could have exacerbated the issue. If the gun was real, someone could have been hurt upon police arrival. Since the gun wasn’t real, we could have sent a youth to prison for an issue we could have resolved internally. We could have sent him on his way with the BB gun, but, if somebody was going to beat him up and he pulled that out and they had a real gun, then what? The question is, are you putting yourself and others in serious danger? The relationships you have with your youth determine the

122    L. ROSS kind of actions you will take when they make a mistake. I am thankful that the humanitarian in us allowed us to make the right decision.

Student Learning in the Community of Practice The class spent a long time discussing this case, eventually coming to the conclusion that Ricardo and the other staff did the correct thing by not calling the police. Students then wrote responses to a series of questions. Aside from being in awe of how Ricardo was able to stay calm, two themes emerged from an analysis of the students’ responses (Ross, 2014). The first is that many students began to have a deeper understanding of the importance of personal knowledge in youth work. These excerpts from students’ case study write-ups exemplify this theme: Ricardo grew up involved in youth organizations that helped people who were struggling. Because of this, I believe he is much more understanding of youth like Anthony who appear to be “bad” or a lost cause. Rather than jump to assumptions and take legal action, he knew he could connect on a different level with Anthony and find out what was really going on.

Another student wrote: I don’t know that I would have been able to make the same choices that Ricardo made. I don’t bring the same kind of background knowledge to youth work, and would not be able to distinguish between a BB gun and a real gun, or be able to “read” a youth the way Ricardo did and determine he was not trigger-happy. I would probably just have called the police. My priority would have been to keep everyone safe.

Some of the students began to recognize gaps in their knowledge and realized that they would need to be able to execute a different type of strategy if they were to encounter a similar situation. The second theme relates to the intangible skill of how to appraise and respond to complex problems of practice. Again, drawing on evidence from the students’ case study write-ups: “Ricardo took into account all the factors affecting the situation, utilized his knowledge and networks, and came up with an appropriate solution.” Another student wrote, “Ricardo guided Anthony through the thought processes that youth should be having on their own before making a choice (e.g., the potential consequences of getting caught carrying a concealed weapon, etc.) so that they can see how to arrive at a good decision on their own.” Ricardo’s narrative shows how a structured approach to analyzing dilemma stories makes experienced youth workers’ personal knowledge, thought processes, and problem analysis visible to novice and experienced youth workers alike. Ricardo enters youth work with a great deal of “activated” personal

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    123

knowledge. His story illustrates self-in-action because he effectively uses what knows from personal and professional experience about youth’s motivations to engage in violence to diffuse the situation. Ricardo’s participation in the class facilitated the students’ learning in that they were able to engage with forms of personal knowledge that normally would be inaccessible to them. Their learning was reinforced by being able to read the case and respond to questions in writing. While students read case studies and provide written responses in a typical university course, the fact that Ricardo was a student along with other experienced youth workers allowed for a more authentic form of dialogue in which novices could begin to develop the language and thought process needed to handle pressing dilemmas (Ross, 2012). BECOMING A YOUTH WORKER IN A CLASSROOM COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE There is a rich evidence base about the settings that promote positive youth development around which to develop university courses and curricula (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). Ideals such as “clear and consistent structure and appropriate supervision,” “supportive relationships,” and “support for efficacy and mattering” have been correlated with positive youth outcomes in many program evaluations. In order to develop a workforce that is able to operationalize these ideals, the field has begun to articulate the essential knowledge, skills, and behaviors—also known as competencies—that youth workers should possess (Akiva, 2005; Astroth, Garza, & Taylor, 2004; Vance, 2010). Again, university courses can be developed to help aspiring youth workers build competence in areas such as “understand and apply basic child and adolescent development principles”; “communicate and develop positive relationships with youth”; and “adapt, facilitate, and evaluate ageappropriate activities with and for the group.” The dilemma stories presented in this chapter suggest that youth worker professional education also has to prepare students to be able to apply these principles and competencies in the day-to-day practice of youth work. Competency-based approaches are necessary but not sufficient because youth workers encounter situations that comprise multidimensional, intersecting, and conflicting systems (Larson, Rickman, Gibbons, & Walker, 2009). Bessant (2011) elaborates on limitations of focusing professional education solely on competencies: Competency-based training can produce highly proficient technicians possessing both novice and beginning level capacities who are able to follow instructions. It does not do so well if we are looking for reflexive and critical professionals able to decide when rules need to be adapted or broken. (p. 62)

124    L. ROSS

Dilemma stories, like Sarah’s, Jessica’s and Ricardo’s, highlight situations in which youth workers need to decide which youth development principle to uphold and which rules need to be adapted or broken. Reflective techniques, like the ecological dilemma resolution model, help youth workers to activate their personal knowledge and develop the analytical ability to make such decisions. Centering youth worker professional education on dilemma stories complicates the current privileging of propositional or scientific knowledge in the training of youth workers and, by extension, the competency approach to youth worker professional education that is dominant in the United States. By featuring the role of reflection in the process of resolving complex dilemmas, youth workers are situated as the creators of youth work praxis. This process helps to recast youth workers’ tacit knowledge into a practice-theory of youth work. The dilemma stories in this chapter show how youth worker knowledge and practice-theories can form the foundation of an alternative model of youth worker professional education that is conducive to a university setting. More generally, their stories show how, in a classroom-based community of practice, both novices and those with more experience can learn to become youth workers rather than learn about youth work. REFERENCES Akiva, T. (2005). Turning training into results: The New Youth Program Quality Assessment. High/Scope ReSource, 24(Fall/Winter), 21–24. Astroth, K., Garza, P., & Taylor, B. (2004). Getting down to business: Defining competencies for entry-level youth workers. New Directions for Youth Development, 104, 25–37. Bessant, J. (2011). Youth work and the education of professional practitioners in Australia. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 52–68). New York, NY: Routledge. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cianciolo, A. Matthew, C., Sternberg, R., & Wagner, R. (2006). Tacit knowledge, practical intelligence, and expertise. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffman, (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of expertise and expert performance: Its development, organization and content (pp 633–652). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Curry, D., Schneider-Munoz, A., Eckles, F., & Stuart, C. (2011). Assessing youth worker competence: National child and youth worker certification. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp 27–38). NY: Routledge. Cusick, A. (2001). Personal frames of reference in professional practice. In J. Higgs & A. Titchen (Eds.), Practice knowledge and expertise in the health professions (pp. 91–95). Oxford, England: Butterworth.

Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice    125 Eccles, J., & Gootman, J. (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Emslie, M. (2009). Researching reflective practice: A case study of youth work education. Reflective Practice, 10(4), 417–427. Fusco, D. (2012). Use of self in the context of youth work. Child & Youth Services, 33(1), 33–45. Higgs, J., Titchen, A., & Neville, V. (2001). Professional practice and knowledge. In J. Higgs & A. Titchen (Eds.), Practice knowledge and expertise in the health professions (pp. 3–9). Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Hildreth, R. & VeLure Roholt, R. (2013). Teaching and training civic youth workers: Creating spaces for reciprocal civic and youth development. In R. VeLure Roholt, M. Baizerman, & R. Hildreth (Eds.), Civic youth work: Co-creating democratic youth spaces (pp. 151–159). Chicago, IL: Lyceum Books. Krueger, M. (1997). Using self, story, and intuition to understand child and youth care work. Child & Youth Care Forum, 26(3), 153–161. Larson, R., Rickman, A., Gibbons, C., & Walker, K. (2009). Practitioner expertise: Creating quality within the daily tumble of events in youth settings. New Directions for Youth Development, 121, 71–88. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Ross, L. (2012). Disrupting borders: A case study in engaged pedagogy. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 19(1), 58–68. Ross, L. (2013). Urban youth workers’ use of ‘personal knowledge’ in resolving complex dilemmas of practice. Child & Youth Services. 34(3), 267–289. Ross, L. (2014). Becoming a youth worker in a classroom community of practice. Learning and becoming in practice: The International Conference of the Learning Sciences, 3, 957–961. Ross, L., Capra, S., Carpenter, L., Hubbell J., & Walker, K. (2016). Dilemmas of youth work and youth development practice. London, England: Routledge. Schön, D. (1990). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Spence, J. (2008). What do you youth workers do? Communicating youth work. Youth Studies Ireland, 2(2), 3–18. Vance, F. (2010). A comparative analysis of competency frameworks for youth workers in the out-of-school time field. Child & Youth Care Forum, 39(6), 421–441. Walker, J., & Walker, K. (2011). Establishing expertise in an emerging field. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp 39–51). NY: Routledge. Walker, K., & Larson, R. (2012). Youth worker reasoning about dilemmas encountered in practice: Expert-novice differences. Journal of Youth Development, 7(1), 5–23. Wood, J., Westwood, S., & Thompson, G. (2015). Youth work: preparation for practice. London, England: Routledge. Wortham, S., & Rhodes, C. (2014). Heterogeneous resources for ontological learning. Learning and becoming in practice: The International Conference of the Learning Sciences, 3, 1247–1248.

This page intentionally left blank.

CHAPTER 7

HONORING AND SUPPORTING YOUTH WORK INTELLECTUALS Michael Heathfield Harold Washington College Dana Fusco York College, City University of New York

Youth work is a disparate and disputed practice that has historically been called upon to serve a range of purposes, not all of which have been committed to social change and social justice. For us, we are growingly more interested in building upon a field of practice that has expressed its imperatives with young people in ways that resonate within postmodern and global struggles for democracies and democratic spaces (Fusco & Heathfield, 2015). Such related practices go by many names: critical pedagogy, democratic education, emancipatory education, humanizing pedagogy, liberation education, radical youth work, global youth work, and social justice education. What these practices have in common is the placement of “oppression and discrimination (at) the center of analysis and action” (Bransford, 2011, p. 932). In this critical formulation, youth work

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 127–146 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

127

128    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

is “concerned with raising young people’s awareness of the effects of the dominant value system and how it serves to inflict damaging consequences on them as a group of people and as a consequence impede their personal development” (Hurley & Treacy, 1993, p. 40). Recently, the Council of Europe (2010) defined youth work as a practice “guided and governed by principles of participation and empowerment, values of human rights and democracy, and anti-discrimination and tolerance” (p. 2). Sallah (2014) defines “global youth work” as rooted in a social justice that aims explicitly at reversing domination and exploitation of the southern hemisphere (by North/West powers). We believe, regardless of labels and funding imperatives, that youth work that illuminates and interrogates inequality is foundational, increasingly necessary, and often hidden from view (Heathfield & Fusco, 2016). It is within this context that we write of the importance of higher education for youth work professionals that commits to challenging injustice while providing workers with the intellectual and social space to work for change at numerous levels: personally, professionally, and socially. Unfortunately, the kind of holistic and humanistic higher education milieu needed for this to occur is becoming increasingly difficult as political and funding changes restrict and redirect higher education journeys for some youth workers. Market and workforce demands are increasingly becoming key drivers of college programs, and increased restrictions on the use of financial aid limit time to explore options and the capacity to learn from mistakes (Deresiewicz, 2015). Pathway initiatives proscribe college journeys from the outset with little room for maneuvering and changing career trajectories, and little tolerance for exploration. Ironically, these macro-neoliberal agendas hover over increased college enrollments nationally creating a rather mixed and confusing elixir of open access to college with restricted opportunities for self-proscribed and led growth. Specifically, we are concerned about the potential impact of these changes for pushing out strong male leaders, particularly men of color, who are committed to strengthening their communities and working with younger men and women to do so and come to college with aspirations that the college learning experience will help them fulfill their mission. There is a staggering difference in the actual number of degrees conferred upon African American males compared to Caucasian males: 8.9% compared to 70.9% in 2012–2013 respectively (NCES, 2015). While we have read numerous studies that continuously examine how poor and minority students of color are less prepared for college, we agree with Reid (2013), who notes: “[T]hese suppositions neglect the role of institutional factors within colleges and universities in patterns of underachievement” (p. 75). Research has been helpful in drawing attention to factors of the higher education environment that support college success for students of color such

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    129

as social integration and early awareness of academic, social, and financial resources (Owens, Lacey, Rawls, & Holbert-Quince, 2010; Pascarella, Smart, Ethington, & Nettles, 1987; Reid, 2013; Simmons, 2013). Our personal experience as long-term youth work faculty indicates that until students experience faculty and courses that interrogate disabling notions and provide supported strategies for interrupting these challenges for success in higher education, injustices can indeed be replicated in higher education as they are in other schooling systems and society at large. The need to seriously reconsider student engagement of historically marginalized groups in the higher education context is a growing area of concern and discourse (see Quaye, 2014) as is the overt role of higher education in promoting a social justice agenda (Simpson, 2014). There is also a wider circle of truth that surrounds the issue: that men of color are rarely given societal roles that require them to show strength above the neck. As Gramsci notes, “All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (Gramsci, cited in Gottlieb, 1989, p. 115). If we take as a premise that youth work is an intellectual endeavor (and we do), then, what is the role of higher education in supporting youth workers, and in this case male youth workers of color, to pursue this societal function? In this chapter, we synthesize core themes from the voices of three men of color involved in youth work and youth work education. All are at different trajectory points in their college careers, but all have considerable histories in youth work and community activism. While revered in their communities as smart, capable contributors and leaders of change, their schooling experiences have not legitimized them or their work as intellectual. The tension between these two identities (one formed in community and one formed in school) is where faculty become pivotal in retaining and supporting youth workers through illuminating and exposing such truths as societally and systemically based and biased, breaking the often silent replication of inequities in higher education environments. The narrative presented here delves into a personal account of what brought these men to youth work and to higher education, and how these two fields of opportunities can intersect to make each stronger. We interrogate the topic through its own social justice frame and conclude that higher education programs for youth workers should mirror the frontline practices they espouse—that is, as co-created democratic and humanistic spaces of learning that are grounded in relationships, supports and opportunities, and phenomenological understandings of education and career as lived experience.

130    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

METHODOLOGY The qualitative data for this chapter come from three individual unstructured and informal interviews conducted by Michael Heathfield at Harold Washington College (HWC) in Chicago during March of 2015. The participants are from different generations, all who have some connection to the youth work program at HWC, which has had a youth work associate’s degree for over a decade. Respondents were asked to talk about their involvement with youth work and their experiences of education. Beyond these prompts, the interviews were completely driven by respondent answers that were probed for detail and analysis. This informal qualitative technique provided rich data. From this similar starting point, each interview followed a journey controlled by the respondents, and thus, one interview lasted for an hour, one was 35 minutes long, and one lasted for two hours. The key methodology can be considered a type of appreciative inquiry, premised on providing all three men with an opportunity to share their understandings, beliefs, and experiences that led them to this current point in their lives (Bushe & Kassam, 2005). Quotes from these interviews are used to illustrate the main themes. This is a very small sample of convenience and connection. All three men are involved in successful work with older teens within a restorative justice framework. All three took part in the 2015 Youth Summit hosted by HWC in partnership with University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Youth Development Program. Jerome is a high school senior who has just acquired a part-time job. He spends many of his non-school hours volunteering in a range of youth work programs, including ones facilitated by Tommy (also an interviewee), and was one of the youth presenters at the 2015 Youth Summit where he first met Heathfield. Tommy and Charles are employed as full-time youth workers and both have participated in HWC’s youth work program, which is where their initial connection with Heathfield began. Beyond these links to the HWC youth work program, their personal family and life backgrounds, their work experiences, and views on education were unknown before these interviews. The names of the men have been changed to protect confidentiality. Respondent Profiles Jerome Jerome is an 18-year-old African American man about to graduate high school and move onto a college of his choice. He plans to become an automotive engineer and once financially secure, set up his own mentoring program for young men of color. Jerome was born in Chicago but moved

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    131

with his mother to California at the age of six. His mother died when he was 15 and he returned to Chicago to live with a guardian. From the age of six he became involved in playing sports at his local park, which as he explains helped shaped his early “sense of community”: I had a very big sense of community from the age of six that shaped how I feel about people in general. Because if I didn’t have that strong base, I wouldn’t be as open to change and I wouldn’t be as involved as I am now.

It was when this park was threatened with closure, when he was around the age of 10 or 11, that he identifies becoming aware of himself as a change agent. He became vocal and active in the successful campaign to keep it open. Jerome’s emerging sense of voice and agency began at this early age: I feel like, man, what I say actually matters. It matters what I say. I can actually change things if I put enough effort into it. That’s when it started for me.

In his interview, Jerome is reflective, articulate, and engaging, so it is hard to imagine that as a child he had a speech impediment and attended speech therapy through his school. School also encouraged him to join speech classes and an oratorical festival. He believes that through these experiences, he found his voice and began to understand how important it was for him to speak up and share his opinions. At the time of writing, Jerome is on the honor roll at school taking AP honors classes. He is a member of the Sigma Beta Club and of OneGoal, a college preparatory course and program that follows students through to their degree graduation. OneGoal is a Chicago-based teacher-led initiative focused on improving persistence and completion for low-income young people who are underperforming in public high schools (OneGoal, 2015). In addition to strong school engagement, Jerome is a very active founding member of a male mentoring group through his community organization, which hosts a poetry café, a girls group, multilevel and peer mentoring programs, a newspaper, and many community events. All of these programs are peer-led. He presents frequently about the community work and volunteerism he is involved in, especially around the violence in Chicago neighborhoods and the unacceptable numbers of children and young people who have been killed. He has recently become a certified restorative justice circle keeper. He is passionate and articulate about the community-based youth work he is involved in. He says, If I can change something that is wrong, that I feel is wrong, I am going to try to do it. And if I can’t do it, I am going get somebody else that believes what I do, and then we can maybe do it together. Because two voices are stronger than one.

132    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

Jerome’s sense of community and commitment to working for social justice comes from within his early involvement in neighborhood opportunities rather than parentage. Charles is equally committed to social justice work but he clearly connects the political engagement of his parents as the source of his own passion for the work. Charles Charles is a 31 year-old mixed-race man making his second attempt to complete the youth work associate degree program at HWC with the intention of moving on to a new bachelor’s program at UIC. He initially joined the HWC program in 2009 when he was unemployed but dropped out without completing. Charles reconnected to Heathfield at a January 2014 Restorative Justice event (see Gall & Heathfield, 2016). He has a long involvement in community organizing through his parents’ activism, and as a teenager he joined a progressive and activist not-for-profit on the southwest side of Chicago. Charles describes his teenage activism: So I grew up on picket lines and all that. So when I was thirteen I joined a youth group around social justice and organizing with friends around the CASE [Chicago Academic Standards Examinations] test in Chicago. That was one of my earliest memories of doing something on my own. Against standardized testing. In high school, I was organizing friends around police brutality issues, against teachers who were disrespecting students.

He has been in the military, has been unemployed, and worked in a bank, a law office, and at an airport. His entrée into youth work was when he became a mentor in some challenging high school contexts as part of Chicago public schools’ “Culture of Calm” initiative that followed the public murder of high school student Derrion Albert in 2009 (Luton, 2011). He found this initial work to be the most intense youth work he has ever done. He had a caseload of ten young men, in serious situations outside of school, in danger of exclusion and on a pathway to the school-to-prison pipeline. He explained that his role was to get them “back on track.” He felt his employer at the time was focused just on violence prevention and was not truly utilizing an empowerment model. He felt uneasy with this and that something was missing in this work. The funding for this program was eventually cut, and he was unemployed for a while. At the time of writing, he is a youth program director for a juvenile justice youth group within an organization that brings together young people from all over the city and suburbs to make policy recommendations to political entities. This is a strong group of young people whose work has received considerable city, state, and national funding and political attention. Their key role is to understand juvenile injustice and then create solutions for young people to interrupt these inequalities. Regardless of

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    133

context, his work involves supporting youth to identify issues of concern, research around these issues, and formulate policy and systemic changes that would positively impact change for the better. Young people then make presentations of their findings and suggested changes to powerful people responsible for enacting system change. Tommy Tommy is a 41-year-old African American man who graduated with an associate’s degree from HWC in 2014. He intends to be in the first cohort of the new bachelor’s degree in human development and learning at UIC in the fall of 2015. He began his journey into youth work as a reaction to a television news piece about two young girls who were shot and killed in one of Chicago’s Westside communities in 2005. He identifies how initial street activism quickly transitioned to community work in support of young people: And I decided I wanted to do something about it. So, I went out kinda marching and protesting. . . . From there I started just working with the victims’ families and just kinda gathering resources and everything I could to help out the family of these two little girls.

This involvement sparked his interest in community-based youth work. He also became involved in activism through his position as a single father who volunteered at his son’s charter school and eventually became a community advocate for the charter school movement in Illinois. For many years he was also a volunteer football coach, during which time he realized that many of the young men he worked with needed much more support than was provided by the standard seasonal sports coaching approach. This growing awareness led to him presenting his ideas to the team’s owner. He established connections with neighborhood churches offering afterschool programs and, after a few attempts, he persuaded the football team owner to cover the costs for those young men who needed it. In his early work, it is clear that Tommy had a frame of reference that viewed individual support surrounded by a range of other equally important roles for successful work with young people. His advocacy is deeply intertwined with community and youth work strategies. Over time, Tommy grew dissatisfied with his involvement in youth sports and more interested in a range of holistic supports that reinforced all aspects of the young men’s lives beyond their interest in sports. In his initial chosen career he was an apprentice sheet metal worker who had attended community college to study engineering. He worked in construction and was doing well in college but was not truly engaged in his schoolwork. He left his apprenticeship job after three years and dropped out of his college courses related to this work. He spent some time unemployed and believes he needed to find out what he really wanted to do, which was to learn more broadly about work

134    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

with young people. He explains he needed to spend time with people with the same interests in community activism and working with young people: I was doing something, working with young people and families. I was doing something. And I thought, yes, this is what I am supposed to be doing.

For his youth work degree practicum, he was placed at a housing project on the Southside of Chicago run by a large not-for-profit housing organization that also provides community and social services for residents and local community members. He acknowledges that during this experience he invested much more time in the work than was needed to meet his college requirements. In his community-based youth work he found his calling for youth-driven work. One of the reasons he felt drawn to youth-driven work was because he saw too many adults espouse attitudes, at a distance, on youth needs: It’s easy for adults to say, “this is what young people need,” but it is ludicrous to believe that before you know the young people. How can you know what they need? You don’t even know them, right?

Tommy worked in a number of other youth work jobs before returning to full-time employment at his practicum agency as the outreach and street intervention specialist, where he wrote a number of proposals for summer programming that eventually led to the creation of his year-round post. His job is the only position with this title in the many housing developments owned by this corporation across 14 states. One of the most recent successful pieces of work that originated from one of the youth groups he is responsible for was the Flag Project, in which young people created and delivered a march and rally on the Southside of Chicago to draw attention to the violence killing Chicago’s young people. Over 1,500 people attended the event including families of the victims who had personalized their own flag representing the person they had lost to violence. Politicians, including the Mayor of Chicago, were in attendance for this large-scale youth-led community event. His satisfaction in the success of this event and how these young people handled the politics of power was evident: I was so proud of them, right, because they didn’t let the Aldermen come out, and say “Oh I’m Mayor Rahm.” They was like, “Everybody stand in line, ain’t no cuttin’ ’cos you the Mayor.” This group of about, maybe, 14 young people brought out over 1,500, 1,600 people.

KEY THEMES Self-identified differences among the three men are family background and structure, working life, and city neighborhoods raised in and employed

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    135

in. They are also at very different stages of their higher education journey. However, all of them have been involved in youth work that has garnered positive attention of politicians and funders within the city and beyond. These three men, all respected community activists and intellectuals in their own right, provided rich narratives from which we identified four dominant themes: conceptions of schooling, challenges experienced by nontraditional students, the impact of racism, and the importance of being asked to participate. The themes transcend the individual story and context and signal commonalities supported by our conversations with three very different youth workers. Conceptions of Schooling In each conversation, all respondents make reference to a restricted role and instrumental view of the formal education they received or some form of limited engagement with the K–12 school system. For example, while Jerome is not critical of his current high school, he explains that his community activities and engagement are the most valuable things to him. All the things that has shaped me have happened in my community. To tell you the truth, I don’t look at school as anything but a tool. When I am in school I am there to get my education. . . . To do what I gotta do. That’s the only thing I use school for. Now, if something happens at school, if somebody presents me with an opportunity at school, I’ll take it, but that’s not my avenue.

Charles was aware of his potential at school but was not fully invested in his education at the time and his parents wanted him to attend his neighborhood high school rather than the one he had initially selected. He saw this decision as one that limited both his investment and success in school: So I didn’t go to a really good high school. The Southwest side of Chicago, the last thing I read, doesn’t have any high schools that meet city or state standards in anything. I scored really high on my tests for grammar school, took the test—was supposed to take the test, to go to [strong reputation public high school], over-slept, didn’t do it. My parents didn’t want me to go anyway, they wanted me to be around kids who lived in the neighborhood, so I would have a social system in the neighborhood.

For both Charles and Tommy, their involvement with the youth work program at HWC helps provide some contrasts that they make between this college learning experience and those they remember about their high schools. Tommy recalls his high school experience as primarily one of control:

136    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO Even the way I looked at teachers: in high school they were disciplinarians, they were like really smart disciplinarians. They had masters and degrees but so much of the classroom was spent on making sure the classroom was in order. You know, this person wasn’t doing this, this person. . . .

In contrast, he notes how he finally found a sense of belonging despite his reservations about coming back to college: Probably for the first time in years, I felt I was in a place that I belonged. The entire school experience was different. Everything I was afraid of, being graded on stuff, you know, looked at as this older student, being, you know, wondering if I was good enough to do this. I wasn’t used to reading textbooks. I wasn’t used to writing, you know.

Perhaps earlier educational experiences helped the men to appreciate their connection with a college program and professor who framed and enacted the higher education learning experience in ways that honored and respected their practical wisdom and expertise while pushing their traditional academic skillsets. This involves framing knowledge as a process of engagement (Blackler, 1995) rather than as an object that is transferred from the knowledgeable professor to the less knowledgeable student. It requires seeking within students an academic identity that can be nurtured and grown in a different way from the one they know of themselves formed by traditional and hegemonic frames of the academy and even undoing prior disabling notions of academic selves is a critical and necessary starting point for engagement. Another way respondents referenced schooling was to acknowledge the role of higher education for continued success in the job market, regardless of whether in the youth work field or not. Charles indicates both an instrumental and educational motivation behind his return to college: Coming back now, really was a decision for security, but also to improve. I think I am a decent youth worker but I think there is a lot more that I could learn. I have to challenge myself to become better. . . . It’s very clear that you have to have a bachelor’s. I don’t know if this is me—conforming to norms— but I think there is something to having accomplished a bachelor’s. That there is some dedication to a process that you have seen all the way through.

Tommy explained that he has also taken his time to find a higher education program that links his educational success directly to authenticity with young people: Most of the boys were all completely failing in school. . . .  And it was kinda weird because I had just gone back to school myself. I was trying to help them develop as I was developing myself. And I think it kinda pushed, I know it kinda pushed me too, because I started feeling like, you know you can’t tell

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    137 these boys about going to school and doing good if you ain’t going to school and doing good too.

But it was Jerome, the youngest respondent, who set the highest expectations for his higher education journey, which has yet to begin: It made me understand how important education is. To tell you the truth, in this day and age, a master’s degree is going to be the new one up, a leg up. A bachelor’s degree is not a leg up any more. You have to have a bachelor’s degree. I feel like a bachelor’s degree is becoming a high school diploma.

Within the higher education experience, both Charles and Tommy identify very specific gains they attribute to their college experience. Some of these gains are discipline-specific, such as learning a new language for oftdelivered practices, improving writing skills, and developing and sustaining field-specific connections that continue to be used beyond the classroom. However, some of the identified gains transcend the boundaries of the discipline and speak to deeper aspects of self and the value of a broad general education. Consider these excerpts that describe how two respondents currently view their current education experience: This time I feel it has been a more reflective process about who I am and how I do the work, as opposed to just learning about the work. (Charles) I liked it. I was addicted to coming to this place. I took some other classes that interested me, that opened up parts of me that hadn’t been touched, right? I mention the child development and my humanities because those were some of my favorite classes. Like I could just not believe some of this stuff. . . . I looked at school differently . . . and just learn stuff. Two-hour class and I could just walk away with all this stuff I didn’t know. It was amazing. (Tommy)

Both these workers allude to a more phenomenological view of education and how studying initiated through their initial passion or interest becomes something that is different from their earlier college involvements. The Challenges of “Nontraditional” Studentship In the HWC context, Charles and Tommy are in the majority because of their race but minority because of their gender, especially so within youth work programs. In 2013, the overall HWC student population was 10% Asian, 37% Black, 30% Hispanic, 18% White, and 0.5% Native American (Harold Washington College, 2013). Of students in 2015 youth work courses, only 25% are male. Many youth work students would be classified as “nontraditional” in the sense that they are much less likely to enroll

138    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

in college directly from high school. They also do not enter community college with a surfeit of cultural and educational capital similar to middleclass students beginning their higher education journey. In his interview, Charles identifies key challenges in returning to college and the difficult balancing act common to many community college students: There’s definitely some challenges, I feel like it’s kinda like getting back to exercising after a while not exercising. In my mind, “Oh it’s easy, I know how to do that,” and then you are like, wait, wait, wait. Hold on—wait. I need to practice a little bit more. I can’t just hop back into it. So, trying to figure out routines for studying, for reading. I have two kids and a family so I can’t just sit down and read whenever I want . . . and a full-time job. I have to be very specific about my needs to everyone.

Perhaps significantly, for both these youth workers this was not their first attempt at community college. Youth work was a field that had been discovered after many other jobs and previous times in college. Charles originally believed he wanted to be a teacher, and this is his third time at community college where he was only able to return on a signed petition for readmission supported by the youth work program. Tommy has also been at the City Colleges of Chicago twice before while he was pursuing engineering coursework related to his apprenticeship. The opportunity to discover a field of work through experience and to return to college to study it when ready for the challenges of higher education should not be underestimated for youth work students. Bringing heart and head together is not best achieved on someone else’s timescale. Both these men attest to the fact that when they first walked through a college door, their chosen career and their interests may not be fixed or have longevity. Time is needed to discover, change, and settle on a working interest that may not be fully formed for some time. Pathways initiatives and more restrictive financial aid rules prejudice fixed and linear college experiences. Even Jerome, who may indeed move straight from high school to college, has an awareness that his pathway through his chosen bachelor’s degree may take longer than the expected four-year experience. I am still deciding what college I want to go to but I know along the lines of what I want to do. So first four years, I am going to go and get my bachelor’s degree but it’s probably going to take me five to six years because I want to be an automotive engineer. . . . With me working in some quirks, some screws, it will probably take me five to six years.

The Impact of Racism All three men, despite inferences of different ideological perspectives, spoke about the impact of racism on themselves, the people they worked

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    139

with, and within systems. Jerome speaks at both the individual and the structural level with startling simplicity: I see people judge me, on the daily. . . . Another thing about me though, people are alarmed when they see me because, I guess because, I am dark skinned and the way I look. I look like one of those muggers—I don’t know. I don’t go around mean-muggin’ people all day, but people just have that connotation about me.

Tommy locates the impact of racism in programmatic terms and the capacity to engage young people who are the least likely to be involved in what he would consider traditional service-oriented programming. He comments on youth and community work providers who cannot attract older teens of color and struggle to engage these young people specifically and refers to a connectivity that relates to his insight into ‘detached’ youth work he gained from his college youth work courses. He explains: These were the group of boys that nobody knew what to do with. . . . Well if nobody does anything for these boys they will end up, falling under and being victims of circumstances. . . . Now you get this opportunity to make something happen. . . . You miss some of the young people who might need it the most. They’re in the park, they’re hanging out in the alley, they’re in hallways, right?

In addition, all three men make connections between race and other issues of inequality, when framing the kinds of youth work they are involved in. I hate the segregation. . . . A huge problem is violence, I feel like there is so much violence—for one, because of the poverty rate. I feel like people don’t have enough, so they try and get it by other means. But another reason I feel like there is so much violence is because of the lack of opportunity. There are a lot of people who have gone to jail at a young age and get out and can’t get a job because of their background. So what else do you expect them to do? (Jerome) So, I think they chose me for this position because there is so much intersectionality between race and class . . . that unfortunately a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about, let alone trying to figure out ways to address those issues. (Charles)

In the case of Jerome, his interruption to the dominant hierarchies of race, class, and masculinity have begun well before he begins his higher education journey and combine his community-based sports activities with a growing activism premised on finding his holistic self. In his exploration of how racism had impacted his own life, he described his awareness as a young African American man of how others may view his sporting abilities as his sole attribute:

140    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO When I was younger it was sports, because I had a lot of energy. But as I got older I found there were other things I could do—to use my mind instead of my physical abilities. And I found it, I like it. I love using my mind. I love, love showing people my intelligence. . . . I have something to offer as much as the next person.

All three of these respondents raised the issue of racism with impact at differential levels. All were articulate about how they have been personally judged because of their race. They also connected localized community issues, such as school push-outs and violence, that transcend their specific contexts and can be found in many communities where poverty and racism create similar impacts. This personal and political connection, in different ways, has driven their active involvement in youth work, which unsurprisingly is primarily concerned with the diverse impacts of racism on young people. All of these men demonstrate reflexivity and a sense of self that emerges from both lived experience and a considered analysis of injustices premised on race. The All-Important “Ask” Both Charles and Tommy make note that their participation in the HWC youth work program required a personal approach and an “ask” to participate. In other words, a specific invitation from faculty to join the program was an important element of their decision to return to college. This finding is consistent with prior research that shows that a personal relationship with a faculty member is positively related to retention in college for students of color (Simmons, 2013). Within this relationship is held an expectation of success, a positive frame of reference, and an understanding that opportunities must be both presented and then supported. When asked about how they came to be in the youth work program both identified the personal invitation from faculty as the starting point. You told me! I came to sign up for classes. And I said I wanted to be a teacher and you said if you wanted to be a teacher you have to learn how to work with young people and you have to take this course and I said OK. And so I took the course, and I liked it, and this was definitely different. I liked the idea of having a more egalitarian relationship with young people as opposed to, I say something and you listen and do what I say. (Charles) I came in, walked into the computer lab on the 4th floor, everyone was just running around, picking up classes, raising their hand, calling counselors and advisors, and I was just lost. . . . “I just want to work with young people”— she didn’t know I had had a rough childhood myself. . . . She was like, “Wait right here, you need to talk to Dr. Heathfield.” (Tommy)

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    141

This initial personal connection and invitation to participate mirrors the significant assertive relational aspect of good youth work practice. Jerome had only recently returned to Chicago after the death of his mother and had no connection with Tommy previously, and he describes how he first became connected to Tommy—through an individual “ask”: I was playing basketball one day, and he said, “Hey you wanna job?” and I said, “Damn, I wanna job! How’m I gonna get this job?” And I started talking to coach Tommy about getting jobs and stuff. I don’t think I got a job that summer but I got a mentor.

Inherent in this approach is one of the many challenges for youth work education. In both of the higher education contexts in which we work, youth work courses struggle to sustain themselves and recruit students because they sit outside the mainstream academic disciplines that gain greater public profiles (e.g., psychology or sociology) or that hold political cache through the connection to well-paid employment opportunities (e.g., technology or healthcare). Thus, semiprofessional programs such as youth work automatically restrict access and opportunities for many people because of their low profile institutionally and/or their limited status in the world of work. Nor is it likely that every student makes a personal connection with a professor who pulls him or her deeper into the college experience and supports them through the process to a successful outcome. Yet all respondents refer to this approach as a productive way to solicit and sustain engagement. THE CHALLENGES OF THE CURRENT HIGHER EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT While none of these respondents is intended to be representative of broader college populations, the reader may find connections with other youth workers and other higher education contexts that offer youth work and youth development programs. The intention in providing such detail on three specific youth workers is to allow the reader access to stories and journeys that will have resonances across their own specific contexts. The themes that emerge from these voices present some key challenges as higher education changes to respond to political and funding imperatives seeking greater success for taxpayer dollars from public higher education. From our perspective, there are a number of issues illuminated through these case studies: access and recruitment; pathway initiatives that are fixed, are externally determined, and reduce the opportunity for both choice and failure; finding youth work after other careers; and not allowing past lives to incapacitate future trajectories.

142    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

Access and Recruitment Sustainable youth work programs in higher education cannot be based on happenstance or the simple availability and accessibility of key professors. But in the U.S. context, youth work programs are hosted, and sometimes buried, by their larger disciplines and a public consciousness of more familiar job roles such as teacher, social worker, or police officer. Without a higher profile for the distinct youth work field or institutional support policies, public relations and additional resources, access and recruitment may remain an issue for what are small-scale higher education programs. The noise of louder and more established occupations and professions can drown out youth work voices in higher education, particularly given the lack of a core discipline of youth work with academia (see Fusco, 2012, for argument on building an academic discipline as a prerequisite for lifting the profile of youth work). Youth work students do not usually walk through college doors in large numbers and are often daunted by the unfolding prerequisites of an academic, financial, and procedural nature that engulf initial college experiences. This is especially true for older students, returning students, and those who do not enter college doors preloaded with strong educational capital granted through their home cultures. Getting youth work students through college doors requires a considerable investment, and getting youth work students successfully through all the initial college systemic processes can also be challenging in a number of ways. These challenges are increasing alongside reforms in community college contexts driven by market-led ideology. Constraining Pathways For many youth workers, coming to college is not a one-off, linear, and time-controlled experience. Life interrupts intentions and schedules, and both succumb to the changing realities of work, family, and finances. But this is not the new reality of government changes to the financial aid system and higher education where completion rates and timescales are increasingly restricting opportunities and supports for working class students. The luxury of mistakes made and lessons learned is becoming, again, increasingly the domain of the privileged and those who have access to elite education systems where constrained time and costs are not the primary contours of the experience. Working-class students, and those without the educational and financial capital to coast directly into expensive four-year educations, are being “pathwayed” into a workforce pallet of restricted choices and aggregated, unforgiving timescales. The nationally driven pathway approach proscribes higher education journeys from the

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    143

outset, inherently requiring certainty and predictability from the moment a student enters the door of a college. Time for reflection and emerging analysis, synthesis, and stronger identities are squeezed as reduced time to completion becomes the key driver and definer of college success. This pathway modality is deeply connected to underlying neoliberal policies, which in this case segregate not only who can now enter college but what happens and is financially supported once they get there. The notion of a “liberal education” remains an option only for the elite who can send their children to prestigious residential liberal arts schools where there they hold the precious privilege of learning for its own sake. Everyone else is produced by the higher education environments in which they enroll in order to enter the marketplace, and in four years. Restricting Past Lives For some youth workers, their previous academic history follows them into their future, and this not so easy to erase. This is the same reality for those with involvement with the criminal justice system, who can also find it exceptionally difficult to leave their past behind and reach for more successful futures. Both of these histories are deeply intertwined with racial and class injustices. Youth work education must be one that celebrates passions, academic and nonacademic, as well as struggles and failures to achieve within traditional learning arrangements and timescales, providing the relationships, roles, and opportunities that nurture holistic and authentic selves in order that youth workers can “set things up” in a way that turns their own passion into opportunities for the young people with whom they work. Every day at work I get to realize my passions at work. But for my passions to be true, I have to set things up for their passions to be realized, whatever that is. (Tommy)

Youth work students frequently begin their college journey with a missing clarity of voice as they have yet to learn the connective language, theories, and frameworks that pull their frontline work experience into a discipline. Youth workers may begin with a commitment to social justice, a sense of wanting to do something, but frequently have no articulated and formal expressive clarity about this. This is what they acquire during the process of their higher education. This is the youth work learning that puts these elements together into youth work practice expressly steadfast in the illumination and interruption of injustice. This has to be experienced and found over time, time that is granted (or not) within a degree program. Vague feelings must be turned into concrete meaning that leads to wise actions.

144    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO

CONCLUSION In a more traditional higher education knowledge paradigm, these male narrative voices and their community-based activism could risk disconnection, dismissal, and “betrayal of their mission.” Their experience of challenge, change, and learning may be minimized in the acquisition of new knowledge favored by the academy and a range of disciplines. Indeed, some disciplines require the personal, the subjective, to be supposedly removed from the rigors of academic work stemming from the objective epistemological framing of academic disciplines. Content-driven, transmission models in higher education can replicate dominant hierarchies, which negate self, identity, and neighborhood. Youth work higher education programs must commit to challenging injustice by respecting previous lives and authentic selves. This means connecting with and sustaining learning relationships outside of set curricular objectives of a course. This means acknowledging for some that becoming a “successful college student” requires support for more than one attempt. This becomes more urgent for men of color, who may enter college with prior conceptions of their academic selves loaded with negative stereotypes, deficit paradigms, and self-worth concentrated on bodies rather than minds, all of which merge together from years of toxic messages about male blackness and disconnects in negating race, or “acting White” as a precursor to academic success. However, this does not have to be so. As Charles and Tommy attest, they can find an academic home, have their practice expertise valued, and achieve both the instrumental and educational benefits of higher education. In our cases, this works through practices in the college classroom that mirror the frontline youth work practices they espouse, such as by providing students with the relationships, supports, and opportunities for their authentic selves to be honored. There is a deep recognition that the road from passion to profession is a bumpy but exciting one. Like in youth work, where identities are reframed as adults get to know young people in more holistic ways, here faculty get to know their adult students in more rounded and expansive ways, in which experience, identity, and values are deeply integrated and interwoven. Thus, teaching and learning relationships mirror a different power dynamic and allow students to find an academic voice and identity that is coherent with their best selves (here as valued youth and community activists) and that denounces the artificial negative messages of “schooled” selves proscribed by failing systems of formal education. The youth work program at HWC is indicative of a concrete democratic space in which relationships, supports, and opportunities are provided for students. This is an academic space for workers to share, reflect, learn, and synthesize their academic, vocational, and community identities in ways that are personally meaningful and deeply relevant to their professional

Honoring and Supporting Youth Work Intellectuals    145

futures. In this more egalitarian pedagogy, these men must be both viewed and valued as key contributors to a college environment, recognizing and celebrating their vast experiences, and allowing their voices and practices as organic intellectuals to serve as a primary tool for further growth, reflection, and contribution to social justice. It is to be hoped that Jerome’s future academic home and discipline allow him to continue his commitment to social justice and community work. REFERENCES Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, knowledge work and organizations: An overview and interpretation. Organization Studies, 16(6), 1021–1046. Bransford, C. L. (2011). Integrating critical consciousness into direct social work practice: A pedagogical view. Social Work Education, 30(8), 932–947. Bushe, G. R., & Kassam, A. (2005). When is appreciative inquiry transformational? A meta-case analysis. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 41(2), 161–181. Council of the European Union. (2010). Resolution of the Council and of the representatives of the governments of the member states, meeting within the Council, on youth work, Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council meeting, Brussels, 18 and 19 November 2010. Deresiewicz, W. (2015, Septemer). The neoliberal arts: How college sold its soul to the market. Harper’s Magazine, 25–32. Fusco, D. (2012). On becoming an academic profession. In D. Fusco (Ed.), Advancing youth work: Current trends, critical questions (pp. 111–126). New York, NY: Routledge. Fusco, D., & Heathfield, M. (2015). Modeling democracy: Is youth “participation” enough? Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 7(1), 12–31. Harold Washington College. (2013). Fiscal year 2013: Statistical digest. Retrieved from http://www.ccc.edu/menu/Documents/HW-FYStatisticalDigest2013.pdf Heathfield, M., & Fusco, D. (2016). From hope to wise action: The future of youth work and other global actions in education. In M. Heathfield & D. Fusco (Eds.), Youth, inequality and education: Global actions in youth work (pp.  295– 307). New York, NY: Routledge. Hurley, L., & Treacy, D. (1993). Models of youth work: A sociological framework. Dublin, IE: Irish Youthwork Press. Gall, J., & Heathfield, M. (2016). Working for justice in Chicago public schools. In M. Heathfield & D. Fusco (Eds.), Youth, inequality and education: Global actions in youth work (pp. 241–261). New York, NY: Routledge. Gottlieb, R. S. (1989). Gramsci notebooks. In R. S. Gottlieb (Ed.), An anthology of western Marxism (pp. 112–119). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Luton, L. (2011) Creating calm in Chicago’s public schools. Retrieved from http:// www.npr.org/2011/03/23/134763392/creating-calm-in-chicagos-schools NCES. (2015). Bachelor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions by race/ethnicity and sex of student: Selected years, 1976–77 through 2012–13. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_302.60.asp

146    M. HEATHFIELD and D. FUSCO OneGoal. (2015). About us. Retrieved from: http://www.onegoalgraduation.org/ about-us/ Owens, D., Lacey, K., Rawls, G., & Holbert-Quince, J. (2010). First-generation African American male college students: Implications for career counselors. The Career Development Quarterly, 58, 291–300. Pascarella, E. T., Smart, J. C, Ethington, C., & Nettles, M. (1987). The influence of college on self-concept: A consideration of race and gender differences. American Educational Research Journal, 24, 49–77. Quaye, S. J. (2014). Student engagement in higher education: Theoretical perspectives and practical approaches for diverse populations. New York, NY: Routledge. Reid, K. W. (2013). Understanding the relationships among racial identity, selfefficacy, institutional integration and academic achievement of Black males attending research universities. The Journal of Negro Education, 82(1), 75–93. Sallah, M. (2014). Global youth work: Provoking consciousness and taking action. Dorset, England: Russell House. Simmons, L. D. (2013). Factors of persistence for African American men in a student support organization. The Journal of Negro Education, 82(1), 62–74. Simpson, J. (2014). Longing for justice: Higher education and democracy’s agenda. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

CHAPTER 8

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES An Alternative to the One-Stop Workshop Femi Vance, Emily Salvaterra, Jocelyn Atkins Michelsen, and Corey Newhouse Public Profit

ABSTRACT One- or two-hour large group trainings are a staple for youth workers, but they often do not produce the desired results:  gains in participants’ knowledge and changes in their practice. This chapter introduces professional learning communities (PLCs) as a professional development strategy for youth workers and provides the research foundations for the youth work PLC model for line staff. A systematic review of four evaluations spanning two PLC initiatives, one science-focused and one math-focused, demonstrates the benefits of participating in a PLC. Evaluation findings indicate that PLCs can strengthen youth workers’ confidence in delivering science and math content and promote some positive shifts in instructional practices; this suggests that youth work PLCs are an effective professional development alternative to using one-time

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 147–165 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

147

148    F. VANCE et al. workshops. Drawing from the PLC evaluations and the literature, this chapter also presents key challenges and considerations for researchers studying PLCs and for organizations interested in investing in PLCs.

Professional learning communities (PLCs) emerged in the early 2000s as an effective means of promoting collaboration among school day teachers (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2010). The PLC model spread to other fields, including youth work, though it represents a relatively small part of professional development offerings as a whole. The PLC model is a departure from the one- or two-hour large group trainings that are a staple for youth workers. PLCs for youth workers with youth-facing roles bring together a cohort of 15 to 20 professionals who meet regularly to reflect on and improve their practice. PLC sessions typically focus on a specific content area (e.g., wellness, math, etc.) and can include curricular resources, knowledge sharing, peer networking, and opportunities to practice new instructional techniques. Both novice and experienced youth workers can participate in PLCs, and yet little is known about how they can benefit these practitioners. In this chapter, we demonstrate youth workers’ increased confidence delivering content and illustrate the kinds of instructional improvements that PLC participants may exhibit through a systematic review of four PLC evaluations. The evaluations included in the review studied science- and math-focused PLCs for youth workers organized through the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), in concert with community partners. Public Profit, an evaluation consulting firm, was the independent evaluator for the PLCs and authored all four reports. First, we introduce the PLC concept and compare the school day and youth work models. Next, we introduce four evaluation reports and explain the study methodology. We then use evidence from the four evaluations to demonstrate PLCs’ potential to boost participants’ confidence and change their instructional practices. Finally, we present some key challenges and considerations for researchers interested in further study and for organizations interested in using PLCs as part of their professional development portfolio. WHAT IS A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY? Much of what is known about PLCs comes from research on their use with school day teachers. Interestingly, that research does not advance one cohesive definition of a PLC. As PLC expert DuFour (2004) notes, professional learning community is a term “used to describe every imaginable combination of individuals with an interest in education” (p. 6). However, these definitions share some critical components.

Professional Learning Communities    149

Common Components of a PLC PLCs encourage professional collaboration. Participants share and question “their practice in an ongoing, reflective, collaborative, inclusive, learning-oriented, growth-promoting way” (Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, Wallace, & Thomas, 2006, p. 223). As places of collaboration, PLCs offer educators time to practice new skills in a supportive, collegial environment (McKenzie, 2014). McLaughlin and Talbert (2010) argue that PLCs should also work toward a shared goal and internally assess progress, and they should be accountable for reaching that goal. PLCs also emphasize critical reflection about practice. The learning happens in a PLC when educators engage in a cycle of critical questioning of their practice, applying new lessons and reflecting on how their practice is developing (Stoll et al., 2006). This learning cycle is what sets PLCs apart from the traditional training model, in which a specialist delivers content to an audience of trainees via lecture or workshop. Reflection is a key element of the learning cycle. PLCs use practice-focused reflection and group processing to enhance collective learning (Gallimore, Ermeling, Saunders, & Goldenberg, 2009). Herman (2012), supported by Schön’s (1983) reflection-in-action model, shows that youth workers benefit when reflective inquiry is embedded into their professional development experiences. Similarly, Davis-Manigualte’s (2012) study of a youth development network found that collective reflection was key to participants’ learning and led to critical insights about their practice. PLCs also appeal to the needs of adult learners. Knowles (1988) notes that as adults mature, they become more self-directed, apply their learning to tasks associated with their social roles, and seek to immediately use new knowledge. As a result, adults often prefer practice-centered learning. The PLC model, with its iterative focus on practice, interrogation, and reflection, is a natural fit for adult learning. PLC Model for Youth Workers Public Profit (2015) synthesized findings from 12 evaluations of youth work PLCs to present a PLC model crafted to meet the needs of youth workers in California. The youth work PLC model offers a cohort of front-line staff a series of trainings that include multiple opportunities for collaboration, practice, and reflection. Each of the science- and math-focused PLCs discussed here generally adopts the components of the youth work PLC model. The youth work PLC model is designed to improve the quality of and access to content-focused activities for youth. It usually lasts an academic year, during which PLC learning is divided into five to eight sessions. Sessions

150    F. VANCE et al.

include direct instruction based on the PLC’s content-area focus, peer networking, knowledge sharing, and practice of new facilitation techniques. Typically, one to two facilitators who are experts in the content area of the PLC and/or in youth development lead these trainings. Depending on fiscal resources, staff may also receive one-on-one coaching from PLC facilitators. As with the school day model, the youth work PLC model brings professionals together to reflect on their performance and to implement new features in their practice. However, the youth work PLC model differs from the school day model by incorporating more direct instruction. This modification addresses the varied level of professional preparation among practitioners working directly with youth, as few have formal youth work or content area training (e.g., science or math). While this approach maintains a focus on practice, it limits the opportunity for youth workers to completely direct their own learning. Another notable difference is that school day PLCs tend to reach one organization, while youth work PLCs can reach multiple organizations. THE IMPACT OF PLCs The extant PLC literature focuses predominantly on PLCs for credentialed teachers and shows that PLCs can benefit participating teachers, students, and schools (Thompson, Greg, & Niska, 2004). Teachers who participate in PLCs have greater confidence and enthusiasm for collaborative work, strengthen their subject area expertise, and change their instructional practice (Cordingley, Bell, Rundell, & Evans, 2003). For example, teachers in a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) PLC understood math and science better after their participation and were better equipped to use strategies to enhance students’ reasoning, understanding, and problem solving (Fulton & Britton, 2011). Schools with high-functioning PLCs also improve student academic outcomes. For example, students of teachers in the aforementioned STEM PLC showed improved math assessment scores (Fulton & Britton, 2011). Other student outcomes can include gains in test scores, reading fluency, and school attendance, as well as improved noncognitive skills like enhanced motivation and class participation (Cordingley et al., 2003). These promising results build a case for using PLCs in youth programs, as studies of PLCs show benefits for educators as well as whole-school improvements. There is a clear structure for PLCs that incorporates the collaborative and youth-centered ethos of the youth development field, and that also prioritizes educators’ learning and professional needs. Yet little is known about PLCs for youth workers. By drawing on our evaluation research in Oakland, this chapter addresses the knowledge gap about youth work PLCs, demonstrating some benefits and challenges of using a PLC in this setting.

Professional Learning Communities    151

AN EVALUATION FRAMEWORK TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PLCS FOR YOUTH WORKERS This chapter describes two professional development outcomes for PLC participants: participant learning, gauging participants’ new knowledge of best practices in the field, and changed behavior, assessing if and how participants incorporate newly learned techniques into their practice. These outcomes are drawn from Guskey’s (2002) five-step framework for evaluating professional development initiatives. The framework is based on the Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (1994) training evaluation framework and posits that effective trainings result in five types of outcomes: participant response, participant learning, organizational support and change, changed behavior, and improved youth outcomes. Monitoring outcomes in each of the five outcome areas is valuable; however, from an organizational perspective, it is participant learning and changed behavior that are likely to motivate an investment in professional development as they hold the most promise for promoting positive youth outcomes. The following discussion of participant learning and changed behavior exemplifies the return on investment that organizations can anticipate from PLCs. .

THE SYNTHESIS OF PLC EVALUATIONS Between 2010 and 2014, Public Profit evaluated three science-focused PLCs and one math-focused PLC for line staff. These four evaluations are a subset of 12 PLC evaluations conducted by Public Profit. Together, the selected evaluations explore the participant learning and behavioral changes that can result from participating in a PLC. Our review of the PLC reports occurred in two stages. First, we assessed the pool of 12 evaluation reports using a framework detailing the key characteristics of the PLC (partnering organizations, PLC structure, participant demographics), the evaluation methodology (evaluation questions, sample size, data collection methods), the topic area (science and math, wellness, and character education), and the evaluation findings. Then we reviewed the evaluation reports by content foci to narrow the sample to only one content area, with the goal of increasing the coherence of the findings. In this first stage, we found that the science and math content area included the greatest number of evaluation reports that (1) used more than one method to assess participant learning and behavioral changes, and (2) included sufficient detail about methods to connect the findings to specific data sources such as surveys or observations. We excluded two science- and

152    F. VANCE et al.

math-focused evaluation reports due to lack of detail about methods, leaving four reports to be reviewed in the second phase. The second phase consisted of an in-depth review of three additional features of the reports: PLCs’ goals, progress toward meeting their goals, and the direct links between data sources and findings. Once documented, we compared these characteristics across the four science- and math-focused PLC evaluations to assess impact in the focal outcome areas of participant learning and changed behavior. Table 8.1 summarizes the four selected reports, including PLC model and data sources, and the following section describes the PLCs and corresponding evaluation reports in greater detail. Common to all the reports was a small sample size that prevented statistical analysis of pre-post survey changes. All data presented are purely descriptive. Science Learning Community (2010–2014) The Science Learning Community (Science PLC) is a partnership between OUSD’s After School Programs Office and Techbridge, an organization that specializes in informal science education. The OUSD team recruited, vetted, and organized the participant group, and Techbridge provided the facilitators. The Science PLC offers hands-on science and engineering curricula, six to eight in-person workshops, and on-site coaching to a small cohort of front-line staff in Oakland. The Science PLC’s aims to improve participants’ knowledge of science content, boost their confidence in delivering science activities, and teach strategies to promote gender and income equity in science. Workshops emphasize inquiry-based practices and offer staff lesson previews from an innovative science curriculum. Participation fluctuated over time, with 22 programs participating in 2010–2011, 27 in 2011–2012, and 14 in 2012–2013. Usually, one staff member per program participated. All three Science PLC evaluations (Public Profit, 2011, 2012, 2013) used pre-post surveys to assess participant learning; globally, survey questions asked participants to report their level of confidence in leading informal science activities and in using specific facilitation techniques (such as engaging youth in science discussions, building youths’ science interest, and using a four-part lesson plan). In this review, we consider an increase in confidence to be evidence that youth workers increased their ability to deliver science content using an informal science curriculum or sciencespecific instructional techniques. The surveys also asked participants to rate how knowledgeable they were about facilitation techniques, their previous science training or experience, and their years of experience working with youth. Additionally, some of the reports used observations and/or focus

PLC Model

6 monthly workshops, coaching, curriculum

7 monthly workshops, coaching, curriculum

8 monthly workshops, coaching, curriculum

7 monthly workshops coaching, curriculum

Topic

2010–2011 Oakland Science

2011–2012 Oakland Science

2012–2013 Oakland Science

2013–2014 Oakland Math

15

14

27

22

Participants

X

X

X

X

Surveys

X

X

Focus Groups

TABLE 8.1  Science and Math PLC Models and Evaluation Methods Interviews

X

X

X

Observations

Professional Learning Communities    153

154    F. VANCE et al.

groups to surface whether, or to what degree, participants changed their behavior. Each Science PLC evaluation report is described in detailed below. In 2010–2011, participants completed two surveys: one pre-post survey administered by the PLC facilitator and a post survey administered by Public Profit; ten of 22 total participants completed pre-post surveys (a 45% response rate), and 15 participants completed the post survey (a 68% response rate). This evaluation also used a year-end focus group in which Science PLC participants completed the prompt, “I used to (blank) but now because of this Learning Community, I (blank)” to assess behavior changes; this was a semi-structured way for staff to report knowledge gains attributed to their PLC participation. Finally, the 2010–2011 evaluation used semistructured observations at two sites to help document behavior changes. Evaluators developed an observation protocol and accompanying interview protocol to align with the practices and skills taught in the Science PLC. The length of the observations is unknown. Participants in the 2011–2012 Science PLC completed pre-post surveys; 17 of 27 total participants completed both surveys (a response rate of 63%). The evaluation assessed participant behavioral changes with observations conducted using the Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality’s STEM Program Quality Assessment1 (PQA) scale, which measures three facets of STEM skill building including scientific reasoning, observation and measurement, and representation. Observations in 2011–2012 included semistructured contextual interviews with the Science PLC participant and site coordinator. The length of the observations is unknown. In 2012–2013, participants completed pre-post surveys; six of 14 total participants completed both surveys (a 43% response rate). Neither observations nor a focus group were conducted in this project cycle. Oakland Math Learning Community (2013–2014) OUSD and Be the Change Consulting, an organizational development firm, offer the Math Learning Community (Math PLC). The Math PLC’s goal is to build the capacity of after-school direct-service providers to deliver high-quality informal math education to youth. Members received indepth professional development, including monthly trainings, coaching, and curriculum resources. In 2013–2014, Be the Change trainers facilitated six monthly trainings for a cohort of staff representing 15 elementary school-age youth programs. The Math PLC evaluation (Public Profit, 2014) used a pre-post survey and a focus group to assess participant learning. Thirteen of the 15 participants completed both surveys (an 86% response rate). Survey questions asked staff to report their knowledge of and level of confidence in leading

Professional Learning Communities    155

math activities and using specific facilitation techniques (e.g., questioning strategies, engagement strategies, and structuring a lesson). The survey also collected information on participants’ background (like prior math training, sex, race, and experience working with youth). The one-hour focus group included nine participants. Interviewers asked staff questions related to techniques they learned in the Math PLC and the successes and challenges they faced while facilitating math activities with youth. Observations of two PLC participants document staff’s behavioral changes. The participants worked at two qualitatively different programs selected in order to examine the effect of program context on staff practices. One program, designated “established,” had stable leadership and received consistently high quality ratings on a district-endorsed and nationally used quality assessment tool. The other program, designated “developing,” was directed by new leadership and had acceptable levels of quality with clear areas for improvement. Each staff member received two observations spaced approximately two months apart, with the first occurring near the beginning of the Math PLC sessions. Observers used a semistructured observation protocol developed to align with the practices taught in the PLC (activity structure, engagement, questioning, making connections, and social and emotional development). Observers took narrative notes during a one-hour math activity led by the PLC participant. PARTICIPANT LEARNING: GAINING SCIENCE AND MATH INSTRUCTIONAL CONFIDENCE Evidence from the Science PLC Evaluation Reports 2010–2011 Evaluation Findings In the 2010–2011 Science PLC surveys, youth workers reported feeling more confident using inquiry-based science techniques. One strand of facilitation techniques centered on getting youth to engage with science concepts. Surveys showed a shift from 44% of youth workers feeling confident about explaining science concepts to 88% feeling confident after the Science PLC. Comparable shifts occurred in staff’s ability to ask questions to get students to understand the material (31% felt confident in the pre-survey compared to 88% in the post-survey) and to ask students questions that encouraged critical thinking (19% confident in pre to 81% post). Science PLC sessions emphasized promoting gender and income equity in science activities, and the number of staff who felt confident doing so increased 44 percentage points from pre to post survey (50% to 94%). Overall, Science PLC participants felt confident leading science activities after their training (31% confident in pre as compared to 94% post). PLC participants’ answers

156    F. VANCE et al.

to the writing prompt completed during the focus group corroborate the confidence gains shown in the survey results. Participants globally reported that after participating in the Science PLC, they felt more comfortable teaching science and also more confident about their teaching as a whole. Staff also reported improved confidence in their ability to get youth excited about science. At the beginning of the Science PLC, 81% of participants reported little to no confidence in their ability make science exciting for youth, while by the end of the training, 88% of staff felt confident doing so. Another aspect of engaging youth in science is exposing them to science careers; the number of staff who felt confident introducing science careers to youth increased from 56% prior to the Science PLC to 94% after participation. 2011–2012 Evaluation Findings The 2011–2012 surveys asked Science PLC participants about facilitation techniques related to questioning, engaging youth in science, and promoting gender and racial equity during science activities. Only the survey items on questioning strategies were framed as confidence gains. In the pre-survey, 67% of staff felt uncomfortable encouraging youth to ask questions, but by the end of the Science PLC, all participants felt confident encouraging youths’ questions. In the post-survey, all participants reported having a better understanding of what questions to ask students before, during, and after an activity. Unfortunately, the pre-survey results for this question were not presented in the original report. The remaining survey items asked about behavioral changes and are summarized later in this chapter. 2012–2013 Evaluation Findings The 2012–20-13 survey questions asked Science PLC participants about their knowledge of inquiry-based science techniques and knowledge of facilitation techniques related to promoting equity in science activities. Surveys also asked staff about their knowledge of science concepts. All staff reported leading science activities as well as other activities, welcoming questions from youth, leading a structured lesson (learning objective, introduction, hands-on activity, and reflection), and typically being able to answer youths’ questions. Yet no pre-post shifts were reported for these questions. The evaluation noted pre-post percentage point increases for the number of staff who felt confident using reflection activities (50 percentage point increase), and leading science activities (10 percentage point increase). In 2012–2013 the Science PLC had an intentional focus on the engineering design process (EDP). All staff reported understanding the EDP at the close of the Science PLC, compared to 50% prior to the trainings. Furthermore, 89% of staff felt knowledgeable about science and engineering topics, and all staff reported understanding science concepts well enough to

Professional Learning Communities    157

effectively lead activities. Again, no pre-post changes were reported for these two questions, although there was a 33-percentage-point increase in the number of staff who felt confident embedding the EDP in science activities. Evidence from the Math Learning Community Evaluation Report The Math PLC evaluation employed pre-post surveys to assess shifts in participants’ knowledge of specific math-related facilitation practices. The evaluation report presented survey results separately for staff who had no prior math training (eight participants) and for those who had one or more years of math training (six participants). In general, staff with no prior math training reported knowledge gains more frequently than staff with prior training. Notably, all staff saw a link between their participation in the Math PLC and their ability to provide high-quality youth programming. According to pre-post survey results, all staff reported increased confidence using and greater knowledge of instructional strategies related to youth participation and structuring a lesson. For instance, 38% of novice math facilitators (those without training) felt confident getting youth excited about math and having knowledge of a four-part math activity structure (introduction, planning, hands-on activity, and reflection). After the PLC, all novice math facilitators felt confident engaging youth, and all reported understanding the activity structure. Likewise, at the end of the PLC all intermediate math facilitators (those with prior math training) felt confident sparking youths’ excitement and understood the activity structure, whereas prior to trainings the percentages were 80 and 60, respectively. Moreover, at the close of the Math PLC, all novice and intermediate participants felt confident using engagement strategies that encourage youth to participate in activities, compared to 0% and 60% in the pre-survey. Finally, after training, more staff felt confident using questioning strategies in all four parts of a math activity. Survey results showed a change from 25% to 100% for novice facilitators and a change from 80% to 100% for intermediate facilitators. Math PLC participants also gained confidence in their ability to support youths’ understanding of math concepts. Prior to the Math PLC none of the novice participants knew how to ask questions to foster youths’ understanding of math, while afterwards, all novices reported knowing how to do so. In the pre-surveys, 40% of intermediate math facilitators knew how to use questions to elicit youths’ understanding of math concepts, compared to 100% after the PLC. Furthermore, after the Math PLC more staff knew how to help youth make connections between math concepts and the world around them. Surveys indicated a shift from 63% of novice facilitators knowing how to use this skill to 100%. The corresponding pre-post change

158    F. VANCE et al.

for intermediate facilitators was from 80% to 100%. Similarly, after training all novice math facilitators reported knowing how to connect math activities to youths’ prior math knowledge, compared to 25% at start of the PLC. Sixty percent of intermediate math facilitators began the PLC with this skill, and by the end of the PLC, all reported knowing how to help youth build connections between new and prior math knowledge. Some of the knowledge and confidence gains only occurred for novice math facilitators. The survey results showed pre-post changes in the number of novice math facilitators reporting increased confidence leading math activities (from 38% pre to 100% post), leading math activities as well as other enrichment activities (from 13% pre to 88% post), and understanding math concepts well enough to lead math activities effectively (from 88% pre to 100% post). There was also a pre-post change in the number of novice facilitators who reported being able to answer youths’ math-related questions (from 75% to 100%) and being able to help struggling youth understand math concepts (from 75% to 100%). Summary of Participant Learning Findings According to the evidence presented in the four evaluation reports, each year PLC participants reported improved confidence using inquirybased facilitation techniques. The most noteworthy survey results showed improved confidence in using questioning strategies with youth and encouraging youth to engage in science and math. In each of the Science PLC evaluation reports, the evaluators noted that the study results demonstrated that the PLC had successfully met its annual goal of instilling confidence in staff to deliver an inquiry-based science curriculum. The Math PLC evaluation report did not track progress toward PLC goals in the same manner; however, the survey results described here indicate that increased confidence leading math activities was a common benefit for participants. While encouraging, the survey findings come from small samples of youth workers, ranging from six to 17 participants. PLCs are small by design, engaging roughly 15 to 20 participants per PLC, which creates an intentionally intimate professional development experience. The small PLC cohort makes sample size a challenge for evaluators, as events that decrease the number of participants—like dropouts and inconsistent participation of remaining youth workers—can compromise the strength of evaluation findings. For example, in the 2012–2013 Science PLC evaluation, only six participants responded to both the pre- and post-surveys. This is limited even for a small PLC cohort, and seemingly large percentage changes in survey responses represent only one or two youth workers.

Professional Learning Communities    159

The four evaluation reports measured participants’ learning about similar concepts across years, but did not do so using the same survey questions. For example, the 2010–2011 Science PLC surveys asked participants to report their confidence using various facilitation strategies, whereas the 2011–2012 evaluation surveys directly asked participants whether or not they used inquiry-based facilitation strategies. The inconsistency in measurement makes it difficult to compare PLC participants’ gains across years. CHANGED BEHAVIOR: IMPROVED SCIENCE AND MATH INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES Evidence from the Science PLC Evaluation Reports 2010–2011 Evaluation Findings In the 2010–2011 Science PLC evaluation, participants reported changing their instructional behaviors in case study interviews and observations. The observational data demonstrated that two case study staff introduced youth to different types of engineering and science careers (e.g., structural engineers, astronauts) and put youth in the role of science professionals. These staff also used images of engineers and scientists of different races and genders, which speaks to PLC participants’ ability to promote gender and racial equity in science activities. During observations, the PLC participants used two strategies to engage youth in science: grouping strategies to make sure all youth participated, and equity sticks—wooden sticks with youths’ names—to select who would be responsible for various project tasks. Case study staff adeptly facilitated the hands-on activities included in the science curriculum, and illustrated their knowledge of the inquiry process by asking youth questions that challenged them to improve projects, predict results from projects, and relate science to their own experiences. One participant shared how his PLC participation improved his use of questioning strategies, saying: I learned from the Science Learning Community that you have to ask questions . . . beyond, ‘how does this work?’ or ‘how does that work?’ and ask them . . . ‘if you were given this, how would you manipulate things so that things worked or not worked?’—extending the lesson so it’s not truncated. . . .  You’ve got to ask questions, you’ve got to get them to learn. (Public Profit LLC, 2011, p. 30)

Based on participant surveys, at the end of the 2010–2011 Science PLC there was a ten-percentage-point improvement in the number of PLC participants who reported continually finding better ways to lead science activities. Additionally, while 40% of staff felt they didn’t know how to turn youth onto

160    F. VANCE et al.

science at the beginning of the PLC, only 10% continued to feel this way afterward. In an opened-ended question regarding changes in instructional practices, one staff wrote: “I used to have a hard time putting my lessons together but now because of Science Learning Community I can transform a regular lesson into a science lesson” (Public Profit LLC, 2011, p. 16). 2011–2012 Evaluation Findings In 2011–2012, observers used the STEM PQA to assess the quality of the science activities implemented by PLC participants at three sites. Quantitative ratings on the STEM PQA in the areas of supportive environment, interaction, and agency ranged from 3.5 to 5.0 (on a five-point scale), illustrating participants’ strengths in these areas. Observations demonstrated that youth workers could improve their ability to facilitate STEM skill building, except in two high-scoring areas: promoting scientific reasoning (scores ranged from 4.2 to 4.8) and using representations (point ratings of 4 and 5). Staff showed the least amount of efficacy in the areas of program preparation, which assesses the use of lesson plans and learning goals (scores ranged from 2.33 to 3.67), and in supporting youth to use observation and measurement (scores ranged from 2.5 to 4). Survey results showed that PLC participants learned ways to promote equity in science activities. Seventy-seven percent of staff reported being more capable of engaging English language learners in science, and 88% reported being better able to engage students from diverse racial/ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. Moreover, all participants noted an improvement in their ability to engage girls in science activities. According to surveys, staff also improved their overall aptitude in leading science activities. The number of staff who reported encouraging youth to ask questions improved 77 percentage points (from 33% pre to 100% post survey). There was a decline in the number of staff who felt they did not know how to turn youth on to science, dropping from 45% to 8%. Additionally, all PLC participants reported encouraging questions from students in the post survey, compared to 33% in the pre-survey. Finally, 92% of participants in the post-survey reported continually finding better ways to lead science activities, compared to 20% in the pre-survey. 2012–2013 Evaluation Findings All post-survey respondents from the 2012–2013 Science PLC reported knowing the steps to teach science concepts effectively, compared to 50% before participating. Eighty-nine percent reported efficacy in monitoring science activities, though pre-survey results for this item were not reported. Additional survey items appeared to indicate behavioral changes but were reported as confidence gains, and therefore were discussed in the previous section on PLC participant learning.

Professional Learning Communities    161

The 2012–2013 post-survey asked participants to describe how they applied skills learned in the Science PLC to other activities they led. Responses indicate that staff transferred the structure of science lessons to other enrichment activities. Participants wrote: “I just used the lesson plan structure for subjects like arts and crafts, fitness, computers, garden, and nutrition.” “I teach architecture and STEM curriculum using the Design Process.” “Helps me structure all lessons . . . better with brainstorming, adding reflection, etc.” (Public Profit LLC, 2013, p. 17)

Evidence from Math PLC Evaluation Report The Math PLC observation tool assessed changed instructional practices related to PLC participants’ use of the four-part activity structure and their use of engagement and questioning strategies. Observational data showed that the two PLC case study participants consistently used the four-part activity structure and regularly engaged youth in math activities. The most commonly identified areas for growth for participants were using questions to guide youths’ learning and supporting youth in making connections between math and their own lives. The focus group supported some observational findings. Participating staff noted how being introduced to the four-part activity structure encouraged them to use it in other activities they led. After exposure to the Math PLC curriculum, participants also noted using more small groups when leading other enrichment activities. Contrary to observational findings, staff stated in the focus group that they were capable of helping youth make connections between new math concepts and their everyday lives as well as with the math they learned in school. In the focus group, staff raised several challenges they experienced while leading math activities. Classroom management was difficult. Staff instructed large groups of young people while faced with frequent disruptions and, at times, a lack of interest from youth. The remaining challenges were all time-related: some PLC participants struggled to fit an entire math activity in the time allotted by their programs, and others lacked the time to set up activities or to even facilitate math activities every week. Summary of Changed Behavior Findings The four PLC evaluations begin to describe the multiple ways in which PLCs can change youth workers’ practice. One recurring theme was the

162    F. VANCE et al.

use of a consistent lesson structure for science and math activities. Another was youth workers’ use of questioning strategies to get youth to engage with the activity’s content. However, the different approaches used in the evaluation reports to measure behavioral changes make it challenging to present overarching conclusions. For example, the 2010–2011 Science PLC evaluation used unstructured observations while the following year’s evaluation used the STEM PQA tool (which provides quantitative ratings), and in the final year (2012–2013) only surveys assessed instructional changes. Moreover, observational data include only a handful of PLC participants. Knowing how well the observed staff represented their peers would provide a more accurate assessment of how typical the changes in instructional practices are for PLC participants; however, this information was lacking in the evaluation reports. Nevertheless, every year the evaluation evidence suggested that youth workers exhibited changed instructional practices after their PLC participation. PLCS IN PRACTICE: CHALLENGES AND CONSIDERATIONS In a profession in which resources are especially limited, there are several important challenges and considerations to explore before investing in a PLC. One such consideration is an organization’s ability to support staff in implementing their PLC learning. The availability of program resources (human, fiscal, and temporal) can have a bearing on whether and how well new enrichment activities are taken back to the program (Public Profit, 2015). If the ultimate goal of PLC participation is to offer higher-quality, content-specific activities for youth, then it is critical that these activities can realistically be implemented. A related challenge is time, in terms of the participating staff’s capacity to dedicate adequate time for lesson planning or for adding a new activity to an existing program, as participants in the Math PLC noted. Further, the PLC approach is more intensive than sending staff to one-day workshops, and as such may be more disruptive to participants’ professional schedules (Public Profit, 2015). A final consideration is selecting a PLC facilitator. Because youth work PLCs are iterative and practice- and content-focused, the ideal facilitator will be a content-area expert with experience supporting adult learners (Public Profit, 2015). The facilitator will support the group in building skills over time and in using those skills to change practice, and as such the ability to lead individuals and the group in these processes is paramount.

Professional Learning Communities    163

CONCLUSION: AN ENCOURAGING PICTURE Our review of four PLC evaluation reports illustrates the promise of using PLCs as a professional development strategy for youth workers providing direct service. The youth work PLC model differs from the school day model, using more direct instruction and relying on a common curriculum while sustaining the focus on collaborative, practice-focused learning around a common topic. The youth work-specific modifications to the PLC model address the reality that many staff who work directly with youth have less field-specific training and limited time to develop curricula and lesson plans; modified PLCs for these staff therefore reflect their unique learning needs. However, the PLC model described in this chapter may not meet the learning needs of youth work professionals in leadership and management roles. These professionals will likely need a more peer- and discussion-driven PLC model that emphasizes new approaches to organizational and systemic change (Public Profit, 2015). Though the four evaluations of youth work PLCs discussed in this chapter have limitations, they have several strengths that make them important starting points for learning more about youth work PLCs. They provide a multiyear view of PLCs, illustrating their benefits and challenges over time. The evaluations also employ diverse data collection methods—observations, surveys, and focus groups—and as such give a holistic picture of this model’s participant learning and behavior change outcomes. The findings from the four evaluation reports paint an encouraging picture about the potential for PLCs to improve staff practices and offer a conversation-starter for youth work researchers and like-minded organizations to replicate and refine PLC successes in their own programs. AUTHORS’ NOTE We would like to thank the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation for generously supporting this review of professional learning communities in California. Multiple members of the Public Profit team conducted the evaluations reviewed in this chapter; we thank them for their continued dedication to improving the work of youth-serving organizations through evaluation services. NOTE 1. The Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality developed the STEM PQA observation tool. It is part of a suite of research-based and field-tested observational tools that assesses the quality of youth programs.

164    F. VANCE et al.

REFERENCES Cordingley, P., Bell, M., Rundell, B., & Evans, D. (2003). The impact of collaborative CPD on classroom teaching and learning. Research Evidence in Education Library. Version 1.1. London, UK: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education. Davis-Manigaulte, J. (2012). Youth Development Network: A site for the professional development of youth workers. In Dana Fusco (Ed.), Advancing Youth Work: Current Trends, Critical Questions (pp. 141–153). New York, NY: Routledge. DuFour, R. (2004). What is a professional learning community? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6–11. Fulton, K., & Britton, T. (2011). STEM teachers in professional learning communities: From good teachers to great teaching. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Retrieved from http://www.wested.org/online_ pubs/1098-executive-summary.pdf Gallimore, R., Ermeling, B. A., Saunders, W. M., & Goldenberg, C. (2009). Moving the learning of teaching closer to practice: Teacher education implications of school-based inquiry teams [Special issue]. Elementary School Journal, (109)5, 537–553. Guskey, T. (2002). Does it make a difference? Evaluating professional development. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 45–51. Herman, M. (2012). Reflective practice meets youth work supervision. Youth and Policy, 109, 118–128. Kirkpatrick, D. L., & Kirkpatrick, J. D. (1994). Evaluating training programs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Knowles, M. (1988). The modern practice of adult education: From pedagogy to andragogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Cambridge Adult Education. McKenzie, W. (2014). The gilded age: Professional learning communities in education. Retrieved from http://inservice.ascd.org/educationresources/ the-guilded-age-professional-learning-communities-in-education/ McLaughlin, M. W., & Talbert, J. E. (2010). Professional learning communities: Building blocks for school culture and student learning. Voices in Urban Education, 27, 35–45. Public Profit LLC. (2011). Oakland after school science learning community evaluation findings 2010–2011. Oakland, CA: Author. Public Profit LLC. (2012). Oakland after school science learning community evaluation findings 2011–12. Oakland, CA: Author. Public Profit LLC. (2013). Oakland Science Learning Community evaluation findings 2012–13. Oakland, CA: Author. Public Profit LLC. (2014). Evaluation of the Math Professional Learning Community 2013–14. Oakland, CA: Author. Public Profit LLC. (2015). Professional learning communities in the expanded learning field. Oakland, CA: Author. Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner. London, UK: Temple Smith. Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., Wallace, M., & Thomas, S. (2006). Professional learning communities: A review of the literature. Journal of Educational Change, 7, 221–258.

Professional Learning Communities    165 Thompson, S. C., Gregg, L., & Niska, J. M. (2004). Professional learning communities, leadership, and student learning. Research in Middle Level Education Online, 28(1), 1–15. Retrieved from ERIC database (EJ807417).

This page intentionally left blank.

APPENDIX

COMPELLING MODELS OF YOUTH WORKER RECRUITMENT AND PREPARATION Maranda Ward and Jeanne Dairaghi Note from Editors: In addition to scholarly articles about youth worker preparation, we wanted to highlight specific innovative models that merit further scholarly attention. Both of the models described below demonstrate promising strategies for engaging young people between the ages of 11 and 24 who are typically the target population for youth services. Instead of treating young people merely as recipients of services, these programs offer opportunities for youth to become “youth workers” for peers and younger teens. These models recognize young people’s agency, dignity, and ability to contribute to their peers and their communities. PROMISING FUTURES, WASHINGTON, DC www.promisingfuturesdc.org Maranda Ward, Co-Founder and Executive Director PURPOSE AND PRACTICE Goals Promising Futures is regionally esteemed as a youth development pipeline celebrating the inherent talents of urban youth ages 11 to 24, refining their

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 167–172 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

167

168    Compelling Models of Youth Worker Recruitment and Preparation

transferrable and professional skills to productively transition into adulthood and investing in them throughout the process. This investment prepares these youth workers to stake a claim in their own development.

Key Elements of Approach This model features three stages: ambassadors, peer educators, and youth builders. Middle school youth are engaged as program ambassadors in an outof-school-time curriculum-based program. High school-aged youth educate their peers using hip hop, theatre, and poetry as peer educators and the college, and graduate-aged youth advise and mentor both of the younger cohorts as youth builders. These capacities function as youth work in four key ways. First, as program staff, peer educators and youth builders are the face of the work; they create and lead program trainings, workshops, activities, and events. Second, these youth demonstrate the discipline to learn their craft. While they inventory their talents and skills to build upon their strengths, they also remain mindful of ways to challenge themselves. In turn, they model this self-awareness for the youth on the receiving end of programming. Third, they actively develop their sense of self and connectedness to the world around them by exploring their multidimensional identities, which allows the program curriculum to come alive as developmentally appropriate, interactive, culturally relevant, and fun. Finally, as lifelong learners who absorb all they can as they travel the city and country, they learn to represent and brand themselves alongside the program.

Why This Approach is Compelling This program model expands definitions of youth work—participants not only receive services, but they also actively develop and sustain the program. One adult youth worker secures grant funds and partnerships, and all of the other youth workers engage in the pipeline as peer educators or youth builders. This model is important for the field because it offers a blueprint for engaging youth to build their agency, positive identity, and civic participation in their communities.

PARTICIPANTS Description In five years, we have trained 56 peer educators as youth workers who represent the diversity of ten public and public charter schools in the District of Columbia (DC). These youth commit one to four years, during which time they recruit and select new peer educators. They earn community service credit and express an interest or talent in “edutainment,” including hip hop, theatre, and poetry, to address varied issues affecting their lives. With four

Compelling Models of Youth Worker Recruitment and Preparation    169

previously serving as ambassadors, 49 youth workers have graduated from high school. Ninety percent enroll in four-year colleges, and the remaining youth are current peer educators. During this same five-year timespan, we have embraced 32 youth builders ages 18 to 24 as youth workers whose commitment can span one to seven years, depending on their age when they enter the pipeline. They earn academic credit for their work during the school year and are compensated (along with the peer educators) during the summer months. Ten are peer educator alumni currently in college. To date, six youth workers have earned graduate degrees.

TIMELINE Since 2011, youth workers have served year-round during out-of-schooltime; this includes a five-hour weekly commitment for peer educators and youth builders. During the school year, these youth participate in weekly rehearsals and leadership trainings; plan and perform in street outreach, community events, and workshops; and lead the program’s social media presence. During the summer months, they co-facilitate the curriculum for the ambassadors as well as spearhead our Summer Leadership Institute. The youth builders determine their own paid internship schedules to meet program and academic needs.

EVALUATION Data Collection The exclusively grant-funded program evaluates the outcomes of youth workers via pre/posttests, entrance and exit interviews, and focus groups.

Results The long-term programming model provides space for youth to develop at their own pace as well as the autonomy to decide when, and how, they participate. None of the youth have aged out of the pipeline thus far and are still engaged in youth work. These youth complete a leadership assessment that compares what they think of their strengths and challenges to formal observations of their performance. Data show that the youth “pay forward” the talents and skills they bring to the program in ways that advance their own interests and development. Stemming from their justice-oriented work, a large majority of college- and graduate school-aged youth workers find themselves selecting majors and career interests related to education, social service, and public health. They are also engaged in affinity groups and pursue related leadership and civic roles on and off campus.

170    Compelling Models of Youth Worker Recruitment and Preparation

YOUTH EMPOWERED SOLUTIONS (YES!), RALEIGH, NC www.youthempoweredsolutions.org Jeanne Dairaghi, Assistant Director PURPOSE AND PRACTICE Goals and Objectives Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!) is a nonprofit committed to creating a society where empowered high school-aged youth work alongside adult youth workers to create positive community change. YES! hires youth as paid youth workers, equipping them with the tools and systemic support to become successful employees and effective advocates.

Key Elements of Approach There are 2 main elements of the YES! approach:

Three-Pronged Approach YES! follows the Youth Empowerment Model (The Model) as a means of empowering youth and adults as youth workers. The Model is a threepronged approach that focuses on developing skills, gaining critical awareness, and participating in opportunities that create community change. All YES! youth (part-time staff, ages 14–19) and adults (full-time staff, ages 22+) are trained on The Model and strategies to implement this approach within the organization and its training and consulting services.

Organizational Infrastructure YES! created an organizational infrastructure to support the empowerment and efficacy of its high school-aged youth workers. This infrastructure includes paying and treating youth as viable and active employees and connecting their employment with real-world advocacy opportunities. All YES! youth workers are paid for their work, with annual reviews and merit-based pay increases. YES! utilizes the same practices for its youth staff that are used in the adult staff hiring and review practices, and day-to-day operations.

Why This Approach is Compelling Young people under the age of 18 make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population, yet their potential as a generation to contribute to a better society is systematically ignored. YES! empowers its high school-aged youth workers by connecting them with a supportive infrastructure that develops skills, raises critical awareness, and provides opportunities to become successful employees, effective advocates, and connected citizens. YES! gives youth workers real workforce experience in a safe space that values their contributions. As

Compelling Models of Youth Worker Recruitment and Preparation    171

a result, workforce agendas reflect the collective concerns, priorities, and the voice of youth, and youth become competent community advocates.

TIMELINE AND ACTIVITIES YES! became a fully operational North Carolina nonprofit in January 2008 and applies the youth empowerment approach to adolescent health topics. YES! has expanded nationally and now provides training and consulting in 16 states across the country.

The Model Skill Development: As part of their jobs, YES! youth workers build professional and leadership skills, such as public speaking, group facilitation, goal setting, data analysis, writing, action planning, and time management. Critical Awareness: Youth workers are guided to become critical thinkers through media and marketing deconstruction, analysis of sociopolitical contexts framing health issues, discussions of equity and social justice, and research analysis. Opportunities: Youth workers are empowered to take action on a variety of issues to create community change. Actions include becoming media advocates, organizing campaigns, testifying before city councils, designing petitions and community surveys, and meeting with policymakers. In addition, the high school-aged youth staff train youth and youth workers in other communities to replicate the work across the country for a larger scale impact, and the adult-aged youth workers train adults and agencies on how to implement The Model into their organizational infrastructure and action planning.

Organizational Infrastructure Recruitment: YES! seeks out its high school-aged youth workers through a “lunch and learn” process at local high schools, whereby staff set up an interactive booth and visit lunch tables to share a 30-second pitch about YES!, a sign-up sheet, and access to an application. This approach has been more equitable and open than only obtaining recommendations from counselors or existing youth groups. Group Interview: All youth candidates participate in a group interview in which information about the organization and job is shared, candidates share activities that they have created in advance, and everyone participates in group activities to observe teamwork and problem-solving. Current adult and youth workers then select and hire the candidates.

172    Compelling Models of Youth Worker Recruitment and Preparation

90-day Orientation and Probationary Period: This period covers a variety of materials and expectations in a consistent manner with all staff. A probationary period review is completed individually with each youth worker to review their job performance and knowledge of The Model, types of change, and the organization. Infrastructure: All YES! youth workers are paid for their work and are an integral part of all organizational efforts, including organizational committees, fundraising, professional development, event planning and debriefing, outcomes collection and analysis, and strategic planning.

EVALUATION Data Collection Success at YES! is measured using an outcomes-based framework. YES! focuses on the impact of The Model on both the youth workers and the larger communities in which YES! works. A variety of evaluation measures are used: probationary period review, annual period review, annual checkin on The Model components, and demographic information. As the high school-aged youth workers graduate and transition to careers, school, and/ or family, YES! collects annual data to learn about how the graduated youth workers continue to utilize their skill development, critical awareness, and opportunities. In addition, youth workers, community members, and members of organizations are surveyed about the larger impact of their work, including whether changes took place through policies and laws, systemic and infrastructure changes, or environmental modifications.

Results The impact of youth empowerment on youth workers can be viewed in a practical and far-reaching manner. Applying youth empowerment principles through employment not only allows youth workers to exercise power over their own lives, but also enhances youth-serving organizations to more effectively fulfill their missions and actively engage their youth stakeholders in efforts that improve their community.

SECTION III WHAT SHOULD YOUTH WORKERS KNOW?

This page intentionally left blank.

CHAPTER 9

RE-ENVISIONING YOUTH WORK EDUCATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH CARE AND SUICIDE INTERVENTION Patti Ranahan Concordia University Jennifer White University of Victoria

Mental health and suicide intervention are highly relevant topics for youth work education and practice. Professionals who engage in relationships with young people are likely to encounter situations, settings, and communities that require an ability to address adolescents’ wellbeing and psychosocial needs. Recent research from Western Canada examining the health and wellbeing of a nonclinical sample of adolescents found that 8% of males and 17% of females reported having thoughts of suicide in the past year (Smith, Stewart, Poon, Peled, Saewyc, & McCreary Centre Society, 2014). Suicide is a leading cause of death for young people worldwide

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 175–192 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

175

176    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

(World Health Organization, 2014), and most mental health concerns have their onset during childhood and adolescence (Kessler, Amminger, AguilarGaxiola, Alonso, Lee, & Ustun, 2007). Further, the mental health needs of young people living in residential care are on the rise. Hurley and colleagues (2009) compared the mental health status of young people admitted to group homes in 1995 to admissions in 2004. In 2004, youth were more likely to have multiple diagnoses and prescribed two or more psychotropic medications. Education in mental health and suicide care for youth workers may be inadequate due to limited faculty expertise or interest (Peters, 2003; Ruth, Gianino, Muroff, McLaughlin & Feldman, 2012) and potentially left for youth workers to obtain “downstream” through professional development opportunities (Oordt, Jobes, Fonseca, & Schmidt, 2009, p. 22). Training in mental health and suicide intervention for youth workers is typically offered as brief, standardized workshops aimed to enhance professionals’ confidence, develop literacy in dominant mental health knowledge, and increase the likelihood of referring to formal mental health services (Ranahan & Pellissier, 2015). These educational interventions may serve to limit the role and possibilities for youth workers engaged with young people who are in distress. In this chapter we re-envision education in mental health care and suicide intervention for youth workers in an effort to expand possibilities for responding to the unique needs of adolescents who are struggling with mental health concerns, including suicidality. Instead of focusing our attention exclusively on individual youth, we aim to take young peoples’ unique and diverse sociocultural, political, and historical contexts into account. As others have noted, Suicide is not everywhere linked with pathology but represents a culturally recognized solution to certain situations. As such, understanding suicide and attempting risk prevention requires an understanding of how suicide varies with these forces and how it relates to individual, group and contextual experiences. (Goldsmith, Pellmar, Kleinman, & Bunney, 2002, p. 193)

We begin by examining the current role of youth workers in providing mental health care and suicide intervention, which includes exploring youth help-seeking and the “gatekeeping” status of youth work. Secondly, we discuss and critique the current educational strategies designed to enhance professionals’ mental health literacy (MHL) and competency in suicide intervention, including the enabling and limiting effects of creating mental health and suicide prevention expertise. In the final section of this chapter, we present a new vision for educational approaches to prepare youth workers for mental health and suicide intervention that are culturally responsive, transformative, and centered on a pedagogy of relations

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    177

that includes developing youth workers’ presence with youth in distress. We conclude the chapter with a call for embedding mental health and suicide intervention into everyday youth work practice. THE YOUTH WORKER’S ROLE IN PROVIDING MENTAL HEALTH CARE AND SUICIDE INTERVENTION To date there has been limited discussion regarding the role of youth work in providing mental health care to young people. Traditional service models have typically located “ownership” of mental health care with psychologists and psychiatrists who were deemed authoritative knowledge-holders of mental health information and competencies (Kutcher, Davidson, & Manion, 2009). This silo approach does not serve youth, their families, or their communities; new collaborative teams that include youth workers are needed (Kutcher et al., 2009). The participation of youth workers as collaborators in mental health teams can address young people’s preferences to obtain help from those with whom they have a relationship (Ciarrochi, Wilson, Deane, & Rickwood, 2003). Youth Work Practice At its best, youth work is a process-oriented educational and caring practice, where workers provide purposeful interventions in the context of building a trusting, voluntary relationship with young people (Wood, Westwood, & Thompson, 2015). Practice occurs in a range of contexts and spaces such as schools, outdoor programs, or residential facilities where young people face a variety of problems such as unemployment, homelessness, or addiction (Sercombe, 2010). Enhancing the personal and social development of young people is a key goal (Jeffs & Smith, 2010), which often requires youth workers to navigate across multiple systems, including health, recreation, education, career, and employment sectors (Morciano, Scardigno & Merico, 2015) to ensure young people receive the care they need. Such diversity of settings, systems, and youth populations requires practitioners to be “ethical, self-aware, responsive and accountable” in their actions (White, 2007, p. 226). While it may not always be easy to demarcate the boundaries between youth workers and other professionals working for and with young people (such as nurses or social workers for example), a distinguishing feature of youth work is the focus on the youth–youth worker relationship. As Martin (2003) suggests, “The key difference is that counsellors or teachers will develop a relationship in order to do their job. For youth workers,

178    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

the relationship is their job” (p. 116) and the intervention (Stuart, 2009). This relationship is understood as an experience where the youth and the youth worker experience growth and development (Garfat, 2008). As they are being with young people (Ranahan, 2013a), workers practice across professional boundary lines, creating pathways for youths’ active participation within social systems, including the mental health system of care. Youth Workers as “Gatekeeper” The youth worker’s role in mental health and suicide care has typically been defined as a “gatekeeper” who facilitates a young person’s access to formal mental health services (Rickwood, Deane, & Wilson, 2007; Rickwood & Mazzer, 2011). For example, Rickwood and colleagues (2007) posit that “[y]outh workers are able to engage distressed young people by being highly accessible, ‘befriending’ them, and acting as advocates. They potentially have a critical role in linking more marginalized youth with mental health services” (p. S38). Several scholars have identified youth workers as being in close proximity (White, 1997) and in an “excellent position” (Wright & Martin, 1999, p. 39) with young people who may benefit from mental health or suicide intervention. Further, Cooper, Ferguson, Chapman, and Cucow (2016) propose that “[y]outh workers are uniquely placed in their capacity to contribute positively to suicide prevention policy” (p. 75). The literature noting the close proximity and physical presence of youth workers with young people at risk for suicide and suffering from mental health concerns has not typically conceptualized youth workers as insiders in providing care. Rather this group is situated in-between the provision of informal support and formal mental health services who have the formal title and mandate to provide mental health or suicide crisis intervention (Ranahan, 2013a), even when young people are asking for help specifically from the youth worker with whom they have a relationship (Ranahan, 2013b). Ranahan and Pellissier (2015) suggest “youth workers are positioned merely at the doorway, facilitators to other service providers, waving young people through but not accompanying them to the other side” (p.  231). The context of this peripheral position requires consideration of how young people seek help when suffering from mental health or suicide concerns. Youth Help Seeking It is fairly well established that young people can be reluctant to seek out professional assistance, even when they are experiencing high levels

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    179

of distress, including suicidality (Rickwood et al., 2007). For example, the number of youth who access community-based mental health services following a suicidal crisis is relatively low—about 50%, according to a recent systematic review that examined community based epidemiological data from 23 published studies across North America, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia (Michelmore & Hindley, 2012). For those youth who do seek mental health treatment following a suicidal crisis, the dropout rate is very high, with half of all youth attending four sessions or less. Stigma and embarrassment are the most prominent barriers to help seeking for mental health problems among young people (Gulliver, Griffiths, & Christensen, 2010). Other reported barriers included worries about confidentiality and trust, lack of insight or recognition of a mental health problem, lack of access to service (time, cost, travel), concern about competence or other characteristics of the practitioner, lack of knowledge about mental health services, and fears about being hospitalized (Freedenthal & Stiffman, 2007; Jordan et al., 2012; Michelmore & Hindley, 2012). Certain groups who already experience high levels of marginalization and discrimination may be even less likely than others to access help for mental health issues. This includes youth who are minoritized, queer, Indigenous, and street-involved (Freedenthal & Stiffman, 2007; Jordan et al., 2012; Kidd, 2004; Rickwood et al., 2007; Wexler, White, & Trainor, 2014). Young males are also less likely to access professional help compared to females. Based on these studies, it is evident that we may need to rethink how we plan and offer services with youth who are emotionally distressed and potentially suicidal. Several promising avenues have already been suggested in the literature. For example, a recent study examined the specific experience of young males who had been actively suicidal at some point in their lives and had accessed formal or informal (mental) health services for support (Jordan et al., 2012). Aspects of care that were considered the most meaningful included having flexible program mandates to enable wide access to services, more proactive outreach, and increased opportunities for more informal types of support. Having a relational connection with an openminded, empathic, and caring mental health professional was reported to have made the greatest difference in the lives of these young men. Other promising approaches include working to meaningfully engage youth at the point of first contact; offering diverse, flexible, and culturally relevant service delivery options, including home and community based interventions; and avoiding the potentially distancing effects of standardized, “onesize-fits-all” assessment and intervention models (Ranahan, 2013a; Rogers & Russell, 2014; Rogers & Soyka, 2004). All of these approaches are highly consistent with the nature of youth work.

180    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE INTERVENTION EDUCATION FOR YOUTH WORKERS Educational programs in mental health and suicide intervention have traditionally been offered as part of prevention and early intervention efforts. For example, the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention’s (2009) National Suicide Prevention Strategy suggests a need to increase and improve training for healthcare workers such as social workers and addictions workers (p. 11). However, in a systematic review of suicide prevention strategies, Mann and colleagues (2005) found that while educational programs can improve professionals’ knowledge and attitudes, few programs are evaluated for their effectiveness in preventing suicide or are guided by current suicide prevention knowledge. As such, beyond initially enhancing professionals’ confidence and declared knowledge, it is not clear how gatekeeper education programs tend to the end goal of addressing suicidality and mental health concerns, or in what ways professionals’ confidence influences youth work with young people in distress. In this section, we discuss contemporary mental health and suicide education efforts that include standardized training programs designed for youth workers and other helping professionals (i.e., social workers, nurses, teachers). In light of recent research examining practice with suicidal adolescents, we also discuss what MHL means for youth work. Standardized Training for Helping Professionals Several standardized gatekeeper training programs in mental health and suicide intervention for helping professionals have been developed based on the assumption that key people in young people’s lives lack the knowledge of how to recognize and respond to mental health or suicide distress (Reidenberg, 2015). Programs have been implemented as part of larger suicide prevention and mental health awareness efforts that may include antistigma media campaigns or developing practice guidelines for mental health and suicide interventions (CASP, 2009). Examples of standardized training programs include Mental Health First Aid (Jorm, Kitchener, Kanowski, & Kelly, 2007); Question, Persuade, and Refer (Quinnett, 2007); or Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (LivingWorks Education, 2007). The length of such programs range from 2 to 14 hours and focus on developing participants’ listening and risk assessment skills, and connecting the person in distress to formal mental health service providers. Youth workers often participate in these programs as part of their professional development requirements (Evans & Price, 2013).

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    181

Research evaluating the effectiveness of gatekeeper training has relied on measuring participants’ declared knowledge, perceived confidence, and behavioral change in asking about thoughts of suicide (Tompkins & Witt, 2009). While improvements are noted between pre- and post-training evaluations, these improvements may not be sustained over the long term (Tompkins & Witt, 2009) or result in participants asking young people about suicide concerns in the future (Wyman et al., 2008). These studies illustrate that participation in gatekeeping training programs and utilization of the intervention model provided in such programs is enabled and/or constrained by organizational norms, policies, and practices. For example, Evans and Price (2013) conducted a qualitative study exploring the organizational influences on the implementation and use of the suicide intervention model from the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training program. Findings revealed that existing organizational policies might limit professionals’ intervention practice, especially if professionals are told to recognize the risk and need for intervention but then are expected to refer the person at risk to a senior staff member. Evans and Price suggest that this represents “the perpetuation of a discourse privileging the role of the ‘expert’” and it “served to diminish the participant’s confidence and motivation to stage interventions in the future” (2013, p. 219). This study demonstrates that professionals’ confidence is contextually situated. It also exposes a thorny paradox: The more that youth suicide prevention activities come to be associated with specialized knowledge and expert interventions (i.e., professionalized, standardized, formalized), the greater the potential for relational distance and disengagement. How then can we educate youth workers to be knowledgeable and competent when responding to youth in distress, while preserving the very qualities of youth work that make it most life-affirming, responsive to sociopolitical sources of suffering, and potentially transformative (White, 2014, 2015)? Mental Health Literacy for Youth Workers Jorm, Korten, Jacomb, Christensen, Rodgers, and Pollitt (1997) first defined the concept of MHL as “knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid their recognition, management or prevention” (p. 182). More recently, Kutcher, Wei, McLuckie, and Bullock (2013) redefined MHL as the “capacity to understand” and “strategies to achieve positive mental health,” “knowledge of mental disorders based on evidence-based research,” the promotion of “appropriate attitudes towards those living with mental disorders,” and “capacity to seek formal mental health care” (p. 84). An emphasis on professionals’ declared knowledge and individual capacity implies literacy is measurable and decontextualized which poses

182    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

challenges for youth work that occurs within interactions, contexts, communities, and relationships. To address this concern, Ranahan (2015a) suggests pluralizing literacy, recognizing there are multiple literacies and knowledges that are co-created in a youth–youth worker relationship. To illustrate, referring a young person to a service within the mental health system requires literacies beyond simply knowing the name or location of the service. Youth workers require skills in negotiation for access to mental health care, advocacy skills to support the development of youth-friendly services, fluency in professional discourses regarding levels of risk, and skills in youth engagement in ensuring youth are full participants in the referral process (Ranahan, 2013b). MHL in this regard is contextually located within the youth–youth worker interaction and within the community where care is being sought. In the referral process, youth workers may encounter long waitlists to access services, young people discharged from formal services with no ongoing follow up, or a young person’s refusal of the type of service being offered. Further, the nature of the relationship between youth workers and mental health service providers within a community (i.e., level of collaboration, respect for each other’s professional skills and contributions) plays a significant part in how mental healthcare may be facilitated or impeded (Ranahan & Thomas, under review). These complexities support a notion of MHL that goes beyond measuring the individual youth worker’s knowledge of resources or treatments available. As such, approaches to mental health literacy acquisition (i.e., educational efforts in mental health and suicide care) must adopt an understanding of learning as a process of critical engagement that is actively connected to experience (New London Group, 2000). In the following section, we offer strategies to enhance current mental health and suicide education programs that address learning as an engaged experience. NEW APPROACHES TO PREPARE YOUTH WORKERS FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE INTERVENTION Youth who have attempted or considered suicide have multiple, fluid identities and they are constantly reconstructing themselves (Rogers, 2003). At the same time, youth workers practice in a range of settings that are governed by different mandates, changing practice philosophies, and shifting role expectations. For this reason, we need practice and pedagogical frameworks that can accommodate ongoing change, heterogeneity, and complexity as opposed to standardized approaches to practice and pedagogy that assume a settled, known, and predetermined social world (Law, 2004; White, 2012). Next, we highlight four promising approaches for supporting the professional

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    183

development of youth workers: transformative learning culturally responsive care, relational pedagogy, and enhancing professionals’ presence. Transformative Learning: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge Transformative learning is a key concept in adult education. It refers to “learning that transforms problematic frames of reference—sets of fixed assumptions and expectations (habits of mind, meaning perspectives, mindsets)—to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally able to change” (Mezirow, 2003, p. 58). In other words, transformative learning is not just about content mastery, but it is about helping students to critically reflect on their assumptions, recognize the contexts of knowledge production, and assess the rightness of any belief or action through self-reflection and dialogical processes to arrive at a “dependable, tentative working judgment” (Mezirow, 2003, p. 60). When preparing youth workers to effectively engage with distressed and suicidal youth, Marsh and White (2015) have recently explored the use of transformative learning pedagogies that incorporate “threshold concepts” and “troublesome knowledge” (Meyer & Land, 2005, 2006). Threshold concepts can be thought of as gateways that can lead to previously inaccessible, often troublesome, ways of thinking. The learning that is produced is often transformative, irreversible, and integrative (exposing the previously hidden interrelatedness of something). In other words, the knowledge may be counterintuitive, alien, unsettling, or incoherent for the learner (Meyer & Land, 2006). “Care” can be conceptualized as a threshold concept. Even though youth workers are motivated by a sincere desire to care for distressed and potentially suicidal youth, at some point in their working lives they will inevitably have to confront young people who reject the help or care that is being offered. This can be experienced as a threat to a youth worker’s professional identity. Meanwhile, not all young people elicit the same caring impulse, and some youth may be difficult or challenging to care for, which may be experienced as troublesome. Youth workers may discover that their efforts to make a meaningful difference in the lives of youth are not always possible within organizational and institutional contexts that are organized around “psychocentric” interventions (Rimke & Brock, 2012) and pathological conceptualizations of the problem of suicide (Marsh, 2010). In such contexts, the individual youth is targeted for change, while many of the sociopolitical processes and structural forces that confer risks for suicide, including, for example, social inequity, racism, homophobia, or colonization, are obscured (White, 2012, 2014). Taken together, these

184    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

complexities, contradictions, and paradoxes of caring can pose a direct challenge to many students’ assumptions, identities, and discourses. Across mental health and social care professions, it is not surprising that “caring” (Clouder, 2005) and “recovery” (Stacey & Stickley, 2012) have both been identified as threshold concepts. Certain pedagogical strategies are particularly well suited to creating the conditions for transformative learning based on the use of threshold concepts. For future youth workers, this might include inviting diverse young people into the classroom to narrate their own experiences of recovering from suicidality, creating opportunities for problem-based learning and rich field experiences; group supervision, facilitating reflexive conversations about different approaches to working with distressed youth, and placing theoretical texts and lived experiences “in conversation” to see what new learning might be produced (Marsh & White, 2015; Stacey & Stickley, 2012). Culturally Responsive Care Recognizing one’s own cultural biases, valuing the unique perspectives of youth and their families, and recognizing the role of history and culture in conceptualizations of distress and wellbeing are key professional competencies that should be nurtured among youth workers and other mental health service providers (Kirmayer, 2012; White, 2014). Adopting a culturally nuanced approach to suicide risk assessment is another key consideration. This includes proactively clarifying the suicidal young person’s expectations, assessing their comfort in disclosing personal information, uncovering their beliefs about suicide, and appreciating their preferences for decision making (Rogers & Russell, 2014). Such practices can contribute to a more culturally sensitive suicide risk assessment process—thus greatly reducing the likelihood of misunderstanding (Rogers & Russell, 2014) or cultural misalignment (Wexler & Gone, 2012). Given the disproportionately high rates of suicide among Indigenous youth compared with the general population (Kirmayer, Brass, Holton, Paul, Simpson, & Tait, 2007), it is important to highlight therapeutic and healing approaches that recognize the sociopolitical origins of distress, including, for example, residential schools and institutional abuse, cultural disruption, historical policies of assimilation, and other forms of structural violence. When working with Indigenous youth, being culturally responsive might include building relationships with community leaders, elders, and cultural mentors and recognizing the sacred connection that Indigenous people have to the Creator, to the land, and to ancestors and future generations. For many non-Indigenous youth workers, this will require recognizing their own

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    185

complicated embeddedness in colonial relations of power (Kirmayer, Simpson, & Cargo, 2003), which is another form of troublesome knowledge. Relational Pedagogy As relationships are the “glue” that holds youth work practice together (Rodd & Stewart, 2009, p. 4), it is only fitting that mental health and suicide education for youth workers is based on a pedagogy of relations. In contrast to the view of education as a transmission of knowledge from expert to student, a relational pedagogical approach to mental health and suicide education creates opportunities for dialogue whereby students’ (i.e., youth workers’) knowledge and experience is incorporated into the curriculum (Lysaker & Furuness, 2011). Learners are viewed as “knowers and thinkers” and “active agents in educational contexts” (Lysaker & Furuness, 2011, p. 186). Further, “knowledge is mediated by our relationships with those around us, particularly those to whom we are most attached” (Lysaker & Furuness, 2011, p. 187). If the aim of education is to “facilitate relational processes” that lead to participation in various contexts such as in families, communities, politics, or cultural activities (Gergen, 2009, p. 243), relational pedagogy “makes room for the learner’s experiences to shape the way he or she learns and encourages the learner to value those experiences as part of his or her knowledge base” (Lysaker & Furuness, 2011, p. 189). The creation of knowledge occurs in the interactional context between educator and student such that knowledge is always evolving and under construction (Bergum, 2003). This approach repositions the educator from knowledge giver and student from receiver of knowledge, to co-learners and co-collaborators in knowledge creation. A relational pedagogy for suicide and mental health education is aligned with recent research examining youth workers’ discursive constructions of MHL in describing encounters with suicidal youth. Youth workers’ initial experiences with young people contemplating ending their lives were important sites for learning and shaping knowledge, professional identity, and future practice (Ranahan & Pellissier, 2015). As such, experiential learning opportunities in the classroom or through field internships need to be key features of mental health and suicide education. Youth workers have also indicated the provision of collegial support, mentorship, and supervision as helpful devices in preparing for encounters with young people experiencing mental health concerns (Ranahan, 2015b). Teaching and learning in the context of a relationship or “at the elbow of one another” creates new possibilities for learning for all participants involved in the educational program (Tobin & Roth, 2005, p. 63). Strategies that stem from a relational pedagogical approach might include experiential learning exercises

186    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

(e.g., role playing interactions between youth workers and nurses) and encounters with young people in distress during internship experiences followed by facilitated debriefing discussions to encourage reflexivity would therefore enrich youth workers’ understanding of the complexities of mental health and suicide intervention practice. Enhancing Professionals’ Presence Presence and relational engagement in the youth–youth worker’s relationship are central to practice. This engagement has been referred to as a “dance” (Krueger, 2005, p. 21), “being with” (Ranahan, 2013a, p. 6), or “being there” (Batsleer, 2008, p. 126). It can be incredibly challenging for youth workers to remain present and be with young people who are experiencing psychological distress. For example, youth workers report feeling immobilized (Ranahan & Pellissier, 2015) and experiencing panic and stress (Ranahan, 2011) when encountering a young person who is suicidal. Unfortunately, a youth worker’s ability to be present during encounters with young people in distress is often overlooked as an important skill in traditional mental health and suicide education. Reflexivity and presence are needed to navigate the complexities of difficult situations such as those involving suicide in order to remain relationally engaged and provide the support needed by young people (Ranahan, 2013a). Batsleer (2008) describes presence as involving: the basic recognition of the life of the suicidal person and the holding of that life in a relationship. . . . In the context of attempted suicide, these aspects of practice take on a life or death quality. They act in the here and now as a reassurance that life goes on, in a context and at a time for the suicidal young person when such simple matters are far from certain. (p. 126)

One way that presence may be enhanced in suicide and mental health education through the incorporation of mindfulness exercises in the classroom that engage youth workers experientially in paying attention to his/ her direct experience at the sensory level (Dimidjian & Linehan, 2009). Teaching mindfulness may begin with the educator providing clear and simple instruction to focus on a body position or posture for a specific period of time while inviting participants to notice and observe distractions that occur that interrupt his/her focus. Practicing mindfulness exercises can support youth workers’ presence in the interaction with the young person in distress. Mindfulness, relational pedagogy, cultural responsiveness, and transformative learning are strategies to enhance current approaches to mental health and suicide education. To conclude this chapter, we posit that such strategies may serve to reposition mental health and suicide

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    187

interventions from standalone activities where practice may be governed by procedures external to the interaction, to relationally embedded care. EMBEDDING MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE INTERVENTION WITHIN YOUTH WORK PRACTICE There is no single risk factor or combination of factors that can predict suicide, and risk can change moment to moment (Rosenman, 1998). White (2012) proposed that suicide is a “wild” problem that is complex, challenging, and messy. Stand-alone interventions to address suicide risk present themselves as clean, concise, procedural tasks that provide youth workers with a level of certainty and confidence that may be unwarranted (Ranahan, 2014). The worker’s capacities to see potential harm or actively engage young people in generative and life affirming conversations about hope (White & Morris, 2012) can be impeded by viewing suicide intervention as a separate practice disengaged from an ongoing relational process. A view of mental health and suicide intervention as an embedded feature of youth work supports holistic and contextualized understandings of mental health and suicidality. Youth work practice occurs alongside young people and conversations can take place in multiple contexts such as driving a young person to an appointment or while playing pool (Ranahan, 2013a). Batsleer (2008) suggests, “[I]t is impossible to know how many suicides have been prevented by [the] simple and basic human activity” of ‘being there’” (p. 126). Youth workers being there, being with, or being present and relationally engaged with adolescents unlocks fresh possibilities for reimagining mental health and suicide care as embedded in everyday practice. Yet current educational approaches that treat suicide intervention as a separate activity in practice ignore the fluidity and dynamic aspects of suicidality and treat risk as a static, unchanging entity. Current educational approaches are aligned with the position of suicide and mental health care as separate activities or interventions. Gatekeeper training programs reinforce this position by situating youth workers on the periphery of mental health care via the emphasis on referring the youth to an identified expert mental health resource when a mental health concern or suicide risk is identified. Several strategies can be incorporated to enhance current suicide and mental health education, including (1) recognizing literacies in mental health that are contextually located in the youth–youth worker interaction; (2) integrating culturally responsive features that invite diverse meanings of suicidality and its origins; (3) repositioning expert educators as co-learners through a relational pedagogical approach; and (4) enhancing youth workers’ awareness, reflexivity, and

188    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE

presence through teaching and experiencing mindfulness exercises in the classroom. Re-envisioning education in mental health and suicide intervention as embedded in youth work holds promise for enhancing professionals’ capacity to meet the complex needs of young people in distress. REFERENCES Batsleer, J. R. (2008). Informal learning in youth work. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bergum, V. (2003). Relational pedagogy. Embodiment, improvisation, and interdependence. Nursing Philosophy, 4(2), 121–128. Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. (2009). The CASP blueprint for a Canadian national suicide prevention strategy. Retrieved from http://suicideprevention.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SuicidePreventionBlueprint0909.pdf Ciarrochi, J., Wilson, C. J., Deane, F. P., & Rickwood, D. (2003). Do difficulties with emotions inhibit help-seeking in adolescence? The role of age and emotional competence in predicting help-seeking intentions. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 16, 103–120. Clouder, L. (2005). Caring as a ‘threshold concept:’ Transforming students in higher education into health (care) professionals. Teaching in Higher Education, 10(4), 505–517. Dimidjian, S., & Linehan, M. M. (2009). Mindfulness practice. In W. T. O’Donohue & J. E. Fisher (Eds.), General principles and empirically supported techniques of cognitive behavior therapy, (pp. 425–434). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Cooper, T., Ferguson, C., Chapman, B., & Cucow, S. (2016). Success stories from youth suicide prevention in Australia: The youth work contribution. In M. Heathfield & D. Fusco (Eds.), Youth and inequality in education: Global actions in youth work (pp. 71–93). New York, NY: Routledge.  Evans, R. E., & Price, S. (2013). Exploring organisational influences on the implementation of gatekeeper training: a qualitative study of the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) programme in Wales. Critical Public Health, 23(2), 213–224. Freedenthal, S., & Stiffman, A. R. (2007). “They might think I was crazy”: Young American Indians’ reasons for not seeking help when suicidal. Journal of Adolescent Research, 22(1), 58–77. Garfat, T. (2008). The inter-personal in-between: An exploration of relational child and youth care practice. In G. Bellefeuille & F. Ricks (Eds.), Standing on the precipice: Inquiry into the creative potential of child and youth care practice (pp. 7–34). Edmonton, AB: McEwan Press. Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Goldsmith, S. K., Pellmar, T. C., Kleinman, A. M., & Bunney, W. E. (Eds). (2002). Reducing suicide: A national imperative. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Gulliver, A., Griffiths, K., & Christensen, H. (2010). Perceived barriers and facilitators to mental health help seeking in young people: A systematic review. BMC Psychiatry, 10, 1–9.

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    189 Hurley, K. D., Trout, A., Chmelka, M. B., Burns, B. J., Epstein, M. H., Thompson, R. W., & Daly, D. L. (2009). The changing mental health needs of youth admitted to residential group home care comparing mental health status at admission in 1995 and 2004. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 17(3), 164–176. Jeffs, T., & Smith, M. K. (2010). Introducing youth work. In T. Jeffs & M. K. Smith (Eds.) Youth work practice, (pp. 1–14). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Jordan, J., McKenna, H., Kinney, S., Cutcliffe, J., Stephenson, C., Slater, P., & McGowan, I. (2012). Providing meaningful care: Learning from the experiences of suicidal young men. Qualitative Health Research, 22(9), 1207–1219. Jorm, A. F., Kitchener, B. A., Kanowski, L. G., & Kelly, C. M. (2007). Mental health first aid training for members of the public. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 7, 141–151. Jorm, A. F., Korten, A. E., Jacomb, P. A., Christensen, H., Rodgers, B., & Pollitt, P. (1997). “Mental health literacy”: A survey of the public’s ability to recognize mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment. Medical Journal of Australia, 166, 182–186. Kessler, R. C., Amminger, G. P., AguilarGaxiola, S., Alonso, J., Lee, S., & Ustun, T. B. (2007). Age of onset of mental disorders: a review of recent literature. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 20(4), 359. Kidd, S. (2004). “The walls were closing in and we were trapped”: A qualitative analysis of street youth suicide. Youth & Society, 36(1), 30–55. Kirmayer, L. (2012). Cultural competence and evidence-based practice in mental health: Epistemic communities and the politics of pluralism. Social Science & Medicine, 75, 249–256. Kirmayer, L., Brass, G., Holton, T., Paul, K. Simpson, C., & Tait, C. (2007). Suicide among Aboriginal people in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Kirmayer, L., Simpson, C., & Cargo, M. (2003). Healing traditions: Culture, community and mental health promotion with Canadian Aboriginal peoples. Australasian Psychiatry, 11(Suppl.), S15–S23. Krueger, M. (2005). Four themes in youth work practice. Journal of Community Psychology, 33(1), 21–29. Kutcher, S., Davidson, S., & Manion, I. (2009). Child and youth mental health: Integrated health care using contemporary competency-based teams. Pediatrics & Child Health, 14(5), 315. Kutcher, S., Wei, Y., McLuckie, A., & Bullock, L. (2013). Educator mental health literacy: A programme evaluation of the teaching training education on the mental health & high school curriculum guide. Advances in School Mental Health Promotions, 6(2), 83–92. Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. New York, NY: Routledge. LivingWorks Education Inc. (2007). Applied suicide intervention skills training: Trainer’s manual (X.1.5 ed.). Calgary, AB: Author. Lysaker, J. T., & Furuness, S. (2011). Space for Transformation relational, dialogic pedagogy. Journal of Transformative Education, 9(3), 183–197.

190    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE Mann, J. J., Apter, A., Bertolote, J., Beautrais, A., Currier, D., Haas, A., ... Hendin, H. (2005). Suicide prevention strategies: a systematic review. Jama, 294(16), 2064–2074. Marsh, I. (2010). Suicide, Foucault, history and truth. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Marsh, I. & White, J. (2015). Boundaries, thresholds and the liminal in youth suicide prevention work. In H. Skott-Myhre, V. Pacini-Ketchabaw, & K. SkottMyhre (Eds.). Youth work, early education, and psychology: Liminal encounters (pp. 69–89). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Martin, L. (2003). The invisible table: Perspectives on youth and youthwork in New Zealand. Wellington, NZ: Dunmore Press. Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, 373–388. Meyer, J., & Land, R. (Eds.). (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge. Mezirow, J. (2003). Transformative learning as discourse. Journal of Transformative Education, 1(1), 58–63. Michelmore, L., & Hindley, P. (2012). Help-seeking for suicidal thoughts and selfharm in young people: A systematic review. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 42(5), 507–524. Morciano, D., Scardigno, F., & Merico, M. (2015). Introduction. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 7(1), 1–11. New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 9–37). New York, NY: Routledge. Oordt, M. S., Jobes, D. A., Fonseca, V. P., & Schmidt, S. M. (2009). Training mental health professionals to assess and manage suicidal behavior: Can provider confidence and practice behaviors be altered? Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 39, 21–32. Peters, J. (2003, December). Undergraduate training in child and adolescent mental health: A review. The Werry Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Web site. Retrieved from http://www.werrycentre.org.nz/site_resources/ library/Workforce_Development_Publications/Undergraduate_Training _2003.pdf Quinnett, P. (2007). QPR gatekeeper training for suicide prevention: The model, rationale and theory. QPR Institute. Retrieved from http://www.qprinstitute.com/ QPRTheory.pdf Ranahan, P. (2011). Child and youth care professionals’ mental health literacy practices in their encounters with suicidal adolescents: A grounded theory study. (Unpublished dissertation). University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada. Ranahan, P. (2013a). Being with: Child and youth care professionals’ practice with suicidal adolescents. Relational Child & Youth Care Practice, 26(1), 6–17. Ranahan, P. (2013b). Why did you call for them? Child and youth care professionals’ practice of flooding the zone during encounters with suicidal adolescents. Child Care in Practice, 19(2), 138–161. doi:10.1080/13575279.2012.750598

Youth Work Education for Mental Health Care and Suicide Intervention    191 Ranahan, P. (2014). Watching in child and youth care suicide interventions: The potential for observation practices to be disengaging. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 5(1), 4–23. Ranahan, P. (2015a). Mental health literacies in the context of youth work practice with adolescents. In D. Begoray & E. Banister (Eds.), Adolescent literacy and learning (pp. 119–134). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press. Ranahan, P. (2015b). [Survey: Youth workers and youth work educators’ perspectives on mental health literacy]. Unpublished raw data. Ranahan, P., & Pellissier, R. (2015). Being green: A discourse analysis of youth workers’ initial touchstone experiences with suicidal youth. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 27(4), 11–22. Ranahan, P., & Pellissier, R. (2015). Youth workers in mental health care: Mental health literacy development, and framing future research. Journal of Child and Youth Care Work, 25, 229–247. Ranahan, P., & Thomas, T. (under review). Mental health literacies for interprofessional collaboration: Youth workers’ perspectives on constraining and supporting factors. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health. Reidenberg, D. J. (2015). Suicide. In T. P. Gullotta, R. W. Plant, & M. A. Evans (Eds), Handbook of adolescent behavioral problems: Evidence-based approaches to prevention and treatment (2nd ed., pp. 209–234). New York, NY: Springer. Rickwood, D., Deane, F., & Wilson, C. (2007). When and how do young people seek professional help for mental health problems. The Medical Journal of Australia, 187(7), S35–S39. Rickwood, D., & Mazzer, K. (2011). The role of youth workers in helping young people accessing mental health care. National Youth Sector Conference 2011: Interrupting transmission. Retrieved from http://www.acys.info/ysa/ issues/v.31_n.1_2012/supplement Rimke, H., & Brock, D. (2012). The culture of therapy: Psychocentrism in everyday life. In M. Thomas, R. Raby, & D. Brock (Eds.), Power and everyday practices (pp. 182–202). Toronto: Nelson. Rodd, H., & Stewart, H. (2009). The glue that holds our work together. Youth Studies Australia, 28(4), 4–10. Rogers, J. (2003). The anatomy of suicidology: A psychological science perspective on the status of suicide research. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, 33(1), 9–20. Rogers, J. R., & Russell, E. J. (2014). A framework for bridging cultural barriers in suicide risk assessment: The role of compatibility heuristics. The Counseling Psychologist, 42(1), 55–72. Rogers, J. R., & Soyka, K. M. (2004). “One size fits all”: An existential-constructivist perspective on the crisis intervention approach with suicidal individuals. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 34(1), 7–22. Rosenman, S. J. (1998). Preventing suicide: What will work and what will not. Medical Journal of Australia, 169, 100–102. Ruth, B. J., Gianino, M., Muroff, J., McLaughlin, D., & Feldman, B. N. (2012). You can’t recover from suicide: Perspectives on suicide education in MSW programs. Journal of Social Work Education, 48(3), 501–516. Sercombe, H. (2010). Youth work ethics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

192    P. RANAHAN and J. WHITE Smith, A., Stewart, D., Poon, C., Peled, M., Saewyc, E., & McCreary Centre Society. (2014). From Hastings Street to Haida Gwaii: Provincial results of the 2013 BC Adolescent Health Survey. Vancouver, BC: McCreary Centre Society. Stacey, G., & Stickley, T. (2012). Recovery as a threshold concept in mental health nurse education. Nurse Education Today, 32, 534–539. Stuart, C. (2009). Foundations of child and youth care. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt. Tobin, K., & Roth, W-M. (2005). Coteaching/cogenerative dialoging in an urban science teacher preparation program. In W-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 59–78). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Tompkins, T. L., & Witt, J. (2009). The short-term effectiveness of a suicide prevention gatekeeper training program in a college setting with residence life advisors. Journal of Primary Prevention, 30, 131–149. Wexler, L., & Gone, J. (2012). Culturally responsive suicide prevention in Indigenous communities: Unexamined assumptions and new possibilities. American Journal of Public Health, 102(5), 800–806. Wexler, L., White, J., & Trainor, B. (2014). Why an alternative to suicide prevention gatekeeper training is needed for rural Indigenous communities: presenting an empowering community storytelling approach. Critical Public Health, 25(2), 205–217. White, J. H. (1997). Youth suicide prevention: ‘Big picture’ thinking for child and youth care professionals. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 11, 43–51. White, J. (2007). Knowing, doing and being in context: A praxis-oriented approach to child and youth care. Child and Youth Care Forum, 36, 225–244. White, J. (2012). Youth suicide as a ‘wild problem:’ Implications for prevention practice. Suicidology Online, 3, 42–50. White, J. (2014). Expanding and democratizing the youth suicide prevention agenda: Youth participation, cultural responsiveness and social transformation. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 33(1), 95–106. White, J. (2015). An ethos for the times: Difference, imagination and the unknown future in child and youth care. International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies, 6(4), 498–515. White, J., & Morris, J. (2012, October). Doing hope together as a youth suicide prevention strategy. Paper presented at the International Child and Youth Care Conference, Canmore, AB. Wright, S., & Martin, G. (1999). Young people and mental health customer service. Youth Studies Australia, 18, 25–29. Wood, J., Westwood, S., & Thompson, G. (2015). Youth work: Preparation for practice. New York, NY: Routledge. World Health Organization, (2014). Preventing suicide: A global imperative. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/suicide-prevention/exe_summary_english.pdf Wyman, P. A., Brown, C. H., Inman, J., Cross, W., Schmeelk-Cone, K., Guo, J., & Pena, J. B. (2008). Randomized trial of a gatekeeper program for suicide prevention: 1-year impact on secondary school staff. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76(1), 104–115. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.76.1.104

CHAPTER 10

RETHINKING EVALUATION CAPACITY IN YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS A New Approach for Engaging Youth Workers in Program Evaluation Mary E. Arnold Oregon State University Melissa Cater Louisiana State University Marc T. Braverman Oregon State University

Program evaluation is a critical aspect of youth development programs, with important implications for understanding program implementation, quality, outcomes, and impact. Although there have been many large-scale, external evaluations of youth programs, it is more typical that youth program evaluations are handled internally. Despite the importance of evaluation and, in The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 193–209 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

193

194    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

some cases, the allocation of considerable resources to build internal evaluation capacity, many youth development organizations, from large national organizations to small locally funded efforts, struggle to conduct high-quality evaluations that are useful for understanding, improving, and communicating about their programs. Some reasons for this include a lack of financial support to ensure adequate evaluation scope and rigor, insufficient levels of evaluation capacity within organizations, little clarity about the program’s information needs or what evaluation would accomplish, and low fidelity of program implementation. Yet the pressure from funders and policymakers for program evidence and accountability is stronger than ever. Thus there is a need within youth development organizations for innovative approaches and improvements to the ways that they evaluate their programs and practices. As internal evaluators with the 4-H Youth Development program, we have strived to establish and use effective practices in evaluating youth programs. From participating in the development of a national “common measures” system for 4-H outcomes to assisting county-based staff in measuring the outcomes of local programs, we have worked at all levels of our organization to lead evaluation efforts and build evaluation capacity. This breadth of experience has provided us with a keen perspective on both the challenges and opportunities inherent in developing evaluation approaches and systems for youth development programs. Like 4-H, most youth organizations (though not all of them) have multiple organizational levels. A central administrative structure provides overall program direction, resources, program identity, and program publicity. The actual programming is delivered in one or more local sites, sometimes separated by considerable geographic distances, in which field-based youth workers lead or coordinate the programs and communicate directly with families, program volunteers, and other stakeholders. In many organizations, these site-based educators have been the focus of extensive efforts to build evaluation capacity. In our own work, we have recently begun to focus evaluation capacity building (ECB) efforts in a new direction. We are moving away from developing specific evaluation skills for site-based staff and toward increasing staff attentiveness to their program’s theory of change and the actions needed to achieve desired change. In doing so, we have turned from efforts that teach site staff to define and measure program outcomes to strategies that help them define and measure quality at the program site level (Arnold & Cater, in press). These changes are part of a growing focus on site staff’s capacity for evaluative thinking related to their program’s theory and implementation. In essence, evaluative thinking can be thought of as critical thinking about the role of evidence in program design, improvement, and decision making. As we describe later in more detail, we propose that this is the most critical evaluation-related skill for youth program workers.

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    195

In this chapter, we review the importance of youth program evaluation, consider the current state of evaluation in youth programs, provide an overview of ECB efforts, and propose a new approach to youth program evaluation and subsequent changes needed to ECB, using the 4-H program as an example. The 4-H program is unique in several respects, but we believe that the evaluation approach we are suggesting, based on building evaluative thinking and increased understanding of program theory and its relationship to decision making at the program level, has implications for all youth development organizations, regardless of their size or structure. THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM EVALUATION The past 25 years have brought increased emphasis on the evaluation of youth programs, an emphasis that gained momentum during the 1990s, driven in large part by efforts of the Carnegie Council on Youth Development (1989). The results of meta-analyses of published youth program evaluations have helped to define the purpose, scope, settings, content, and theory of youth development programs (e.g., Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 2004; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Roth, BrooksGunn, Murray, & Foster; 1998) and provided key information for recognizing the legitimacy and critical importance of positive youth development programs in the changing American landscape (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). The evaluative information that shaped the youth development field and defined program structures and best practices came from the most rigorous and comprehensive youth program evaluations, which were conducted on mature programs demonstrating readiness for evaluation (see Catalano et al., 2004, for examples of these evaluations). Given the number of youth development programs conducted across the United States today, the number of such rigorous program evaluations remains disappointingly low, and evaluation efforts often rely on the underdeveloped evaluation capacity of site-based youth workers. The quality of youth program evaluations is dependent on the particular youth organization and will reflect variations in organizational structure, organizational commitment, and level of resource allocation for program evaluation. Depending on the information and accountability needs of the organization, evaluation can take place at multiple levels and times and for differing purposes. For example, evaluations may focus on measuring outcomes to demonstrate evidence of success for program stakeholders (Weiss, Murphy-Graham, Petrosino, & Gandhi, 2008). Other evaluations may focus on program implementation to understand variance in program fidelity across multiple sites or to improve program quality (Arnold & Cater, 2011; Little, 2014; Smith et al., 2012). And others

196    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

may focus on testing theoretical links within the program theory to uncover how the program is working and for whom (Arnold & Nott, 2010; Lerner et al., 2014; Patton, 2008; Weiss, 2000). However, a fundamental evaluation question for most evaluation efforts is the following: “Is what’s supposed to be happening, actually happening?” (Rossi, Lipsey, & Freeman, 2004, p. 93). This question, involving issues of both program processes and program impacts, is of critical importance for youth development programs as they strive to find credibility, visibility, and stature in the eyes of researchers, funders, policymakers, and participating families. THE CURRENT STATE OF EVALUATION IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING In a follow-up to its 1989 report, the Carnegie Council on Youth Development (1992) identified a lack of expertise and support for youth program evaluation and raised concern about the lack of funding and staff to conduct evaluations, even among the nation’s oldest and largest youth organizations. In an update to the 1992 Carnegie report, Roth et al. (1998) reported little improvement to the state of youth program evaluation, and this concern continues today (Borden, Perkins, & Hawkey, 2014). Perennial issues related to evaluation funding, design, and scale notwithstanding, we believe a key area for improving the quality of youth program evaluation can be found in changing the goals and focus of ECB efforts in youth programs. At present, ECB efforts typically focus on developing the technical skills of site staff (such as instrument development or data analysis). We advocate a shift toward increasing those staff members’ “evaluative thinking”—that is, their attention to issues of program theory, effectiveness of program delivery, and the uses of data to guide program decisions. This change is especially pertinent for organizations that lack the ability, resources, and size to carry out robust program evaluations. Such a change is supported by research that shows that engaging program-level staff in continual program quality assessment improves program quality and ultimately leads to better achievement of program outcomes (Smith et al., 2012). Building capacity for evaluation, of course, requires organizational support and clear delineation of responsibilities (Taylor-Powell & Boyd, 2008). Preskill and Boyle (2008) expand on this maxim in describing the critical synergistic relationship between ECB efforts and the organization striving for better evaluation practice. In youth development organizations with multilevel structures, such as national programs, evaluation is sometimes the responsibility of centralized administrative units, whereas in other cases it is the domain of the local program site and local site-based educators (Lambur, 2008). Youth-serving organizations that have a smaller geographic

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    197

focus and more limited resources have fewer options for assigning responsibility for evaluation, in whatever forms they deem necessary. Because evaluative thinking and attention to program theory can be developed regardless of program size, we believe that our proposed change to ECB efforts for youth development programs has implications and applicability to youth programs of all sizes that desire to understand and optimize programming through program evaluation efforts. To illustrate, we will explore the evaluation practice and ECB efforts in the 4-H program and how these have changed over time. EVALUATION PRACTICE IN THE 4-H YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM The 4-H program, part of the national cooperative extension system, operates within a unique and complex organizational and administrative structure. The extension system is a collaboration of land-grant universities (LGUs), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and local (countylevel) agencies and funders (Franz & Townson, 2008). The funding for extension is shared between the LGUs, USDA, and individual counties in which the programs are delivered. Responsibility for program delivery is largely concentrated at the county level, although statewide coordination occurs at the university level as well. The county-based 4-H educators, most of whom have master’s degrees, are hired, trained, and centrally supported by state-level faculty in the 4-H program at the LGU. The multiple structural factors of the 4-H program combine to form an organizational approach in which program evaluation varies considerably by LGUs and local county programming. Thus, for example, there may be one plan to evaluate a new national-level program for science or health education, a different plan to evaluate a statewide concentration on youth civic engagement, and other independent evaluation projects focused on 4-H programs at the county level. This multifaceted structure creates a complex constellation of expectations and responsibilities for county-level 4-H educators. Because much of the decision-making takes place at the county level, county educators often take on responsibility for evaluating many of the individual programs. For some of these activities, there may be statewide coordination of evaluation. For other activities, particularly those that are county-initiated, the educator is generally responsible for designing, conducting, and communicating the results of evaluations. The responsibility for local educators to be proficient in program evaluation is clearly outlined in the professional competencies required of 4-H educators (Stone & Rennekamp, 2004) as well as training materials for new educators (Seevers & Graham, 2012).

198    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

Based on funder priorities and reporting responsibilities within the extension system, 4-H evaluation activities usually focus on documenting success in the achievement of target outcomes—preferably behavioral outcomes. Therefore, the most valuable evaluation evidence that a 4-H educator can provide concerns how young people’s program experiences can lead to positive behaviors and optimal development (e.g., higher academic achievement, a reduction in unhealthy behaviors, or the utilization of marketable skills). Despite their relatively high level of professional preparation, their placement within the university, and their organization’s expectation for program evaluation, many county-based 4-H educators are insufficiently equipped to conduct the variety of desired and/or expected evaluation activities. 4-H educators have varying levels of training in methodological topics such as instrument development, evaluation design, data collection, and quantitative or qualitative data analysis. This has resulted in ECB efforts that focus on developing these technical evaluation skills, with the goal of having program staff design and implement their own outcome evaluations. Our experiences show that the emphasis on measuring outcomes has taken place with little attention to the unique characteristics of the program or an understanding of the program’s underlying theory of change. For example, program staff frequently seek to adopt questionnaires from evaluations of other programs targeting the same general content domain as their own program (e.g., civic engagement, academic study skills, healthpromoting behaviors, etc.). They may place priority on instruments that have been validated in other program settings, while neglecting to examine the match of the selected instrument to their own program’s actual activities. As a result, these outcome evaluations conducted at the local level often do not result in convincing evidence about the program’s effectiveness or the essential program processes. EVALUATION CAPACITY BUILDING IN THE 4-H PROGRAM In a reflection on the state of the past, present, and future of the 4-H program, Borden et al. (2014) suggest that 4-H should lead the way in developing innovative evaluation methods that enable youth programs to determine effectiveness and improve quality. This emphasis on innovative evaluation methods echoes the original recommendations of the Carnegie Council in 1989. The renewed call to action also reflects a quiet shift in 4-H programs, away from measuring program outcomes without an understanding of what is happening at the program development and implementation level. One of the implications is a purposeful change in what is expected of youth workers, turning away from ECB efforts that prepare staff to define and measure program outcomes, to strategies that engage

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    199

them in evaluative thinking through defining and measuring the quality of program implementation, understanding program theory, and paying attention to continuous program improvement (Arnold, 2015; Arnold & Cater, in press; Smith et al., 2012). Traditional ECB efforts for 4-H educators have focused on (1) the development of program logic models that identify and link program activities to short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes, and (2) strategies to evaluate those outcomes (Bennett, 1975; Seevers & Graham, 2012). These models provide a clear and accessible description of the many facets of program evaluation, beginning with the estimation of the resources invested in a program; progressing to measuring program participation, participant satisfaction, and changes in participant learning and action; and ending, at the most distal level, with measuring changes in communities. There have been federal drivers for this process, in the form of the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which focused attention on accountability for publicly funded programs, and the 1998 Agriculture, Research, Extension and Education Reform Act (AREERA), which extended GPRA to require plans of work and annual reports that demonstrate extension programs’ achievement of medium-term outcomes and long-term impacts. These legislative imperatives have set the stage for a singular focus on outcome measurement as the only acceptable evidence of extension program impact. At the same time that accountability in federally funded programs was increasing, the field of positive youth development was growing and maturing. Small community-based programs as well as larger youth organizations grappled with increasing evidence that youth programs with an ecological approach and positive youth development focus were achieving greater outcomes than the long-touted problem-focused prevention strategies (Catalano et al., 2004). The emphasis on changing program focus and measuring outcomes left discussions of program quality and theory out of ECB efforts. With support from the United Way, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and an evaluation team from the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension, youth organizations of all sizes began to adopt the logic model approach to program planning and evaluation. Within a few years, “inputs, outputs, and outcomes” became common extension program planning nomenclature. The linear logic model approach leads to an emphasis on outcomes, particularly on how the content that participants learn in programs (shortterm outcomes) translates into new actions (medium-term outcomes) with the hope that long-term, societal changes will follow. This approach emphasizes a logical connection between the program and its intended outcomes that implies program theory and a predictive intention (McLaughlin & Jordan, 2004). However, as Chen (2015) has highlighted, program success

200    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

depends on the accuracy of a program’s assumptions regarding these logical connections. A recent study on current evaluation practices across the extension system revealed that while many states do use logic models for program planning and evaluation, more robust and rigorous evaluations have not followed suit (Lamm, Israel, & Diehl, 2013). The study also found that the majority of extension evaluations utilize a one-group, post-program-only evaluation design, which lacks rigor and leads to questionable interpretations of program results. Nonetheless, Lamm et al. advocate for the continuation of ECB efforts based on logic modeling, without mentioning attention to program quality or theory. This approach, in our judgment, overstates the utility of logic models to connect program activities to sound outcomes without programmatic attention to issues of implementation. Despite the continued emphasis on logic modeling and program outcomes, there is scant evidence to show that this has resulted in better evaluation practice (Arnold, 2015; Workman & Scheer, 2012). This realization lends support for developing ECB efforts that focus attention on program theory and quality and that build capacity for evaluative thinking throughout the organization (Buckley, Archibald, Hargraves, & Trochim, 2015; Preskill, 2014; Waldick, 2015). While measuring program outcomes remains important, helping program personnel pay attention to what the program is doing and how program activities contribute to the program’s theory is a productive way to ensure program quality. This in turn leads to greater program effectiveness and, ultimately, the achievement of program outcomes. EVALUATIVE THINKING IN YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS Evaluative thinking is analytical orientation of program personnel to focus on clearly understanding the program’s theory, valuing evidence to address high-priority questions, and applying evidence to program development and implementation decisions. Evaluative thinking includes openness to revising and refining the program theory models, and it includes a willingness to test assumptions, ask questions, and use data in decision making (Waldick, 2015). One reason evaluative thinking is useful for ECB is that, without being overly complicated or technical, it provides a useful framework for people to look critically and systematically at their own work, at all stages of a program’s development and maturity. Preskill (2014) emphasized the central importance of developing evaluative thinking in program staff, even when program evaluation is not their primary responsibility. Thinking evaluatively can include appreciation of methodologies for creating and using data, but it does not necessarily involve specific expertise

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    201

in data collection or analysis. Nor is it restricted to particular stages of the evaluation process: Evaluative thinking represents a commitment to generating and using evidence for decision making, a perspective that can apply to wide-ranging questions regarding, for example, the needs of program audiences, program theory, program implementation, and target outcomes. Evaluative thinking can guide one’s strategies for seeking program improvements as well as making summative judgments about program components. In short, the concept refers to a way of thinking about one’s program, rather than a set of technical evaluation skills. Making an organizational commitment to build evaluation capacity through evaluative thinking is a departure from ECB efforts that focus on logic modeling and technical evaluation skills like data collection and analysis. As Michael Patton has noted, in describing the relationship between collecting and using data: “The hardest thing I find to teach is how to go from data to recommendations. When you are doing an evaluation, you are looking at what has gone on—a history. But when you write recommendations, you are a futurist” (Waldick, 2015, para. 12). The latter skill—using evaluation results to make decisions to improve program quality—is one crucial component of evaluative thinking. But in order to make those decisions, local educators must have a clear understanding of the program’s theory of change and its theory of action. This, we believe, is the most fruitful place to begin the development of evaluative thinking with program staff. THEORY OF CHANGE AND PROGRAM QUALITY Program theory provides a predictive explanation of how a program will achieve its stated outcomes. To do this, two aspects of program theory need to be articulated. The first is the program’s theory of change, which is the way in which the desired change is expected to come about, as well as an articulation of the normative assumptions and goals underlying the program model. The second is the program’s theory of action, which identifies the actions that need to happen, at a specified level of success, in order for the program to reach its intended outcomes (Funnell & Rogers, 2011). The landscape of the program evaluation field is changing, to favor theorybased designs over less predictive and assumption-based logic models. However, at local sites, the logic model is still the prevailing tool used by youth programs. For example, many 4-H programs list the development of “life skills” as the targeted outcome of 4-H activities. While a logical connection between program activities and life skills development can be argued by program developers, the emphasis in developing the program logic model is more about “filling in the box” than articulating why and how particular

202    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

activities should contribute to the development of life skills. This approach leaves out any detailed description of what the activities must accomplish in order to enact the change. Where logic models are descriptive and give “little if any attention to the expected causal linkages” (Mark, Donaldson, & Campbell, 2011, p. 14) of a program, theory of change models were created to explain and predict by testing the links between program parts (Patton, 2002). The phrase theory of change arose from the theory-driven evaluation movement and was popularized by Carol Weiss (Chen, 2015). The phrase is often used synonymously with program theory, and it elucidates the assumptions that program planners and stakeholders make about what works to effect participant change (Monroe et al., 2005). At its most basic level, a program’s theory of change describes the incremental steps that must be followed from program delivery to outcome attainment. Chen (2015) suggests that articulating both implicit and explicit program assumptions about what an intervention should consist of and why those particular sets of activities will lead to participant change is an important aspect of theory-based evaluation. In addition, focusing on a program’s theory of change increases the plausibility that participant outcomes are attributable to the program and its activities and not to some external, often unknown, factor (Weiss, 1995). The utility of the theory of change approach to evaluation is that it allows programs to isolate the contribution of the parts (program activities) to the whole (participant changes or outcomes), a critical point of evaluative thinking. Despite one’s best intentions in developing theories of change, theories do sometimes fail, particularly when the chain of reasoning describing how the theory should work is incorrect (Lipsey, 1993; Shapiro, 1985). Making poor choices about program activities will derail the achievement of the articulated outcomes (Wandersman, Goodman, & Butterfoss, 2005). One key advantage of using a theory of change framework over a logic model is that the links are testable, thus helping youth programs uncover faulty reasoning in their change model. This can be a significant benefit of evaluative thinking for youth workers. For example, the 4-H program in Louisiana is currently testing the effect of delivery method (traditional lecture with hands-on activity vs. youth learning in teams) on physical activity behavior. Testing the effect of delivery method helps to elucidate best program practices, which can, in turn, be adopted for program quality improvement, leading ultimately to more positive program outcomes. A FOCUS ON PROGRAM QUALITY Training youth workers to think evaluatively about the program’s theory and the relationship of the program activities to program success lends

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    203

itself to an additional focus on program quality and continual program improvement (Arnold & Nott, 2010). Considered broadly, program quality refers to the program structures and processes that are related to participant outcomes (Baldwin & Wilder, 2014). Program structures refer to an organization’s capacity to deliver a program to youth. Capacity may encompass observable elements like funding level, community collaborations, staffing structure, and physical site. It may also include less tangible things like staff buy-in to the program and organizational climate. Program processes, on the other hand, focus on how a program is delivered. In the youth development field, program quality is becoming increasingly well-defined, with a focus on the educational activities offered, youth participation and engagement, and youth relationships (with both peers and adults) (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Smith et al., 2012). For example, the National Research Council defined eight features of high-quality youth programs: safety, belonging, structures, relationships, positive social norms, support for efficacy and mattering, skill building, and an ecological systems approach (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). Levels of youth engagement in programs (as opposed to merely showing up at a program) are an additional important indicator of high-quality programs (Akiva, Cortina, Eccles, & Smith, 2013; Fredricks, Bohnert, & Burdette, 2014). Program quality is also dependent on the fidelity of the program’s implementation. Particularly as youth development programs scale up from controlled research studies to widespread use, the awareness of a program’s theory of change may be lost in that transition. Engaging staff in evaluative thinking around implementation to build shared understandings about the relevance of program activities to anticipated outcomes can lead to higher commitment to program delivery. In addition, monitoring staff adherence to the specifications of program implementation can help identify problem areas early to avoid program failure. Problems of program design, program adaptation, and fidelity of implementation face the field in building greater capacity for delivering and evaluating high-quality programs. Design problems may lead to theory failure, while adaptation and fidelity problems may lead to program failure. Theory failure occurs because the hypothesized relationships between program activities and participant outcomes are unsound. For example, if lessons are inappropriately sequenced or if the activities are culturally inappropriate for the audience, the expected outcomes will fail to occur. Conversely, program failure happens when program implementation is not true to the theoretical model (Shapiro, 1985). An example of improper adaptation may be a local staff decision to eliminate a core program component that seems irrelevant to the audience yet in reality is critical to program success. Additionally, site-based youth workers and program administrators can hold

204    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

differing philosophies about how the program should be delivered, which can lead to poor fidelity of implementation. The on-the-ground wisdom experience of site-based program staff, and their ability to understand what works with their particular audience, is an example of evaluative thinking. The mismatch between the understandings of local educators and centrally located program administrators can lead to conflicting views of program theory and implementation (Baldwin & Wilder, 2014). Providing training that improves evaluative thinking has the potential to ameliorate these problems by helping colleagues at all levels of an organization build a shared understanding of how participant change occurs, why certain program structures and processes support that change better than others, and what adaptations are necessary to ensure program relevance at the local level. A NEW APPROACH FOR YOUTH PROGRAM EVALUATION One of the key themes of this chapter is the relative ineffectiveness of ECB efforts that focus on building evaluation skills in youth workers. The realities of 4-H and most other youth programs do not allow for the time, expertise, and cost involved in placing responsibility for evaluation at the program site level. What we propose instead is to move the responsibility for traditional outcomes-based evaluation to a more central level in the organization and focus ECB efforts with program staff on the development of (1) evaluative thinking, particularly in relationship to understanding and implementing the program’s theory of change and theory of action, and (2) continuous program quality assessment. It is important to clarify that we are not proposing that outcomes evaluation be abandoned. Youth programs need to demonstrate that they can achieve their target goals in promoting healthy development. But we suggest that an emphasis on developing evaluative thinking is a more productive ECB approach with site-based staff, one that will ultimately lead to stronger program outcomes because of increased attention to program quality. Program implementation and program quality are two aspects of youth programming for which youth workers have direct influence and high expertise. They are therefore the program characteristics for which evaluative thinking can be cultivated most easily. This change in ECB focus has several implications. Develop and Use Program Models Every program-level youth worker needs to understand the program’s theory, reflected in both the theory of change upon which it is built and the

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    205

theory of action that is required for the change to occur. In order for this to happen, youth organizations (at the most central level possible) need to develop sound program theory and program models that are widely understood and articulated throughout the organization. For those programs that operate at the local site independent of a larger organization, this means carefully developing a program model that includes articulation of program theory and action. In the case of youth programs that operate at multiple sites, but under one central organization, the development of an “umbrella model” can provide an organizational context through which local programs can be planned and implemented (Arnold, 2015). Furthermore, clear program theory and umbrella models facilitate youth workers to think evaluatively about the structures and processes they need to ensure in local programs, in order for the theory to work and for the program to be successful. Expect Commitment to Program Quality While youth workers may no longer be responsible for planning and implementing program evaluations, they are the people most closely responsible for ensuring program quality. In this regard, ECB efforts should focus less on teaching program planning through logic models alone and more on engaging youth workers in assessing and developing program actions that support the theory of change. For example, as program-level workers design and implement activities, evaluative thinking will guide them to critically assess how any given activity is connected to the program’s outcomes, resulting in program improvement through modification to the activity. This critical examination of what happens in a program then becomes the key evaluation responsibility of program staff at the site level. Engage Youth Workers in Continuous Program Quality Assessment Site-based youth workers who engage in an ongoing cycle of program quality evaluation and improvement become experts in implementing the program with high fidelity to the program theory, which, in turn, is enhanced through continuous assessment and improvement (Smith et al., 2012). ECB efforts that focus on continual program quality improvement through thinking evaluatively about program activities and how they relate to program outcomes have the potential to create far greater understanding and enthusiasm for program implementation and evaluation than those focused on developing specific evaluation skills.

206    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN

Move Outcome Evaluation to a More Centralized Level in the Organization While recognizing that this is not possible for all youth organizations, most can probably identify ways in which outcome evaluation can be lifted from the shoulders of front-line workers. Doing so can support changing the focus of ECB efforts from developing skills for outcomes evaluation to developing evaluative thinking. In the 4-H program in our states, for example, we have moved to centrally supported statewide evaluations in which local sites submit data using standard instruments (Arnold & Cater, in press). The data to be collected are agreed upon ahead of time with the local program, and a timeline for data submission is established. Data from local sites are aggregated and reported at a statewide level, while local sites receive evaluation reports based on their data alone, which are useful for generating local program interest, support and funding. The national 4-H program is currently developing a similar approach through the 4-H Common Measures initiative, which utilizes standard evaluation instruments across nationally-funded 4-H programs and provides data analysis and report development at the national level (Lewis, Horrillo, Widaman, Worker, & Trzesniewski, 2015; National 4-H Council, 2015). Measure Overall Organizational Success With the traditional ECB approach of attempting to build evaluation capacity at the local level, an assumption is often made that the resulting local data sets can be aggregated into a larger body of evidence that can be used to demonstrate impacts of the organization as a whole. Too often, however, data are not easily aggregated, or, when they are, they are not robust or rigorous enough to provide convincing evidence of a program’s success. As part of our new approach to youth program evaluation, we argue that a better way to measure organizational success is to evaluate at the level of the program umbrella model, focusing on testing the validity of the linkages in the program’s theory of change and theory of action (Arnold, 2015; Borden et al., 2014). Doing so will reveal where the program theory is strong, where it needs to be refined or changed, and ultimately how the program theory leads convincingly to the achievement of program outcomes. Of course, developing and testing a youth program theory takes time, possibly years. But given the length of time that has been invested to date in largely unproductive ECB efforts in youth programs, it seems warranted to modify our approach in order to achieve better success in the evaluation of youth programs.

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    207

REFERENCES Akiva, T., Cortina, K., Eccles, J., & Smith, C. (2013). Youth belonging and cognitive engagement in organized activities: A large-scale field study. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 34, 208–218. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2013.05.001 Arnold, M. E. (2015). Connecting the dots: Improving Extension program planning with program umbrella models. Journal of Human Sciences and Extension, 3(2), 48–67. Arnold, M. E., & Cater, M. (2011). From then to now: Emerging directions for youth program evaluation. Journal of Youth Development, 6(3), 82–94. Arnold, M. E., & Cater, M. (in press). Program theory and quality matter: Changing the course of extension program evaluation. Journal of Extension. Arnold, M. E. & Nott, B. D. (2010). What’s going on? Developing a context for program evaluation: From logic models to program theory. Journal of Youth Development, 5(2), 72–84. Baldwin, C., & Wilder, Q. (2014). Inside quality: Examination of quality improvement processes in afterschool youth programs. Child and Youth Services, 35, 152–168. doi: 10.1080/0145935X.2014.924346 Bennett, C. F. (1975). Up the hierarchy. Journal of Extension, 13(1), 7–12. Retrieved from http://www.joe.org/joe/1975march/1975-2-a1.pdf Borden, L. M., Perkins, D. F., & Hawkey, K. (2014). 4-H Youth Development: The past, the present, and the future [Online]. Journal of Extension, 52(4). Article 4COM1. Retrieved from http://www.joe.org/joe/2014august/comm1.php Buckley, J., Archibald, T., Hargraves, M., & Trochim, W. M. (2015). Defining and teaching evaluative thinking: Insights from research on critical thinking. American Journal of Evaluation, 36, 375–388. Carnegie Council on Youth Development. (1989). Turning points: Preparing American youth for the 21st century. Washington, DC: Author. Carnegie Council on Youth Development. (1992). Consultation on evaluation of youth development programs: Report on the meeting. Washington, DC: Author. Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L., Ryan, J. A. M., Lonczak, H. S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). Positive youth development in the United States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth development programs. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591(1), 98–124. Chen, H. (2015). Practical program evaluation: Theory-driven evaluation and the integrated evaluation perspective (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Eccles, J., & Gootman, J. (Eds.). (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Franz, N. K., & Townson, L. (2008). The nature of complex organizations: The case of cooperative extension. In M. T. Braverman, M. E. Engle, M. E. Arnold, & R. Rennekamp (Eds.), Program evaluation in a complex organizational system: Lessons from Cooperative Extension. New Directions for Evaluation, 120, 5–14. Fredricks, J., Bohnert, A., & Burdette, K. (2014). Moving beyond attendance: Lessons learned from assessing engagement in afterschool contexts. New Directions for Youth Development, 144, 45–56. doi: 10.1002/yd.20112 Funnell, S. C., & Rogers, P. J. (2011). Purposeful program theory: Effective use of theories of change and logic models. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

208    M. E. ARNOLD, M. CATER, and M. T. BRAVERMAN Lambur, M. T. (2008). Organizational structures that support internal program evaluation. In M. T. Braverman, M. E. Engle, M. E. Arnold, & R. Rennekamp (Eds.), Program evaluation in a complex organizational system: Lessons from Cooperative Extension. New Directions for Evaluation, 120, 41–54. Lamm, A. J., Israel, G. D., & Diehl, D. (2013). A national perspective on the current evaluation activities in extension [Online]. Journal of Extension, 51(1), Article 1FEA1. Retrieved from http://www.joe.org/joe/2013february/a1.php Lerner, R. M., Wang, J., Chase, P. A., Gutierrez, A. S., Harris, E. M., Rubin, R. O., & Yalin, C. (2014). Using relational developmental systems theory to link program goals, activities, and outcomes: The sample case of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. New Directions for Youth Development, 144, 17–28. doi:10.1002/yd.20110 Lewis, K. M., Horrillo, S. J., Widaman, K., Worker, S. M., & Trzesniewski, K. (2015). National 4-H common measures: Initial evaluation from California 4-H [Online]. Journal of Extension, 53(2), Article 2RIB3. Retrieved from http://www. joe.org/joe/2015april/rb3.php Lipsey, M. W. (1993). Theory as method: Small theories of treatments. In L. B. Sechrest & A. G. Scott (Eds.), Understanding causes and generalizing about them. New Directions for Program Evaluation, 57, 5–38. Little, P. M. (2014). Evaluating afterschool programs. New Directions for Youth Development, 144, 119–132. doi:10.1002/yd.20117 Mark, M. M., Donaldson, S. I. & Campbell, B. (2011). The past, the present and the possible future of social psychology and evaluation. In M. M. Mark, S. I. Donaldson, & B. Campbell (Eds.), Social psychology and evaluation (pp. 3–28). New York, NY: Guilford. McLaughlin, J. A., & Jordan, G. B. (2004). Using logic models. In J. S. Wholey, H. P. Hatry, & K. E. Newcomer (Eds.), Handbook of practical program evaluation (2nd ed., pp.7–32). Monroe, M., Fleming, M., Bowman, R., Zimmer, J., Marcinkowski, T., Washburn, J., & Mitchell, N. (2005). Evaluators as educators: Articulating program theory and building evaluation capacity. In E. Norland & C. Somers (Eds.), Evaluating nonformal education programs and settings. New Directions for Evaluation, 108, 57–71. doi: 10.1002/ev.171 National 4-H Council. (2015). 4-H Common Measures Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.4-h.org/about/youth-development-research/ Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Patton, M. Q. (2008). Sup wit eval ext? In M. T. Braverman, M. Engle, M. E. Arnold, & R. A. Rennekamp (Eds.), Program evaluation in a complex organizational system: Lessons from Cooperative Extension. New Directions for Evaluation, 120, 101– 115. doi:10.1002/ev.279 Preskill, H. (2014). Now for the hard stuff: Next steps in ECB research and practice. American Journal of Evaluation, 35, 116–119. Preskill. H., & Boyle, S. (2008). A multidisciplinary model of evaluation capacity building. American Journal of Evaluation, 29, 443–459. Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman, H. E. (2004). Evaluation: A systematic approach (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rethinking Evaluation Capacity in Youth Development Programs    209 Roth, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2003). What exactly is a youth development program? Answers from research and practice. Journal of Applied Developmental Science, 7, 94–111. Roth, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., Murray, L., & Foster, W. (1998). Promoting healthy adolescents: Synthesis of youth development program evaluations. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8(4), 423–459. Seevers, B., & Graham, D. (2012). Education through cooperative extension (3rd ed.). Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas. Shapiro, J. (1985). Evaluation of a worksite program in health science and medicine: An application of Stake’s model of contingency and congruence. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 7(1), 341–353. doi: 10.3102/01623737007001047 Smith, C., Akiva, T., Sugar, S., Lo, Y. J., Frank, K. A., Peck, S. C., Cortina, K. S., & Devaney, T. (2012). Continuous quality improvement in afterschool settings: Impact findings from the Youth Program Quality Intervention study. Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment. Retrieved from http://www.cypq.org/content/ continuous-quality-improvement-afterschool-settings-impact-findings-youthprogram-quality-in Stone, B., & Rennekamp, R. (2004). New foundations for the 4-H youth development profession: 4-H professional research, knowledge, and competencies study, 2004. Conducted in cooperation with the National 4-H Professional Development Task Force. Chevy Chase, MD: National 4-H Headquarters, CSREES, USDA. Taylor-Powell, E., & Boyd, H. H. (2008). Evaluation capacity in complex organizations. In M. T. Braverman, M. Engle, M. E. Arnold, & R. A. Rennekamp (Eds.), Program evaluation in a complex organizational system: Lessons from Cooperative Extension. New Directions for Evaluation, 120, 55–69. doi:10.1002/ev.276 Waldick, L. (2015). In conversation: Michael Patton. International Development Research Centre. Retrieved from http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=771 Wandersman, A., Goodman, R., & Butterfoss, F. (2005). Understanding coalitions and how they operate. In M. Minkler (Ed.), Community organizing and community building for health (2nd ed., pp. 292–313). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Weiss, C. (1995). Nothing as practical as good theory: Exploring theory based evaluation for comprehensive community initiatives for children and families. In J. Connell, A. Kubish. L. Schorr, & C. Weiss (Eds.), New Approaches to Evaluating Community Initiatives (pp. 65–92). Washington, DC: Aspen Institute. Weiss, C. H. (2000). Which links in which theories shall we evaluate? In P. J. Rogers, T. A. Hacsi, A. Petrosino, & T. A. Huebner (Eds.), Program theory in evaluation: Challenges and opportunities. New Directions for Evaluation, 87, 35–45. Weiss, C. H., Murphy-Graham, E., Petrosino, A., & Gandhi, A. G. (2008). The fairy godmother—and her warts. American Journal of Evaluation, 29, 29–47. Workman, J. D., & Scheer, S. D. (2012). Evidence of impact: Examination of evaluation studies published in the Journal of Extension [Online]. Journal of Extension, 50(2), Article 2FEA1. Retrieved from http://www.joe.org/joe/2012april/ pdf/JOE_v50_2a1.pdf

This page intentionally left blank.

CHAPTER 11

ETHICAL DILEMMAS EXPERIENCED BY YOUTH WORKERS Implications for Practice and Professional Development Kathrin Walker University of Minnesota Tamara Ginger Weiss University of Minnesota

Youth work is inherently filled with dilemmas—the challenges in which there are tensions between competing considerations, conflicting interests, and multiple options for taking action (Larson & Walker, 2010). Facing and resolving such dilemmas requires that youth workers show expertise in a multistep process: the ability to recognize the situation within the context, the capacity to undertake careful consideration of various perspectives, and the self-assuredness to make and follow through with decisions that are

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 211–228 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

211

212    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

both practical and most likely to yield the highest benefit. This expertise is particularly important when addressing dilemmas that are ethical, such as those that deal with “rights, duties, needs, interests, relationships, motives and the maintenance or transgression of prevailing norms” (Banks, 2010, p. 12). Yet such complex ethical dilemmas often surface unexpectedly within everyday practice. They unfold quickly and demand a response within a very short time frame. To understand and improve effective youth work practice during such dilemmas, more must be understood about the types of ethical tensions that practitioners face and how contextually embedded responses appear to facilitate ethical development for both the youth worker and young person. Our research examines three different types of ethical dilemmas that arise in youth work and presents three key features of program leaders’ responses to these situations. Finally, we discuss implications for training and supporting youth workers. ETHICS OF YOUTH WORK Youth programs are rich and complex contexts for promoting ethical development in young people (Roberts, 2009) as well as ethical reflection among youth workers themselves. At its core, the goal of youth work is to facilitate and support young people’s personal and social development and guide young people in finding their voice, influence, and place in society (Banks, 2010; Wood, Westwood, & Thompson, 2015). Tied to this purpose, youth work has a shared set of values that includes a commitment to equal opportunity for young people to work as partners with adults in learning and decision making. By partnering with youth and modeling learning in this way, youth workers are more likely to prepare young people with the understanding, abilities, and skills necessary to face ethical dilemmas as adults in ways that align with carefully considered principles and values. While youth programs are known sites of ethical development in youth, the situations that arise involve an ever-changing cast of key actors, take place within a variably stable organizational context, and occur against a backdrop of the socioeconomic, cultural, and political environment. Many other professions have been able to establish agreed-upon principles, standards, and values to promote and guide ethical behavior. Instead, for the most part, youth workers have informal and usually unwritten principles— don’t put a young person in danger, don’t engage in romantic relations—in other words, “do no harm” (Rhodes, Liang, & Spencer, 2009). But such basic guidelines have limited usefulness to youth workers, who regularly face difficult situations that fall within the ethical gray areas of everyday work with youth and who must make expeditious decisions while balancing numerous responsibilities and interests. And while there have been increased

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    213

efforts to professionalize youth work and to develop professional ethical codes, these do not necessarily provide clear direction about what to do in response to particular situations and personalities. For responding to dilemmas of practice requires phronesis or practical knowledge that “goes beyond scientific and technical knowledge and involves value judgment and ethical decision making in social practice” (Walker & Walker, 2012, p. 41). More needs to be done in order to provide knowledge, to guide skills training, and to help build a network of support for youth workers who work daily on the front lines with youth who are quickly maturing into independent adult ethical thinkers and actors. Because youth programs are recognized as contexts for facilitating ethical development in youth, research that investigates the factors that affect this development within these contexts is especially valuable. Studies suggest that one important factor, for example, is whether and how young people are able to establish supportive relationships with adults. These relationships, considered inherent to youth work, are foundational for modeling and teaching ethical behavior. The different types of roles and relationships that youth workers establish serve distinct functions, from offering guidance and emotional support to providing authority and expertise (Walker, 2011). Social relationships with supportive adults in youth organizations play an essential role in youth’s identity development, allowing them to “try on” a moral identity through their choices and to receive feedback for their behavior (Deutsch, 2005). Given that these relationships play such an important role in youth work, and given the unanswered questions about how they influence youth’s ethical development, research on the ethical dimensions of youth work and on effective practices of youth workers has started to draw the attention of scholars and practitioners (see Banks, 2010; Gharabaghi, 2008; Sercombe, 2010; Walker, Gran, & Curiel, 2005). Walker et al. (2005) emphasize the importance of youth workers taking time to recognize and analyze their personal ethical stances. Gharabaghi (2008) asserts that engaging in youth work is inherently subjective because each individual holds different values. Youth workers need to understand their own ethical stances and the ethical implications of their work in order to establish and uphold principles for responding to any given situation. Yet if youth work is truly meant to engage youth workers in a partnership relationship with youth and to foster ethical development in young people, it is necessary to move beyond a narrow focus on the youth worker or a unidirectional consideration of how youth workers affect youths’ ethical development. We must understand more deeply the process by which youth workers undertake ethical dilemmas with youth and how youth work regularly poses ethical challenges and fosters ethical reflection among youth worker. For example, Ross, Capra, Carpenter, Hubbell, and Walker (2015)

214    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

present situations where a bond with a young person is threatened by strict adherence to confidentiality procedures, where a youth worker suspects a program participant of illicit drug use, or where a youth worker’s hopes for a youth are incongruent with family expectations and norms. These ethical dilemmas involve situations where the youth worker confronts a choice among competing courses of action, all of which may entail breaching some ethical principle or causing some potential harm (Banks, 2010). Such situations are but one of a vast range of dilemmas that involve ethical principles and within which youth workers must negotiate meeting the goals of youth development while balancing the needs and perspective of one against those of many other involved actors. It must also be remembered that these ethical dilemmas occur within an organizational and programmatic context that affects the factors and types of ethical tensions that arise, as well as the possible responses and outcomes. The role that the organization plays is becoming increasingly recognized as important, and overlooked (Baldridge, 2014; Gharabaghi, 2009; VeLure Roholt, Rana, Baizerman, & Korum, 2013). Organizations make programmatic, staffing, and accountability choices that affect the ways that youth workers engage with youth. They have different cultures that dictate who is involved, and how, in management and decision making (VeLure Roholt et al., 2013). Youth workers may find their personal principles at odds with the responsibilities of their position or the values of the organization. This culture impacts whether and how youth workers have space to raise issues and identify patterns of concern that surface from their work with young people. Furthermore, external funding sources may shape organizational culture. Baldridge (2014) argues that the competition for funding among youth-serving organizations incentivizes them to frame the populations of young people that they serve as “disadvantaged” and “deficient.” Yet doing so neglects the assets and agency of these young people and, in some cases, may even contradict the equity-based language of the organizational mission and philosophy. Youth workers are hired as representatives of their place of employment and are likely to be influenced by the framework within which they operate as well as the responsibilities of their position. Such deficit framing may affect how youth workers perceive young people and “envision” or “view what is possible for their lives” (Baldridge, 2014, p. 441). At the same time, youth workers have been widely recognized for the essential and diverse roles that they play in the lives of young people who participate in community based organizations. This has important implications for analyzing the role of ethical dilemmas in youth work because the same funding mechanisms that cover organizational operations and program implementation may also affect how youth workers approach and respond to ethical dilemmas with youth. Providing youth workers the opportunity to share the challenges they have encountered, and the insights

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    215

they have gained when negotiating their various responsibilities, commitments, and ethical dilemmas, is a critical contribution to the field. Our research aims to fill key gaps in the literature around the nature of ethical dilemmas of youth work. It places primacy on the practitioner perspective in order to understand and share their insights on the skills, knowledge, and processes that they use to improve their practice and to facilitate youths’ ethical development. By drawing on this evidence, including participant hindsight and training recommendations, the chapter concludes with implications for designing professional development and organizational support that will positively impact the outcome of an ethical dilemma. METHODS Sample of Leaders and Programs This study builds on our previous research that examines the dilemmas experienced by youth workers and how they responded (Larson & Walker, 2010). For this current study, interview data were collected at four time points from 25 program leaders in 13 arts, technology, and leadership programs for high school-aged youth. Interviews were conducted with the 1–3 adult leaders at each program. The 25 leaders had an average of 14 years of youth work experience (range: 3–42). Fifteen were paid full-time staff (5 part-time, 5 unpaid); 19 had college degrees (9 with master’s degrees). The sample included 14 women and 11 men, with a median age of 35 (range 24–62). Sixteen were European Americans; 3 Latina/os, 3 African Americans, and 3 of mixed ethnicity. Programs were recruited from three regions: Chicago (N=5), central Illinois (N=4), and the Minneapolis/St. Paul area (N=4). They included arts, STEM, and leadership programs; 10 were community-based and three were in schools. We chose programs that met for at least 100 hours and that served working-class and low-income youth. The youth served were from diverse ethnic backgrounds (one third each Latina/o, African American, and European American). Interview Protocol and Procedures Interview data were collected at four time points from 25 program leaders in 13 programs for high school-aged youth. The programs were studied over a full program cycle (in nearly all cases, a school year). Leaders were interviewed four times throughout the program cycle. During the second, third, and fourth interviews, they were asked to identify a recent dilemma

216    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

situation they faced in the program, what considerations they had in this situation, how they formulated their response, and what happened as a result. This yielded data about 71 dilemma scenarios. These dilemmas involved considerations such as program activities and norms, youths’ personalities and relationships, organizational systems, and external worlds (see Larson & Walker, 2010). The interview protocols contained structured sets of open-ended questions. Interviewers encouraged leaders to provide full narrative accounts of their dilemma, including examples of their thinking, decision making, and actions in specific situations. Specifically, interviewees were asked to share “a dilemma or challenging situation or decision” that they had faced recently during their work with youth participants. This open-ended question was followed by a series of prompts to describe the process by which the leaders developed a response to the dilemma as well as what considerations, values, goals, and needs were most salient during decision making. Following this, the program leaders were asked to describe their ultimate response and the resultant outcome. The final questions addressed what the leaders had learned in hindsight and what they might do differently in the future and invited their recommendations for training novice program leaders. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, and transcriptions were checked. Data Analysis Analyses were aimed at identifying ethical dilemmas out of all coded dilemmas in order to identify common ethical tensions and repeated patterns of program leaders’ considerations, responses, outcomes, and hindsight. We also investigated how leaders described their values, needs, and sources of support when facing and making decisions during ethical dilemmas. Lastly, the analyses included an examination of what leaders understood after handling the situation. This analysis took place within a multistage process. During the first stage, we coded ethical dilemmas according to the definition provided by Banks (2010): these dilemmas “encompass matters of rights, duties, needs, interests, relationships, motives and the maintenance or transgression of prevailing norms” (p. 12). Overall, 18 out of 71 total dilemmas were identified as ethical. To evaluate the fidelity of these findings, there were three persons involved in the coding process. During the first stage, two different staff members independently coded the dilemmas. In the second stage, a third staff member reviewed instances of dissimilarity to discuss the contrast and arrive at consensus. Once a dilemma had been identified and coded as ethical, second level coding identified program leaders’ considerations, responses, values, and strategies for seeking and drawing on support or

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    217

help. This second-level coding also included an analysis of how the participants framed the outcomes of the dilemma and their opinions in hindsight about the handling as well as what lessons learned could inform youth development trainings in the future. The narratives profiled below illustrate key themes that repeatedly surfaced during interviews with youth workers describing ethical dilemmas. These methods aimed to explore the data and suggest preliminary theoretical findings rather than to test a particular hypothesis or assess the validity of a particular thesis. Therefore, these narratives provide evidence for ethical issues of primary concern for youth workers as well as suggest implications that may be used to inform staff training and organizational support. RESULTS Our analyses identified a range of ethical considerations, from safety concerns to program norms, from issues of fairness to matters of trust, and from addressing young people’s needs and learning to acknowledging youth workers’ own needs and feelings. Next we outline three broad types of ethical dilemmas and present a case example of each. For each example, we describe the dilemma, the considerations they entailed, the program leader’s response and the outcome. We then describe three key features of responses to ethical dilemmas. Types of Ethical Dilemmas The leaders’ ethical dilemmas included situations where a young person violates a program norm by fighting, making a racist comment, or exhibiting disrespectful behavior during program implementation. One leader described a situation where a youth participant kept using a cultural gang reference during the program activities. In these cases, maintaining participant safety during the program—physical and psychological—were key concerns. Other situations, like when a young man plagiarized his story for their online magazine, raise issues of fairness, trust, and professional integrity. Another set of ethical dilemmas involve situations when youth describe engaging in illicit or risky behavior within circumstances that occur outside the direct domain of the program or organization, such as drug use or sexual behavior. One leader described a youth who alluded to future acts of violence and the challenge of determining the severity and implications of the youth’s words. Here leaders need to balance supporting youth autonomy and respecting the needs and interests of young people with issues of their personal safety and the law.

218    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

A third set of ethical dilemmas represented incongruent values between the youth worker and the young people or their family. These included situations where program leaders were at odds with youth or their families’ priorities, were concerned when parents positioned the program as a reward or consequence for youths’ behavior, or disapproved of how other actors in youth lives influenced youth and their future. These types of situations put personal feelings and needs in tension with professional boundaries and obligations. In the following sections, we offer an in-depth narrative of a dilemma from each of these three categories. Violation of Program Norms: Theft among Program Participants In this dilemma, there was a clear programmatic behavioral and rule violation when a young man took another participant’s iPod during a program activity and then chose not to admit that he had the item in his possession. The participant realized that his iPod was missing at the end of a group activity, and he informed the program leader. The leader then told the group, “You guys need to figure out where that iPod is because we were the only ones here and no one has left.” The group searched for nearly half an hour, and everyone claimed not to have any information about the situation. At that point, someone called the iPod. It started ringing from one young man’s pocket. He took it out and said, “Oh yeah, I forgot I took it. I was just trying to pull a joke and I completely forgot that I still had it.” By framing his actions as a “joke” and implying that the iPod was unintentionally still in his possession, the youth chose not to recognize his behavior as theft and he failed to take responsibility for his dishonesty. The leader described this as a dilemma because of her struggle with how to address the fact that the young man had committed an unacceptable offense and rule violation while wanting to uphold her value of the youth’s ethical development and her goal for the youth’s continued participation in program activities. On principle, she did not want to kick the young person out of the program. The organizational mission to promote the youth’s agency within a “safe and nurturing environment” gave her a firm foundation for avoiding this outcome. In fact, the leader felt comfortable sharing the dilemma with the “support system” of other program staff, and the director of the program provided coaching for how to handle the situation. The first action the leader took was to isolate the youth from the rest of the group. This opened up a private space for dialogue between the two, which allowed the leader to draw on her strong pre-established relationship with the youth. Within this space, the leader had time to depersonalize the issue (in her words, to “inhale-exhale”), to slow down the process (“take it one step at a time”), and to prioritize the youth’s ethical development (to “make it more like a realization moment for him, and like a reflection moment”).

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    219

The leader consciously rejected taking a “straight to the punishment” approach, although she considered this to be a potentially easier strategy. From the leader’s perspective, this use of authority to take disciplinary action would “have never taught him [the youth] a valuable perspective.” Instead, the leader tried to place the youth’s harmful behavior within a broader set of experiences and observations of the youth in the program. The leader also reflected on personal experiences from high school and the life lessons that these had taught, explaining, “I remember being a teen.” This allowed the youth worker to contextualize the youth’s choice within a broader understanding of the young person and within their relationship across the timeline of the program, within a developmental progression from youth to adult, and within the goals of the program. The leader then focused on the youth’s strengths to discuss the event and to analyze what had happened, then worked together with the youth to understand and address the consequences. From the perspective of the program leader, the resolution to this dilemma was positive and beneficial for the youth. For the youth who had committed the theft, the resolution required him to accept personal responsibility for his actions, made him face how his theft had affected his peers and the group dynamics, and gave him the opportunity to repair these relationships by publicly apologizing to the victim and group. After the youth apologized to his peers, the program leader then placed the victim in the role of deciding whether or not to permit the youth to continue participating in the program. The victim did permit his continued participation, which was a demonstration of forgiveness and compassion. “After that,” the leader said, “[the youth who took the iPod] was very humble for the rest of the program, and I think that it took situation of embarrassment for him to realize that some things you just don’t do.” Moreover, the leader “saw that there was remorse . . . he realized a lot of things. I’m sure he went back and reflected on the situation.” This evidence suggested that the youth involved had experienced ethical development: taking the perspective of the “other” and responsibility for one’s actions, taking action to repair relationships, experiencing the act of forgiveness and the feeling of compassion, and demonstrating reflection and remorse. Engage in Illicit or Risky Behavior: Homeless Youth Participant Seeks Refuge In this dilemma, a youth worker learned that a 15-year-old participant of a leadership, college, and workforce preparation program had become estranged from her family and was making choices that compromised the physical safety of herself and her partner. This youth felt unsupported by her family because she was involved in a lesbian relationship, and she had chosen to leave her home with her partner. Because homeless shelters do

220    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

not receive couples, they tried to find a place to stay together by responding to online ads on Craigslist. The two approached the program leader for advice and support: “They trusted me a lot and they were coming to me for advice.” The leader appreciated the youths’ perspective and their need for support, believed in the youths’ right to be in a relationship, and wanted to respect their autonomy to make decisions. At the same time, she felt “stumped because they were holding each other back by wanting to stay together.” Their long-term livelihoods were in jeopardy because of naïve decision making that addressed only short-term conflicts. In choosing her response, the leader considered her prior experience with youth who needed a person to safely turn to without risking judgment or damage to the relationship, saying, “It’s helpful to youth to feel that they’re not shocking you . . . just listening, asking questions. . . . This is not a place where there’s judging. This is a place where we solve problems.” Secondly, the leader recognized a lack of knowledge and experience with the issues at hand and the surrounding circumstances. The leader perceived that these youth needed to be connected to sources of information and to have direct access to local resources for assistance. First, the leader called different shelters and case managers and presented the scenario, then asked for advice from these resources. Secondly, the leader dedicated time to the youth and to exploring “what they were really upset about.” Third, the leader shared concern and told the youth “they were continually putting themselves in really unsafe situations.” Fourth, the leader posed questions to prompt the youth to think critically about their situation: “What’s in it for this person to let you stay with them for free? What do they have to gain?” Finally, she referred the girl to two different shelters, recommending that “they can still support each other even if they’re not living together,” and gave her the phone number for a 24-hour hotline for more information about their options. Throughout the process, the youth leader was “really careful” to communicate respect and confidence in the youth’s personal judgment, and in their ability to “make their own decision”: I told her, “I know you have a really good intuition. You are really smart.” She has straight A’s, perfect attendance, and has been homeless for the past six months. I’m like, “You’re really smart. You can navigate a lot of systems.” I was like, “You’re gonna know if something is fishy. And I really need you to trust that instinct to call these numbers if you feel that.”

The next morning the youth reported, “Something was wrong, I didn’t do it.” She agreed that their current strategy had led them into an unsafe situation and the couple decided to take the leader’s advice and go to a homeless shelter instead. Because the program had funding support from the city to provide youth participants with work readiness skills and employment, the youth worker knew that the homeless status and young age of this

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    221

participant would not affect her legal protection to continue participation in the program. In this dilemma, the success of the outcome seemed less certain to the youth worker. The leader reported feeling more confident in handling similar situations because of the experience. However, the youth remained homeless, and while both of her parents lived far away, the leader did not discuss an ethical obligation to report the situation to them. The leader did mention that the young woman remained in regular contact, which indicated both her safety and her continued trust in the relationship as one that provides support and resources. It was difficult for the leader to reflect on what would have improved this outcome in hindsight, other than becoming more informed and familiar with the homeless shelter system and resources available to youth seeking refuge from home. The leader acknowledged that this ethical dilemma recalled a lesson learned from prior experiences in youth development work: be responsive and caring, but maintain a personal and professional boundary. Incongruent Values: Youth Participant Recruited by the Military In this dilemma, a military recruiter approached the program leader to retrieve documentation about a youth participant who had recently enlisted. The leader perceived this as an ethical dilemma for several reasons. To begin, the leader perceived that the recruiter had cultivated a personal relationship with the youth and family with the aim of enlisting the youth in the military rather than the aim of supporting the youth to know all the options available to her to pursue her desired future. In the leader’s opinion, the goal of the recruiter was therefore fundamentally at odds with the goal of youth development. In the leader’s words, “It felt like it was a sales pitch. He could have been a car salesman . . . him telling her what she wanted.” In addition, the leader considered this youth extremely capable and likely to be very successful in receiving financial awards that would allow her to attend college. Concerned that the youth was turning to the military out of necessity rather than personal commitment, the leader felt the recruiter’s behavior demonstrated another breach of responsibility to a youth in the context of youth development. Finally, the leader admitted to personal bias against the practice of military recruitment of young students prior to ensuring that youth have the support to explore and to understand their full range of and access to opportunities. The leader described the considerations as follows: For me . . . [it was about] wanting to protect this youth and also having to acknowledge my own biases with them entering the military and having the balance of my support for them and their ability to make their decisions but also making sure that I can speak my mind.

222    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

After the recruiter initially approached the leader, the leader immediately sought support by “step[ping] out of the room and find[ing] another staff member and debrief.” It was important to the leader to “drop my bias, and not deny the document that she [the youth] needed.” Then the leader scheduled a meeting with the youth “to talk about this impact and give a different perspective of what enlisting would look like.” This leader felt unprepared to handle this dilemma, despite “many experiences advocating for youth in the school system or helping them access legal advice or navigating relationships with parents.” The leader also recognized that the dilemma recalled emotions from a personal experience of watching a brother almost enlist in the military and that these were affecting decision making and response. A third consideration was that by enlisting in the marines, the youth’s eligibility for the program was threatened because the program provided scholarship funding for college and had particular rules regarding the intended beneficiaries. Before making any immediate decisions, the leader responded by first reaching out to other staff members to talk through the situation, arrive at a solution, and plan how to proceed. According to this leader, a key indicator that a dilemma resolves successfully is that the adult is able to maintain the trust of the youth. Because this youth still trusts and seeks support from the leader, the leader perceives the outcome as successful and states with satisfaction, “She still sees us as allies.” However, in hindsight, the leader could identify missed opportunities to have more extended conversations with the youth about what she saw for herself in the future and to introduce her to the myriad of paths that would be open to her. Key Features of Responses Dilemmas are inherent and inevitable; uncertainty, doubt, and not-knowing are normal feature of youth work (Anderson-Nathe, 2010). Yet the youth workers we studied had core values, goals, and processes that helped to guide them to make decisions and to feel confident in their responses. Across these ethical dilemmas, program leaders were committed to crafting responses that valued and kept youth needs and interests at the center. They tried to model ethical behavior for the youth as well as promote youths’ own ethical development. Finally, they leveraged the relationships forged with youth while negotiating personal relationships and professional boundaries. Next we outline these three key features of effective responses to ethical dilemmas. Value: Youth-Centered The programs leaders’ responses reflect an overarching value to focus on and prioritize youth needs and interests. Youth-centered responses are those that involve engaging with youth, turning situations into opportunities

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    223

for development, incorporating youth into the solution, and advocating for youth (Larson & Walker, 2010). When a youth participant violated a program norm by plagiarizing his story for their online magazine, the program leader explained how she valued engaging youth in resolving dilemmas: “I think it’s important to value the youth’s opinions and thoughts on the issue, and then help them come to some sort of conclusion about it. Rather than just telling them, ‘this is what you have to do.’” Similarly, the leader whose values conflicted with a youth being recruited by the Marines said, “I don’t want to be the person that stopped her from doing whatever it is that she wants to do, but I just want to make sure that she gets the whole picture.” The leaders focused on the youth’s needs and strengths, helped the young people come to their own conclusions, and maintained a focus on supporting youth to grow and learn from the situation. Goal: Foster Ethical Development An overriding goal in dealing with ethical dilemmas should be facilitating youths’ ethical development (Roberts, 2009). The youth workers we studied focused not just on engaging youth to remediate situations but also on helping young people learn from them. For example, in the situation where the youth worker discovered that a youth participant plagiarized his online magazine story, she weighed journalistic ethics and her feelings of personal betrayal, as well as how to turn this into a learning opportunity. She deliberated and talked with her supervisor and a trusted colleague. She then spoke with the young man, who apologized profusely and was able to repair the situation and rewrite the article. She recounted: He did something wrong, but I don’t want him to feel like he can’t overcome that and make up for it and learn from it. . . . He clearly knew it was not the right thing to do. You can tell from his reaction when I called him on it. . . . He knows it’s going to take a while to regain my trust and he’s really going to do everything he can to make up for it.

In an instance where youth participants were disrespectfully “drawing on the whiteboard these very stereotypical drawings of Middle Eastern men and guns” while watching another youth’s video on the war in Iraq, the youth worker described her goal of trying to build empathy and understanding. She would ask the youth, “How would you feel about that?” The stolen iPod scenario was a clear-cut ethical violation of program norms, the homeless youth scenario highlights the process of weighing different ethical concerns (e.g., rights, needs, interests), and the military recruiter scenario illustrates how the leader had to be aware of and reconcile her own values and ethical stance. Across all of these dilemmas, the program leaders framed the dilemmas as opportunities to model ethical practice and support young people’s ethical development.

224    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

Process: Relationships and Boundaries The youth workers leveraged the trusting relationships forged, recognized their own feelings and boundaries, and proactively sought support. In the stolen iPod example, the youth worker’s response “came naturally because I already had an established relationship with him.” This foundation allowed the youth worker to start from a strengths-based place and rather than a punitive one. Likewise, in the example of the leader trying to help the homeless youth, the youth worker leveraged the strong, trusting relationships she had established with the girl to steer her towards a safer choice. She explained that she starts relationships with young people by asking: “Where do you see yourself? What do you really enjoy doing? Where do you want to be in three years?” So that really helps me in these situations, if I’m encouraging or kind of steering in a direction I can be like, “This right here is not getting you to be that doctor you’ve talked about.” And I think that helps because it’s strength-based and it’s focused on those goals and future plans.

But that same youth worker emphasized the importance of maintaining a personal and professional boundary. In the past, the leader shared, “I think the old me would have given her my personal cell phone. . . . I’ve picked youth up in tough situations.” These prior experiences have convinced the leader that such action is beyond the parameters of her position, and explained, “It’s really hard for me to separate. . . . It’s not like I go home and it’s just, you know Superman, where I just take off my cape or something.” Balancing personal and professional boundaries is a common dilemma in youth work (Walker & Larson, 2006). In hindsight, the youth workers we studied emphasized the importance of recognizing their own feelings (e.g., disappointment, betrayal), not taking things personally, and not reacting impulsively. Part of recognizing the limits of one’s role is knowing when to seek help, whether it’s turning to a supervisor for advice or reaching out to local resources for counsel. IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Our research identifies some of the types of situations that novice practitioners must be prepared to respond to and some key features that characterize effective responses. This study points to the importance of examining how youth workers approach ethical dilemmas in their work. It is clear that these youth workers prioritized taking the time necessary to engage with the youth, to understand the youth’s perspective, and to facilitate the youth’s learning. Within this space, youth workers were able to transform negative or unsafe conduct into opportunities for the youth to learn and grow. Finally, they developed and leveraged trusting relationships with youth, recognized personal and

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    225

professional boundaries, and knew when to seek additional support. These findings have implications for the training and support of youth workers. Foster Youth Workers’ Awareness of Ethical Dimensions and Personal Knowledge Professional development can help youth workers understand the ethical aspects of their work, the range of ethical dilemmas to anticipate, and the features of effective responses to keep in mind. Beyond learning how to handle or react to ethical dilemmas, training needs to emphasize the role and responsibility of youth workers to establish supportive relationships that both model and encourage young people’s ethical development. Further, training can help raise youth workers’ awareness of their multiple interests and responsibilities as well as stimulate ethical reflection and practice. Professional development can help youth workers become aware of and know how to draw upon their personal background, education, and experience. In addition, it can help youth workers recognize and understand their limitations within the context of the program. Further, youth workers can also learn to understand how and whether to draw upon their personal background and prior experience in order to address ethical dilemmas with youth. One practitioner encountered a dilemma whereby a youth participant had experienced bullying as well as personal loss from a death of a community member. The youth leader reflected that “it was just instinctual for my counseling side to come out” and drew on this facet of her identity in order to help the young person process the experience and feel reassured from peers that the program was a place where he belonged. This leader surmised, “I think having a leader that has . . . that type of skill and background . . . was a big asset.” In other instances, the youth workers we studied drew upon personal knowledge from their own life experiences. Having an ecological intelligence—contextualized knowledge of the youths’ neighborhood or culture—influences a youth worker’s response to an ethical dilemma (Ross et al.). Finally, it is clear from our study that youth workers who recognized their professional and personal limitations, and who felt competent and capable to access external assistance, were able to address situations in which they initially felt uncomfortable and ill-prepared. Provide Organizational Support, Guidance, and Space for Ethical Reflection and Dialogue The programmatic and organizational structure plays a role in providing youth workers with much-needed opportunities for reflection and support. Supervisors can build in staff meeting time to raise and discuss dilemmas

226    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS

that arise. Practitioners learn from participating in reflective spaces where they can articulate, examine, and discuss the dilemmas of daily practice with peers (Walker & Walker, 2012). This helps them to be more explicit about underlying values and assumptions and more intentional about their goals and actions. In hindsight, many of the youth workers interviewed desired more time to dedicate to addressing an ethical dilemma with a young person. Training can reinforce the importance and help to guide the process of taking time to reflect and to not react in haste. The youth workers featured in this chapter made it a priority to reflect on their personal values and consider their own ethical stance. After this introspection, they bridged their personal values to their commitment to youth development and to their responsibilities as a youth worker. If youth workers have the opportunity to situate their strengths, assets, and limitations as part of a larger programmatic team with varied histories and skillsets, then they can see each other as resources and sources of support when they face ethical dilemmas with youth. Moreover, youth-serving organizations have an obligation to sensitize staff to the ethical issues that can arise when working with youth, to offer guidelines on how to support their ethical development, and to clearly communicate expectations through training and ongoing support (Rhodes et al., 2009). Leadership and other staff can offer a critical support system to youth leaders who struggle to balance program rules, the responsibilities of their position, and the well-being and holistic development of youth participants. Youth-serving organizations play a role in helping establish norms and rules, as well as strategies for dealing with violations. Further, they can provide clarity and promote intentionality around ethical development goals of the program. Finally, organizations are critical in reinforcing appropriate boundaries between youth workers and youth, as well as connecting youth workers to outside resources and support. In particular, youth workers must know about and understand the legal parameters under which their program operates, as well as how the organization’s relationship with other institutions affects what they can and cannot assure young people in terms of their ongoing participation. Being well informed about these regulations and relationships and able to analyze the potential unintended consequences of different outcomes allows youth workers to provide assistance to youth even when the challenges they face are outside of the direct purview of program activities. This is particularly urgent and essential for emergency or crisis situations. CONCLUSION Our research highlights the complex nature of youth work and the highly situational factors that affect how youth workers undertake youths’ ethical

Ethical Dilemmas Experienced By Youth Workers    227

development. However, it also provides a starting point from which to consider the balance of interests at hand, trends in the processes at work, and transformative nature for those involved in such work. The ethical dilemmas profiled in this study demonstrate how youth workers confronted norms, safety, and values and how intentionality is required to respond in a youth-centered way that supports ethical development. Relationships provided an underpinning for crafting effective responses, and youth workers deliberately centered the perspective and developmental needs of the youth in resolving complicated and tense situations that involved multiple points of view. At the same time, youth workers needed to recognize limits and practice self-care. They drew on sources of support, both personal and external, in order to maintain the physical and emotional health of both themselves and the young person. A final consideration highlighted by this study is the extent to which the program and organization support the youth worker to address ethical dilemmas with the youth that they serve. A goal for professional development in this arena is to provide space and support to stimulate ethical reflection, spark critical dialogue among youth workers, and provide organizational guidance. REFERENCES Anderson-Nathe, B. (2010). Youth workers, stuckness, and the myth of supercompetence. New York, NY: Routledge. Baldridge, B. J. (2014). Relocating the deficit: Reimagining black youth in neoliberal times. American Educational Research Journal, 51(3), 440–472. Banks, S. (2010). Ethics and the youth worker. In S. Banks (Ed.), Ethical issues in youth work (2nd ed., pp. 3–23). New York, NY: Routledge. Deutsch, N. (2005). “I like to treat others as others would treat me”: The development of prosocial selves in an urban youth organization. New Directions for Youth Development, 108, 89–105. Gharabaghi, K. (2008). Values and ethics in child and youth care practice. Child & Youth Services, 30(3), 185–209. Larson, R. W., & Walker, K. C. (2010). Dilemmas of practice: Challenges to program quality encountered by youth program leaders. American Journal of Community Psychology, 45, 338–349. Rhodes, J. E., Liang, B., & Spencer, R. (2009). First do no harm: Ethical principles for youth mentoring relationships. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40, 452–458. Roberts, J. (2009). Youth work ethics. Exeter, UK: Learning Matters. Ross, L., Capra, S., Carpenter, L., Hubbell, J., & Walker, K. (2015). Dilemmas in youth work and youth development practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Sercombe, H. (2010). Youth work ethics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

228    K. WALKER and T. G. WEISS VeLure Roholt, R., Rana, S., Baizerman, M., & Korum, K. (2013). Missing in the youth development literature: The organization as host, cage, and promise. New Directions for Youth Development, 139, 13–26. Walker, K. (2011). The multiple roles that youth development program leaders adopt with youth. Youth & Society, 43(2), 635–655. Walker, K., & Larson, R. (2006). The dilemmas of youth work: Balancing the personal and professional. New Directions for Youth Development, 112, 109–118. Walker, J., & Walker, K. C. (2012). Establishing expertise in an emerging field. In D. Fusco (Ed.), On becoming an academic profession (pp. 39–51). New York, NY: Routledge. Walker, J., Gran, C. F., & Curiel, A. (2005). Shaping ethics: Youth workers matter. New Directions for Youth Development, 108, 19–30. Wood, J., Westwood, S., & Thompson, G. (2015). Youth work: Preparation for practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

CHAPTER 12

YOUTH WORK FOR SOCIAL CHANGE Preparing Individuals to Work With Youth in Diverse Urban Contexts Kristen Atkinson, Emilia Chico, and Stacey S. Horn University of Illinois at Chicago

Chicago is an amazing place to engage in youth development practice and youth work. Chicago offers a robust system of services, opportunities, and policies aimed at meeting the developmental needs of all young people. We are equipped with an array of traditional, national youth organizations such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago and YMCA. We boast a long history of civic advocacy for youth rights, including the founding of the first juvenile court in 1899, as well as more recent efforts to curb the rampant criminalization of youth of color. And we are proud of the many innovative, grassroots youth programs that engage young people as leaders and seek to build youth-led movements for a more just society. In spite of these important resources and contemporary social change efforts, young people in Chicago continue to struggle with, and against, racial

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 229–247 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

229

230    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

discrimination, under-resourced schools and neighborhoods, community violence, poverty, sexism, heterosexism, and gender policing. Similarly, those of us working alongside youth continue to struggle for more effective interpersonal, organizational, and systemic responses to the complexity of life for youth in urban contexts like Chicago. We seek responses that reject the idea of successful youth work practice and programs as “controlling,” “containing,” or regulating young people and instead embrace more liberatory frameworks and practices aimed at working with young people toward social transformation and community change (Fusco, in press). This type of work requires a more critical analysis of the conditions in which young people live and grow than is typically included in the general framework of positive youth development (for critiques of the general PYD framework, see Ginwright & James, 2002; Perkins, Borden, & Villarruel, 2001; Watts & Flanagan, 2007). In order to effectively support young people, we must recognize how power, privilege, and oppression shape the supports and opportunities available to them. This also requires a reframing of central tenets of youth work practice—advocacy, allyship, and youth agency—so that the focus is more centrally on working alongside youth in enacting just and equitable community change. In this chapter, we outline one approach to preparing individuals to work with young people in these ways, the master of education in youth development at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Utilizing the youth development program (YDP) as a case example, we will highlight the successes, challenges, and lessons learned in doing this work. We draw on personal narratives of former students to illustrate the intricacies of preparing youth workers to engage with diverse young people in urban spaces. In addition, we discuss how the program has evolved based on our efforts to be responsive to the changing and often critical needs of individuals engaged in youth development work. Finally, we offer recommendations for creating and implementing higher education degree programs focused on equity and justice in youth work. PREPARING YOUTH WORKERS: THE MED YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM The master of education in youth development at University of Illinois Chicago grew out of the professional need for a youth worker preparation program grounded within developmental theory, social justice, and critical educational praxis. At the time of its inception, the landscape of youth work professional development and preparation was largely comprised of piecemeal trainings and a few extended certification programs developed by national or state-level organizations. In addition, a few key degree

Youth Work for Social Change     231

programs within higher education existed, most notably at the University of Minnesota and Michigan State University. Within the last ten years, this landscape has shifted dramatically, in large part due to the Wingspread conference and subsequent report, “Attracting, Developing, and Retaining Youth Workers for the Next Generation” (Stone, Borden, & Garza, 2004); today, more degree programs are available at the associate, bachelor, and graduate level, as well as state-level credentials and career lattice systems (for example, in Illinois, http://www.ilgateways.com/en/school-age-andyouth-development-credential and Indiana, www.indianayouthpro.org). However, the UIC program has been unique in three critical ways. First, at the time of its development, the program was one of the few advanced degree programs within the United States with the sole focus of preparing individuals to work with young people. Second, from its inception, positive youth development and assets-based and social change approaches—as opposed to risk-reduction, prevention, and resilience approaches—served as the theoretical and ideological foundations for the program. Finally, it was one of the few degree programs in the country focused on preparing individuals to work with youth in diverse urban contexts.1 In the early 2000s, faculty in the educational psychology department of the College of Education (COE) conducted an assessment of the professional development and youth work preparation landscape, as well as the national occupational outlook for out-of-school time youth workers. We identified several key opportunities at both the national and state level, including likely job growth in the non-profit sector of 15% in the next 10 years, the need for advanced degrees for both entry-level and management positions (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005), and nearly 5,000 vacancies annually within the youth service field with over 2,000 of those vacancies being at or above the supervisory/director level (National Collaboration for Youth, 1995). With over 300,000 programs and 17,000 organizations serving youth across the nation, the field was calling out for highly qualified staff and directors with expertise in program development, implementation, and evaluation (Borden & Perkins, 2006; Huebner, Walker, & McFarland, 2003). Also of note, evaluation research indicated that (1) program success was dependent on quality of staff (Center for School and Community Services, 2002; Grossman et al., 2002); (2) staff rarely have or receive adequate training for engaging in this work (Carnegie Corporation, 1992); and (3) despite the importance of staff, a notable dearth of programs specifically aimed at developing high-quality youth development professionals exist (Borden & Perkins, 2006). Given this context, the YDP was established in 2008 as one of the country’s few graduate degree programs specializing in youth development theory and practice, with a focus on preparing individuals to work in urban contexts (Borden & Perkins, 2006). Early on in our program implementation, we began to realize that our framing in positive youth development,

232    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

while important, was not enough to prepare students to engage in authentic, asset-based youth work in urban communities and with young people who are significantly affected by systemic forms of oppression. In response to the needs of our students, we have refined our curriculum to more fully incorporate both community youth development (CYD) and social justice youth development (SJYD) approaches (Ginwright & James, 2002; Perkins et al., 2001; Watts & Flanagan, 2007). In the next section of the chapter, we review the core principles and components of the program, as well as how they align with existing theoretical frameworks of youth work for social transformation and community change. The Four Pillars of the YDP The YDP at UIC is built on four foundational pillars. First and foremost, as stated earlier, we view all young people from an assets-based, developmental perspective. This perspective asserts that every individual has valuable strengths and capacities already present within themselves and their ecosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Lerner; 2006). Our task, as youth advocates and allies, is to help young people identify these strengths and provide meaningful opportunities to build upon them. Secondly, we emphasize the need for programs and services to be both culturally and contextually relevant to the young people with whom they work. This requires frontline and managerial staff to closely consider the personal identities young people embody, as well as the families, neighborhoods, schools, and communities within which they are embedded, when developing and delivering resources for youth. The third pillar of our program focuses largely on the distinct experiences of youth in urban environments, examining complex issues such as policing of youth, community violence and trauma, inequities in public education, racism, housing segregation, poverty, and under-resourced neighborhoods. This work also warrants attending to the unique opportunities available to urban youth to engage in important developmental tasks such as embracing diversity and building alliances, confronting racial and economic inequality, and engaging in activism and civic leadership. Finally, while youth are often cast as passive participants in society, we fervently uphold a belief in youth as agents of change in their own lives, communities, and the larger world around them. This view advances a more active role for young people, one in which they use their voices, passion, and energy to address social inequities. We advance this belief by showcasing examples of personal and collective youth agency and teaching students the skills to support and uplift youth voice in all they do. These four pillars form the basis of how we approach the education and professional development of youth workers. Originally rooted in ecosystemic

Youth Work for Social Change     233

theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) and developmental psychology (Hamilton & Hamilton, 2004; Lerner, 1982; Mahoney, Larson, & Eccles, 2005; Pittman & Irby, 1996), over the years we have come to understand the absolute necessity of looking beyond an individual’s experiences across systems and instead centering theories that consider the larger economic, social, and cultural forces impacting a young person’s experience (Ginwright & James, 2002; Perkins et al., 2001; Watts & Flanagan, 2007). Although the nested systems model and developmental research remain important, we have expanded our philosophical foundation in order to better address the critical roles of identity, oppression, and resistance inherent in the lives of urban youth of color, as well as the interrelated nature of youth development with healthy community development. Community youth development approaches embed youth development opportunities and strategies within the larger contexts, systems, and structures within young people’s lives and actively focuses on youth becoming “engaged as partners in their own development as well as the development of their communities” (Perkins et al., 2001, p. 47). Expanding on this, social justice youth development encourages us to incorporate the development of critical consciousness and sociopolitical competencies into our work with young people so as to facilitate their active engagement in a just civic process (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2002). By embedding these overarching frameworks into our curriculum, we ask students and ourselves to consider: (1) what it means to be in developmental alliance (Nakkula & Toshalis, 2013) with young people; (2) to understand our own privilege and power and how it intersects with our work with young people; (3) to examine the systemic and structural conditions in which young people live, learn, and grow; and (4) to engage in youth work that is participatory, contextually and culturally grounded, and informed by a social justice perspective. Additionally, these paradigms implore students in our program to consider two complementary questions: How are we personally transformed by our experiences working with youth, and how might we use self-reflection to further our professional growth and development? We use a variety of educational strategies to cultivate this commitment to CYD and SJYD among students, including creating “learning communities,” providing a flexible curriculum, engaging students in meaningful field-based experiences, offering an optional student-driven colloquium, incorporating reflective learning practices, and organizing ongoing professional development opportunities. Programmatic Structure We offer two tracks: applied—for students who intend to be practitioners—and thesis—for those who hope to work as program evaluators, be in

234    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

the policy arena, or pursue doctoral studies. Both tracks require students to complete course work in developmental theory, research and methodology, an area of specialization, and a culminating experience. Our Seminar in Urban Youth Development is a required course for all incoming students and establishes the theoretical foundation for the program. Students determine other courses, with the help of their advisor, from a list of approved “selectives.” Areas of specialization are student-determined and vary widely based on interest; examples include health and wellness, international youth development, social-emotional learning, racial identity development, and restorative justice, to name a few. The culminating experience—fieldwork for applied students and an independent research project for thesis students—is also student-driven. Applied students enroll in two consecutive semesters of the fieldwork course, which walks them through the process of developing their professional goals, determining a practice site, crafting a project, and evaluating their learning. Thesis students work with a committee of faculty to carry out their independent research study. The Need for Responsiveness We actively elicit and genuinely value student and alumni input into our program structure and content; over time, we have intentionally refined our programmatic tenets in response to the evolving needs of students, youth, and the field at large. This need to be responsive to our students, as well as to the communities in which we work, grew out of the recognition of the challenges and opportunities inherent in working with young people in diverse, urban spaces. Over the years, we have not only adapted our curriculum to the evolving needs of our students and in response to critical issues affecting youth within Chicago, but we have also added program elements to supplement our more traditional curricular offerings. Below we offer several examples of how the program has evolved in response these needs. First, early in the program’s history, violence erupted outside of a local high school that resulted in the death of a 16-year-old student. Caught on video, the beating of Darrion Albert, as well as the subsequent arrest and trial of four young men, instantly became national news. The impact of this violence on the young people in Chicago and the youth workers involved in their lives demanded attention. As a program, we felt the need to create space in our classes for students to talk about and process what had happened, how it was being represented in the media, how these events and representations were affecting us and the youth with whom we work, and how our field might contribute to solutions. During this time, we had another student in the program lose a young person with whom she worked to gun violence. We quickly realized that the

Youth Work for Social Change     235

prescribed curricular space did not allow for this type of flexible, urgent, issue-oriented discourse that our community desperately needed to begin to make sense of these issues and contribute to solutions within the field. The next semester, we added a one-credit optional colloquium specifically designed to open up this type of dialogue. The colloquium syllabus is co-created with students each semester so that the content can focus on critical, current, and relevant issues and events that affect the lives of young people in Chicago, as well as the implications of these issues for youth work practice. Examples of colloquium topics include the criminalization of youth of color, representations of youth in the media, community organizing with youth, arts-based practices, restorative justice, and trauma and healing. Colloquium has also become a space for students to really grapple with their own identities and how those identities may affect their work with diverse, urban-dwelling youth. Another example of how the program has responded to the needs of our current students is developing and hosting cocurricular workshops and trainings for students on subjects that they feel the curriculum does not adequately cover. Over the years we have hosted speaking engagements with scholars on social justice youth development, youth participatory action research, and youth participatory practices. We have also brought in young people and practitioners to do workshops on spoken word, traumainformed practice, and harm reduction. For the past four years, we have sponsored a student-led summit providing professional development and networking opportunities to over 150 practitioners each year. A unique feature of the summit is the forefronting of youth-led workshops on issues and strategies they define as particularly relevant to adult allies. All of these cocurricular offerings have developed out of student input regarding the program and often in collaboration with them. Unintentionally, these offerings have pushed the faculty to continually rethink the curriculum in ways that better meet the needs of the students. We have come to view this type of programmatic responsiveness as a critical tenet of what it means to practice social justice youth development, in part, due to the dynamic nature of urban spaces and the complexity of the communities in which our students work. In addition to informally soliciting student input into the YDP, we are currently conducting an evaluative study of the program’s impact through in-depth interviews of alumni. In the next section of the chapter, we will discuss our emerging findings from this work. PRELIMINARY THEMES Since January 2015, we have interviewed six alumni from varying cohorts2. Demographically, these alumni included two multiracial Asian American

236    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

women, two Black women, one Black man, and one White woman. In general, these alumni were fairly representative of the student population within the program over the past seven years. For example, across the eight cohorts we have admitted (not inclusive of the 2015 cohort), 36% of the students identify as African American, 36% as White/Caucasian, 20% as Latino/a, 5% as Asian/Pacific Islander, and 3% as multiracial. Most of the students come from Chicago, the surrounding suburbs, or Illinois, with only about 20% of the students coming from other states within the United States or internationally. Historically, the program has tended to enroll more women (76%) than men (24%). Although data collection is still ongoing, we have begun initial analysis and developed some key themes. Semistructured interviews were conducted to capture the experiences of YPD students, specifically the strengths and weaknesses of the program, successes and challenges experienced as youth workers, and how the YDP has prepared them to work with youth in diverse settings. In the pages to come we share findings from these qualitative interviews with YDP alumni; these findings highlight the complexities of educating students to be effective, ethical, critical youth development professionals who are able to work with diverse youth. Programmatic Strengths A significant initial finding is alumni’s appreciation for the program’s very existence. These six alumni were drawn to the program precisely because of its focus on positive youth development (PYD) within an urban context. Two of the interviewees specifically cited the importance of a program addressing adolescence and young adulthood as opposed to early childhood. In particular, the assets orientation inherent in the program appealed to Julie, who noted how PYD stands in opposition to the deficit framing generally surrounding young people in our society. Two others— Aja and Stephanie—specifically moved to Chicago to attend this program, citing a motivation to live, work, and serve young people within an urban center. Half of the alumni interviewed discussed how the COE’s and YDP’s emphasis on social justice issues influenced their decision to enroll. These alumni were looking for content on how to work with young people in ways that attend to their experiences of racism, classism, sexism, educational inequity, and adultism, to name a few. Finally, Danton, Alyssa, and Aja referenced the flexibility of the program to choose your courses, timeline, and area of specialization as key to their educational experience. Reflecting on her overall experience, Aja stated, “[the program allowed us] to choose the direction we went in. We all came in with different populations we wanted to serve. . . .  [T]here was that

Youth Work for Social Change     237

flexibility there for us to take the classes that we needed to take, to become who we needed to become. And I really appreciated that.” Additionally, alumni found the cohort model, core YDP courses, and emphasis on putting theory into practice to be noteworthy strengths of the program. In terms of the cohort model, all six alumni emphasized the importance of a community of learners. Being part of a collective learning process allowed them to deepen their listening and reflection skills, as well as their ability to understand where people are at in their learning and how to help push their peers’ critical thinking. Danton described the cohort model as a space: Where you can challenge your peers. . . . You get to see people’s growth, how people shift. Even what happened to me, starting with Black males and rights of passage. By the time I left YD I was looking at an intergenerational framework, broadening my analysis, adding a feminist critique. I saw other people do that, thinking about things differently.

Aja concurred: There was a collective goal of how we all viewed young folks or at least how people were shifting their view of young folks. . . . We were in these spaces going crazy and trying to figure things out. We came to a space where other people were seeing these same things. I appreciated that we were able to grow and build together and that those relationships are still there today.

According to Danton, Julie, and Stephanie, part of the transformative power of the cohort model is attributable to the diversity of students’ backgrounds and experiences. When asked if diversity of the cohort impacted her learning, Julie stated, Absolutely it did. Not at first because I was stuck in the way I did things. Then to be around people who had different experiences made me realize that I needed to be more open. That was helpful to me, absolutely.

As Alyssa, Christine, and Aja poignantly reminded us, this model is most successful when faculty make a concerted and intentional commitment to facilitate space for relationship and community building among students, staff, and alumni. Because this model requires all students to acknowledge their own power and privilege, as well as their own experiences with discrimination and marginalization, buying into this model can take time and a willingness to be vulnerable with people who may be unaware of their social privileges. Christine, who identifies as a multiracial Asian American, provided the following example:

238    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN I didn’t really get the cohort model in the beginning. I went into it thinking “I’m not here to make friends because you all are racist.” I really started getting it the second year . . . once we started the fieldwork class and it was really about sharing our experiences and learning from each other and there was one time when [faculty] facilitated a discussion about like a “community of learners” or something and I really started thinking about what it would mean for me to like be more humble. . . . That was a big turning point for me.

When at its best, the cohort model allows students to develop a network of professional and personal relationships that, in Aja’s words, “move beyond UIC.” Alumni identified the core YDP courses—the Seminar in Urban Youth Development and the Fieldwork Course—as key strengths of the program. They viewed these courses as a foundation for their graduate studies, a reflective space for critical thinking and self-exploration, and a means of building and deepening professional community. In particular, alumni cited the introductory seminar as an opportunity to become acquainted with PYD theory and research and become grounded in assets-based principles and practices. According to Danton, this course encouraged students to ask, “What identity work do we need to do in order to build genuine community?” Similarly, Aja, Julie, Stephanie, and Christine all described the fieldwork course as a space for deeper self-reflection and dialogue. These alumni found educational value in the relationships with their peers, collective problem solving processes, and emphasis on putting theory into practice that is inherent in the course structure. In fact, putting theory into practice appears to be another key strength of the YDP. All of the alumni interviewed thus far have offered important examples of how the fieldwork requirement has helped them utilize PYD principles and practical skills within their professional work. For Stephanie, this work has meant creating meaningful roles for young people within the program planning process. For Julie, it has involved deeper listening to young people and new ways of engaging in consciousness raising around racial identity work. For Alyssa, putting theory into practice includes expanding the language used to describe our work and confronting adultism when it arises. For others, it has centered on educating young people and adults about new ways to create genuine intergenerational partnerships. Lastly, our analysis to date reveals that the YDP is excelling in addressing two of the four programmatic pillars of our program: (1) developmental theory/assets-based development and (2) youth as agents of change. Alumni discussed how the program helped them bring an assets-based perspective to courses offered outside the YDP, as well as to their workplaces. For Alyssa, a student all too familiar with the rampant disparaging of youth of color in our society, this emphasis on assets-based development was “eyeopening.” For Danton, it created the space to explore how socially toxic

Youth Work for Social Change     239

environments contribute to the development of internal and external assets and what assets look like within these contexts. According to our interviews, this emphasis on developmental assets began in the foundational seminar and ran throughout the program courses. Interestingly, alumni spoke in more depth about the importance of the assets-based perspective than of “developmental theory,” perhaps indicating a breakdown in how we discuss positive youth development as a theoretical concept. Alumni also indicated that the program helped them embrace the notion of youth as agents of change and grapple with how to create spaces where young people can enact agency. Christine and Stephanie credit the program with helping them incorporate youth voice into program design. Christine attributed her change in attitude toward youth to the program’s emphasis on agency: “There were some continuums, youth as partners versus youth as recipients, that was a very easy way to help me visualize where the program was on the spectrum . . . [and change] mindsets about trusting youth and giving more power to young people.” In a similar vein, Alyssa asserted that having conversations about how much of youth work is not about youth agency helped her identify gaps in how we do this work. Aja, who came into the program with a deeply held belief in youth agency, found herself exploring the efficacy of various models of youth–adult partnerships: The program pushed me to think about to what extent should we as adults intervene. I really struggled with some of the models where I felt like adults were completely hands-off and youth were figuring it out by themselves. I didn’t think that was realistic and I still don’t think it’s realistic to how we develop. I think we need guidance in some ways. So I struggled with how to be more hands-off . . . but how do I also find that balance and how do I assess the context that I’m in.

Danton, who views youth agency within a larger social change framework, also underscored how the program’s emphasis on context helped him unpack this aspect of the work and build solidarity among young people and adult allies. Programmatic Challenges In reference to the program’s commitment to “educating youth-dedicated professionals through fostering knowledge, skills, and passion for working with youth in urban contexts,” our alumni have urged us to clarify, what do we mean by urban, anyway? And who exactly are we talking about? Attending to the needs of youth in urban contexts is a pillar of the program: Courses are tailored to include issues pertaining to urban communities, and the majority of

240    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

the YD students complete their field experience in Chicago neighborhoods. However, when asked to discuss how the program addresses youth in urban contexts, our alumni felt that the program could be more explicit about how we understand this construct. Christine noted, “More specificity is needed. For me I read ‘urban youth’ as Black and Brown and being non-inclusive of Asian American students.” For some students, like Christine, the term urban can became synonymous with “inner city” or “at-risk” and conjure up a stereotypical image of low-income African American and Latino youth. Overall, our analysis revealed that it is not effective or relevant to discuss “urban” so broadly, especially in Chicago where racial and economic disparities impact the diverse experiences of young people who weave in and out of geographical boundaries. YD students have pushed us to rethink contextual relevancy. Danton asked us to think critically about, “What is relevant for this particular community? What is relevant for my community?” Students like Danton, who have experienced first-hand the consequences of gentrification, community violence, public school closings, and housing segregation, are able to offer a rich perspective for understanding the transformation of urban communities. Furthermore, these issues convey the complexity that informs what it means to work in an urban context and what issues an academic program needs to focus on to remain contextually relevant. In other words, it’s not enough to simply emphasize urban contexts and urban youth without attending to institutional disparities and issues of equity and access, issues that shape our understanding of diverse individuals and communities. Similar to the concerns around the term “urban,” interviewees felt a tension when discussing cultural relevance. For many, the YD program did not address race and ethnicity, “enough,” “in depth,” or as it “relates to Chicago.” For Christine, whose professional interests focus primarily on the experiences of multiracial, Asian American youth, it was important to seek out courses and readings that interrupted the Black–White binary often dominant in discussions. Julie noted specifically that the introductory course, Seminar in Youth Development, “didn’t do enough to address urban youth or youth of color.” Alyssa also mentioned that the seminar relied on readings and data that emphasized the experiences of “White suburban youth in sports programs.” Aja remarked that the introductory course readings did not pay close enough attention to the experiences of diverse youth; however, this gap in the content “pushed [her] to take courses in race and ethnicity, like Critical Race Theory (CRT), issues that were missing in the course.” Stephanie also mentioned that she was unable to take CRT, and she took it upon herself to seek out workshops and trainings outside the university that addressed race and ethnicity in meaningful ways. Danton expressed another perspective on how the program addressed cultural relevancy; he stated, “YD gave me the general knowledge of adolescent

Youth Work for Social Change     241

development. It was up to me to come up with the cultural and contextual relevancy. How could anybody else tell me what was relevant? It left it open for me to do that work.” This comment expresses the complexity that exists when addressing cultural relevancy and teaching topics of race, ethnicity, and urban experiences. Some students need readings, lectures, and theoretical models to help them understand the lived experiences of youth of color while others need to get their feet wet in the field and experience it for themselves. However, what then becomes another layer in addressing this issue is how to encourage YD professionals to uncover their bias and work through feelings of racial privilege. In discussing, this Danton expressed, Not everyone can do that. In my cohort there could have been more of the challenging on that piece. I would have liked to have challenged them. I can’t do that like a professor could. Push people to think about critical whiteness. How do we challenge people to think about that? To ask themselves, “maybe I’m not needed in this community.” How do we get folks to think about that?

This is precisely where the complexity lies. It’s not enough to simply read about race and ethnicity. Youth development professionals, especially those who have a desire to work in urban communities, must do the critical work of addressing institutional oppression, racial bias, and racial privilege, all of which informs an individual’s YD approach. Consequently, when this critical self-work is not attended to, practitioners may unwittingly reinforce oppressive attitudes and behaviors; urban communities and youth of color can become “objects” to be saved for the sake of promoting one’s own worth and value as opposed to “agents” of their own development. A final challenge alumni noted was the program’s difficulty balancing content breadth versus depth. Interviewees discussed specific topics that were introduced “abstractly” and the lack of depth provided. As one interviewee expressed, “YD puts a lot of concepts on the table but doesn’t go into depth into everything.” This was conveyed as alumni described topics such as adultism, restorative justice, and trauma-informed practice. These topics, for example, were chosen intentionally based on informal feedback from students and practitioners and reflect the dynamic needs of urban youth; however, very little curricular space is available to address them beyond the introductory level. Breadth versus depth is a difficult challenge to tackle. On the one hand, the students walk away from their time in the YD program having been introduced to a variety of topics—topics that may be more or less applicable given their current professional role. On the other hand, students may feel short-changed when topics are not fully addressed. For many students, their area of specialization and the skills required of them also shift as their experiences in the field evolve; these concerns require programmatic responsiveness, as was detailed earlier.

242    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

Educational and Vocational Outcomes In discussing what the “YD program has afforded you,” the interviewees described gaining new language, new skills, reflexive practice, and a professional network. All of the alumni described their exposure to “new language” as the first step in gaining confidence as a YD professional. For example, most of our alumni discussed “adultism,” a concept that resonated as eye-opening. When describing their experiences in the field, “challenging adultism” became an integral component in promoting a PYD framework. Alyssa described, “I learned about adultism very abstractly. I have learned more about it by talking to people in programs and talking to youth. By noticing [when] people say things and then calling it out.” Alyssa’s example pinpoints a content area that has been directly useful in her professional practice. Other examples of key concepts alumni have learned and applied in their practice include “youth voice,” “agents of change,” and “youth–adult partnerships.” In addition to gaining new language, alumni noted a number of specific skills obtained through coursework. Both Christine and Stephanie mentioned their increased proficiency in participatory program planning. Christine also discussed the importance of learning to create theories of change, or logic models, while Stephanie referenced her new ability to develop and implement program evaluations. Danton, on the other hand, emphasized his increased skill at educating others, both youth and adults, on the dynamics of adultism and youth–adult partnerships. Notably, a theme that emerged for most of the alumni was their ability to advocate for PYD within organizational spaces. For example, Alyssa talked at length about assessing her role within the organization as an advocate for youth voice; she says: There are organizational cultures that are actually in opposition to what I think is positive youth development. . . . I don’t understand how you’re working with this critical consciousness . . . social justice speech and yet there’s actually oppressive actions happening in this space. . . . What’s actually open to being adapted and what to leave lay for the time. . . . What are the things I can impact and change? What’s my space to do that?

Similarly, alumni stated that the YD program encouraged them to become more aware, reflective, passionate, compassionate, and conscious. For Stephanie, the program’s emphasis on reflexivity helped her understand “what Chicago youth deal with on a daily basis,” and the field experience provided exposure to working in Chicago neighborhoods, helping her form an understanding of what her place as a White woman would be in this work. For others, the reflective process encouraged them to have a greater understanding of youth and the issues they face. Julie stated, “I’ve become better at listening to what youth have to say.” Similarly, Aja learned

Youth Work for Social Change     243

to think about young people on a micro level and became more aware of the role that young people play in society. Finally, the reflective learning strategies that are introduced early on in the program and emphasized throughout encourage students to share their experiences with their classmates: admitting fears and weaknesses, sharing areas of growth, and celebrating transformative moments. This process can be jarring for some students, often leaving them feeling vulnerable. However, what our analysis revealed is that all of the alumni interviewed have formed a network with their peers in which support, encouragement, resources, and feedback are readily provided. Stephanie, for one, emphasized the very personal impact of this community support on her life: [Our cohort] was my foundation of my family and my life in Chicago. It was this group of people from the YD program. I have found my chosen family from this group of people. The collective support and community support piece was most valuable and being surrounded by like-minded people was really encouraging.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Creating and implementing a degree program that strives to uphold the values of CYD and SJYD and attend to the needs of urban environments creates unique opportunities for YD professionals. As our initial findings have revealed, preparing professionals to work with diverse populations in urban communities requires a foundation deeply rooted in an assets-based framework, a flexible programmatic structure, and clearly communicated values that are integrated throughout all content areas. In addition to a clear mission and vision, a thriving degree program necessitates responsiveness from faculty and staff to help attend to the emerging landscape. The following section outlines specific recommendations to consider when developing and implementing a degree-seeking program in an urban environment. First, it is critically important to clearly define the youth populations and professionals your program intends to serve; be as specific as possible when articulating terms such as “urban” and “cultural relevance.” Similarly, be sure to address how your program will locate itself within the local context and draw on local realities to inform students of the complex socioeconomic, political, and cultural forces at play in young people’s lives. A second, related recommendation is to intentionally create space for student conversations around issues of social privilege, power, and oppression. Faculty must encourage students to engage in critical “self-work” and be willing and able to push students’ thinking about how our identities impact our roles within the communities in which we work. Two notes of importance

244    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN

here: (1) While reflective practice is a component of self-work, the terms are not synonymous; rather, self-work, in this respect, involves critical consciousness-raising and developing a lifelong commitment to understanding intersectionality, to being an ally, and to working toward ending systemic and individual oppression and marginalization; and (2) in order to facilitate such practice, faculty must also continually engage in our own critical reflection and consciousness-raising work (for example, through reflective journaling, peer feedback, and participation in professional development). Our third recommendation is to require at least two courses on PYD. Incorporating an additional PYD course would allow the program to truly ground itself in development theory while also emphasizing the social justice issues at play. Furthermore, a second PYD course would help address the challenge of breadth versus depth by ensuring that adequate curricular space exists to examine the most pressing issues and trends within the field. Finally, this additional course would offer students more opportunities to begin to question and thoroughly consider the nature of their approach to youth work. Our fourth recommendation is to invest time, energy, and intentionality into building a sense of community among students. To foster a strong cohort, faculty must include community-building activities within the core courses and initiate opportunities for students to interact outside of the classroom. Potlucks, workshops, and conferences support and reinforce the idea of a “community of learners” and lay the groundwork for the development of professional networks among graduates. Finally, to remain both current and relevant, we recommend embedding significant opportunities for student input into the content and structure of the program; formal and informal feedback provides the program with new insights into the emerging trends and unique circumstances of young people and adult allies within the local community. In addition, we feel that our program and this research project raise some important questions for the youth development field. For the past 15 years, several experts in the U.S. have pointed to the need for the “professionalization” of the field through developing agreed-upon and universally implemented core competencies and youth work credentials, as well as a more comprehensive and latticed educational system (AA, BA, MEd, PhD; for example, see Borden & Perkins, 2006). Currently, in Illinois, as in many states across the U.S., a credentialing system for school-age and youth workers is being piloted throughout the state. The YDP program at UIC is participating in this pilot by aligning our program with the “core standards,” as well as the other professional and educational requirements that comprise the credential. Yet, in doing this work, and in reflecting on our interviews, we feel a tension between the type of uniformity and regulation required to align with the state credential and the need to be responsive and flexible enough to continue to meet the changing and diverse needs

Youth Work for Social Change     245

of our students and the youth with whom they work. For example, in order to become an “entitled institution” to offer the credential to our students, we needed to prescribe the curriculum to a much greater extent than what the degree program requires. That means, for students wishing to obtain the credential upon graduation from the program, they have significantly less choice in their course of study and must actually choose from one of three predetermined areas of specialization. Conversely, we believe there is a potential positive impact the professionalization of the field and credentialing may have on (1) the quality of youth work and the ability of youth development professionals to engage in transformative work with diverse young people in urban spaces, (2) the ability of youth development professionals to make a living wage for this important work, and (3) the ability of organizations to retain exceptional youth development professionals within the field. As the movements toward professionalizing the field and standardizing the preparation of youth workers continues, this tension between regulation and responsiveness must remain at the forefront of these efforts. In doing so, we can ensure that we are simultaneously working to increase the validity, legitimacy, and quality of this important work, while establishing flexible systems that are relevant to the diverse and changing needs of the young people impacted by this work. In a recent review of the history of youth work, Dana Fusco (in press) discusses the conflicting frameworks that have guided youth work practice through the decades, which we alluded to in our introduction. Through a critical examination of the field, Fusco organizes approaches to youth work around two competing frameworks—a “sociology of regulation” and “sociology of change”—and traces the ways in which these frameworks allow youth work and youth workers to illuminate, critically examine, and transform inequalities within societies (Fusco, in press). Having engaged in preparing professionals to work with diverse youth in urban contexts for almost a decade, we argue that as a field, we must continue to push for a frame that illuminates social inequities and that positions social change and transformation at the center of our work. For it is only through a liberatory lens, as opposed to regulatory one, that youth workers will have he capacity to prepare youth to understand and transform this complex world. NOTES 1. This focus is a direct result of being located within a College of Education whose mission is to work with young people and families within Chicago (see the UIC College of Education Mission Statement at http://education.uic. edu/about-us/about-us#mission-values—history). Our definition of urban context or urban communities is not synonymous with “youth of color,” but rather encompasses the systemic issues that face young people and families

246    K. ATKINSON, E. CHICO, and S. S. HORN who live in urban spaces such as gentrification; educational, economic, racial, and social disparities; institutional violence; and access to resources, affordable housing, and adequate health services. As you will see as the chapter unfolds, this definition has been evolving with the program and may not yet be consistently manifested within our program implementation. 2. Our students enter the program in cohorts and take their first class, “Seminar in Youth Development,” together and typically take their fieldwork classes with this same group of people. To date, we have admitted nine cohorts (seven for fall admission and two for spring admission).

REFERENCES Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (1998). The ecology of developmental processes. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (5th ed., pp. 993–1028). New York, NY: Wiley. Borden, L. M., & Perkins, D. F. (2006). Community youth development professionals: Providing the necessary supports in the U.S. Child and Youth Care Forum, 35(2), 101–158. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2005). Industries at a glance: Education and health services. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/iag/ Carnegie Corporation. (1992). A matter of time: Risk and opportunity in the non-school hours. New York, NY: Author. Center for School and Community Services. (2002). BEST strengthens youth worker practice: An evaluation of building exemplary systems for training youth workers. Washington, DC: Academy for Educational Development. Fusco, D. (in press). History of youth work: Transitions, illuminations, refractions. In M. Heathfield & D. Fusco (Eds.), Youth and inequality in education: Global actions in youth work. New York, NY: Routledge. Ginwright, S., & Cammarota, J. (2002). New terrain in youth development: The promise of a social justice approach. Social Justice, 29(4), 82–95. Ginwright, S., & James, T. (2002). From assets to agents of change: Social justice, organizing, and youth development. New Directions for Youth Development, 96, 27–46. Grossman, J. B., Price, M. L., Fellerath,V., Jucovy, L. Z., Kotloff, L. J., Raley R., & Walker, K. E. (2002). Multiple choices after schools: Findings from the extendedservice schools initiative. Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures. Hamilton, S. F., & Hamilton, M. A. (2004). The youth development handbook: Coming of age in American communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Huebner, A. J., Walker, J. A., & McFarland, M. (2003). Staff development for the youth development professional: A critical framework for understanding the work. Youth and Society, 35(2), 204–225. Lerner, R. M. (1982). Children and adolescents as producers of their own development. Developmental Review, 2(4), 342–370. Lerner, R.M. (2006). Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories of human development. In W. Damon & R. Lerner (Eds.),

Youth Work for Social Change     247 Handbook of Child Psychology (6th ed), Vol.1: Theoretical Models of Human Development (pp.1–17). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lerner, R. M. (2007). Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories of human development. In R. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology. I:1. Mahoney, J. L., Larson, R., & Eccles, J. S. (2005). Organized activities as contexts of development: Extracurricular activities, after-school and community programs. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nakkula, M. J., & Toshalis, E. (2013). Understanding youth: Adolescent development for educators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. National Collaboration for Youth. (1995). Homepage. Retrieved from http://www. collab4youth.org/ Perkins, D. F., Borden, L. M., & Villarruel, F. A. (2001). Community youth development: A partnership for action. The School Community Journal, 11(2), 39–56. Pittman, K. J., & Irby, M. (1996). Preventing problems or promoting development? Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment, Impact Strategies. Stone, B., Garza, P., & Borden, L. (2004, November). Attracting, developing, and retaining youth workers for the next generation. In Wingspread Conference Proceedings (pp. 16–18). Watts, R. J., & Flanagan, C. (2007). Pushing the envelope on youth civic engagement: A developmental and liberation psychology perspective. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(6), 779–792.

This page intentionally left blank.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Kristen M. Pozzoboni is an assistant professor in the College of Health and Social Sciences at San Francisco State University. She advises the youth work and out of school time concentration for the Department of Child and Adolescent Development. In her research she draws on developmental and learning science to understand features of environments that engage youth and support social, emotional, and cognitive development. Her work has examined youth voice, school reform, and how policy and practice affects youth participation in schools, neighborhoods, and community-based organizations. Ben Kirshner is an associate professor in the School of Education at CU Boulder and faculty director for CU Engage: Center for Community-Based Learning and Research. Through his work with CU Engage, Ben seeks to develop and sustain university–community partnerships that leverage the resources of the university to address persistent public challenges. Ben’s research examines community-based youth organizing, participatory action research, and new forms of digital media as contexts for learning, development, and social change.

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, page 249 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

249

This page intentionally left blank.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Dr. Mary E. Arnold is a professor and youth development specialist in the School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University. Dr. Arnold works exclusively with the 4-H Youth Development Program, providing leadership and capacity building for program evaluation, focusing on translating research into program theory for measurable program impact and improvement. Kristen Atkinson (PhD, 2012, University of Illinois at Chicago) has worked with young people for the past 15 years in both community youth development and prevention programs. Her research explores the impact of liberatory education on young people’s activism for social justice. Kristen teaches courses on youth participatory action research, program planning and development, positive youth development, and fieldwork in youth development.  Jocelyn Atkins Michelsen, MA, MPA has a breadth of experience in community-based youth development, educational and professional development, and health programs in the U.S., Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Most recently, she led program evaluation studies in the out-of-school time field in the San Francisco Bay Area, including designing evaluation studies, managing implementation, conducting structured site visits, facilitating meetings and trainings, and authoring and co-authoring findings reports.

The Changing Landscape of Youth Work, pages 251–257 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

251

252   About the Contributors

Michael Baizerman is professor of youth studies in the School of Social Work, University of Minnesota. He is a leading scholar in the fields of youth studies and youth work with over 60 articles and books on topics ranging from the social construction of adolescence to the everyday lives of young people. He consults internationally with governments, universities, and community organizations and international nongovernmental organizations to build effective and sustainable youth work practice and programs. Dr. Edmond P. Bowers is an assistant professor of youth development leadership at Clemson University. Framed by the positive youth development (PYD) perspective, Dr. Bowers’ research focuses on the influence of formal and natural mentors in promoting the Five Cs of PYD. He has served in leadership positions on publicly and privately funded applied research projects and collaborated with researchers and practitioners to design, implement, and evaluate research-based programs in diverse youth settings across the United States. Marc T. Braverman is an extension specialist and professor of human development and family sciences at Oregon State University. His areas of focus include program evaluation theory and design, delivery of community programs, adolescent health, and tobacco policy and control. Prior to coming to OSU, he was a 4-H youth development specialist at the University of California, Davis, where he directed the California Tobacco Control Evaluation Center and the UC Davis Center for Youth Development. Gretchen Brion-Meisels is a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research seeks to explore holistic student support processes that build on the local knowledge of students and communities. She is particularly interested in finding ways to incorporate students in the researching and reforming of school climate. To this end, Dr. Brion-Meisels is interested in the intersections of bullying and discrimination in young peoples’ experiences with relational violence. Melissa Cater is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education and Evaluation at Louisiana State University/ LSU AgCenter. Her research interests include evaluation of youth development programs and data collection methods with youth. Emilia Chico (MEd, 2010, University of Illinois at Chicago) is an educator and youth advocate who has worked with young people for over ten years. She serves as a consultant for educators and youth development professionals on topics including youth–adult partnerships, inclusive learning environments, and identity development. Emilia teaches courses in intergroup dialogue, adolescent development, and positive youth development. She

About the Contributors    253

is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in educational psychology with a focus on human development and learning. Jeanne Dairaghi is co-founder of the nonprofit organization Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!), whose mission is to empower youth, in partnership with adults, to create community change. This mission is accomplished by a staff of high school students and adults who lead local and statewide advocacy efforts, facilitate adult and youth trainings, and provide consulting support. All YES! youth workers undergo an intensive onboarding on the empowerment and advocacy model, applying their employment experience to real-world situations.  Dana Fusco is a professor of education and youth studies at the City University of New York, York College. She has over 25 years of experience in the fields of youth work, youth work education and teacher education as a practitioner, researcher and educator. She has authored dozens of articles and books including Youth and Inequality in Education: Global Actions in Youth Work (2015) and Advancing Youth Work: Current Trends, Critical Question (2011). You can follow Dana on Twitter (@YouthWorkAdv) or on Facebook (AdvancingYouthWork). Ryan J. Gagnon, MA, is a doctoral student in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Clemson University. He has extensive experience as an experiential educator with diverse populations of youth-at-risk and currently serves as the research advisor for USA Climbing. His research focuses on the relationships between recreation and leisure programming and the socio-emotional growth of youth and young adults. Within this focus he studies the design, assessment, and implementation of youth and young adult programs utilizing contemporary methodology. www.ryangagnon.com Ellen S. Gannett, MEd, is director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time, a national action/research project at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. Her work bridges research to promote whole child development through system building for afterschool and youth development, professional development, and creating evaluation systems. Ms. Gannett’s honors include the National AfterSchool Association’s Top 25 Most Influential People in Afterschool and the American Camp Association’s 2015 Hedley S. Dimock Award. Dr. Barry A. Garst is an associate professor of youth development leadership at Clemson University in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management. His research focuses on the developmental outcomes of youth programs, with a particular focus on out-of-school time settings.

254   About the Contributors

Barry’s current work explores overparenting within the context of out-ofschool time experiences as well as antecedents of change that contribute to positive youth development. www.garstostlab.com Michael Heathfield chairs applied sciences at Harold Washington College in Chicago. He created one of the very few U.S. associate degrees in youth work in 2006. He was responsible for a number of citywide training and professional education initiatives for youth workers before becoming full-time faculty. He recently edited, with Dana Fusco, Youth and Inequality in Education: Global Actions in Youth Work published by Routledge. Stacey S. Horn, (PhD 2000, University of Maryland) is a professor of educational and developmental psychology and chair of the Department of Educational Psychology, affiliate faculty member in community psychology and prevention research, and program director for the M.Ed. program in youth development at University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on issues of sexual and gender prejudice among adolescents and adolescents’ reasoning about peer harassment. Stacey is a former high school English teacher and has worked with young people for over 25 years. Steven Eric Krauss is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Social Science Research, Universiti Putra Malaysia. He originates from the United States and has been living and working in Malaysia since 2001. His current research focuses on applications of positive youth development in diverse cultural settings with a particular interest in intergenerational partnership as a support for youth development. His current research includes national studies on youth and community engagement and youth social entrepreneurship. Carole MacNeil, PhD, has worked with, and on behalf of, young people for more than two decades, specializing in youth engagement, youth-led community development, organizational development, and community-based/ participatory research. As founder/principal of MacNeil & Associates, she works with youth, youth workers, international NGOs, and multilateral agencies throughout the world, with a focus on marginalized, developing, and conflict/post-conflict contexts. She is also a research affiliate with the University of Colorado-Boulder, and former Fulbright scholar to Kenya. Corey Newhouse is the founder and principal of Public Profit. Corey is responsible for the overall design of Public Profit’s evaluation studies, including developing logic models or theories of change, data collection tools, and analysis and reporting plans. She has extensive experience in evaluating programs that serve children and families, including multisite evaluations of educational and youth development programs. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Columbia College and her master’s in public policy at UC Berkeley.

About the Contributors    255

Dr. William H. Quinn is professor and coordinator of youth development programs in the College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences at Clemson University, Clemson, SC. Dr. Quinn has published over 60 refereed journal articles and book chapters on family intervention and outcomes with youth. He is author of the text Family Solutions for Youth at Risk: Applications to Juvenile Delinquency, Truancy, and Behavior Problems published by Taylor & Francis, 2004.  Patti Ranahan is an assistant professor in the department of applied human sciences, Concordia University. Her research focuses on qualitative examinations of mental health literacy, youth suicide intervention, attachment in parent–youth relationships, and youth work pedagogy. Laurie Ross is an associate professor of community development and planning and directs the youth work practice professional certificate program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Ross engages in communitybased action research projects on youth and gang violence, boys’ well-being, and youth worker professional education. Since 2000, Ross has directed the HOPE Coalition, a youth–adult partnership with a mission to reduce youth violence and substance use and promote positive adolescent mental health and youth leadership in Worcester. Emily Salvaterra is an experienced researcher in the policy fields of youth development and housing and homelessness. At Public Profit, a consulting firm specializing in youth development program evaluation, she supported evaluation projects in the out-of-school time field, including facilitating meetings and trainings, conducting site visits, managing data collection and analysis, and writing reports. She has additional professional experience in program implementation, supporting community organizations to implement regulations, coordinated efforts, and recognized best practices.  Dr. Mandy Savitz-Romer is a senior lecturer in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a national expert in the field of school counseling, specifically as it relates to college and career readiness. Her research and writing focuses on how schools and youth programs structure counseling support systems and college planning efforts to reach all students. Savitz-Romer is the co-author of Ready, Willing, and Able: A Developmental Approach to College Access and Success, published in 2012 by Harvard Education Press. Elizabeth J. Starr, MEd, is a research associate at the National Institute on Outof-School Time (NIOST), a national research and action project of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. For over a decade, her work has focused on career development and system building for the afterschool and

256   About the Contributors

youth development field. Before joining NIOST, Ms. Starr worked with children, teens, and families in schools, clinics, and residential programs. Dr. Femi Vance has nearly 15 years of experience in the youth development field. She has worked with foster youth, military children and teens, and English language learners. Femi holds a master’s in public policy from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in educational policy from UC Irvine. Her research focuses on positive youth development, expanded learning, and professional development for informal educators. Femi also evaluates and provides technical assistance to school and community-based programs Deepa Vasudevan is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include school–community partnerships, youth development, and organizational culture. She is currently studying the occupational culture, roles, and identities of youth workers as well as the extracurricular experiences of undocumented youth. Prior to graduate school, Deepa worked at the Out-of-School Time Resource Center at the University of Pennsylvania, providing training, evaluation, and capacity building services for afterschool practitioners. Ross VeLure Roholt is associate professor of youth studies and director, youth development leadership program in the School of Social Work, University of Minnesota. He is an active public engaged scholar with current projects on civic youth work and youth violence prevention, especially in Native American communities, with a particular emphasis on the social determinants of violence. He consults internationally with governments and community organizations on youth involvement in social and community development. Kathrin Walker is an associate professor and specialist in youth work practice at the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development. She studies the role that adult program leaders play in supporting youth development in programs. She also leads professional development programs aimed at supporting and improving youth work practice. Her research explores the dilemmas that practitioners face in their everyday work with young people and their strategies for addressing these challenges. Maranda C. Ward is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development studying curriculum and instruction at the George Washington University. Her research is translated into practice as the co-founder and executive director of Promising Futures, a youth development pipeline for youth ages 11 to 24. She earned her MPH in maternal and child health from Tulane University and her BA in sociology/anthropology from Spelman College.

About the Contributors    257

Tamara Ginger Weiss has a doctoral degree in comparative and international development from the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development at the University of Minnesota. She is a researcher and evaluator in the field of international education and youth development. Her teaching experience includes public and private schools, preK–12, and international as well as domestic settings. Jennifer White  is director and associate professor at the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria. Her research interests include youth suicide prevention, ethics, discourses of professionalism, and collaborative research. Jennifer is the lead editor on the recently published book, Critical Suicidology: Transforming Suicide Research and Prevention for the 21st Century in 2015 from UBC Press. Shepherd Zeldin is the Rothermel Bascom Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He teaches in the graduate program of Civil Society and Community Research, and manages a graduate student-led Community Consulting Clinic (CCClinic) that offers affordable research, documentation, and evaluation services to nonprofit organizations and schools.