Youth Development Insight

Got ethics? Dilemmas in youth work

2013-03-13T18:10:07Z

Do you answer personal questions to build relationships with youth? Do you give money to a young person in a hard situation? Do you accept a request from a former program participant to friend them on Facebook or add them on Instagram? Do you address it if you suspect a participant is high during the program?

Youth workers face ethical dilemmas like these every day. These are just a few that I heard about at a recent training on ethics and boundaries in youth work. Participants were asked to consider where they stand, and dig into why.

]]> To examine the ethical principles and values that guide how one responds to dilemmas like these, we shared the Ethical conduct in youth work: A statement of values and principles from the National Youth Agency, in the United Kingdom. It outlines the basic principles underpinning the work, with the aim of guiding the conduct of youth workers and managers, and to focus debate about ethical issues in practice.

It is not a rulebook for every situation. Rather, it is a starting point for outlining the broad principles of ethical conduct, raising awareness of the multiple responsibilities (and potential conflicts) of youth workers and their managers, and encouraging and stimulating ethical reflection and debate.

The first part of the statement covers ethical principles. It states that youth workers have a commitment to:

Treat young people with respect, valuing each individual and avoiding negative discrimination.
Respect and promote young people's rights to make their own decisions and choices, unless the welfare or legitimate interests of themselves or others are seriously threatened.
Promote and ensure the welfare and safety of young people, while permitting them to learn through undertaking challenging educational activities.
Contribute towards the promotion of social justice for young people and in society generally, through encouraging respect for difference and diversity and challenging discrimination.

The second part of the statement covers professional principles. It states that youth workers have commitment to:

Recognise the boundaries between personal and professional life and be aware of the need to balance a caring and supportive relationship with young people with appropriate professional distance.
Recognise the need to be accountable to young people, their parents or guardians, colleagues, funders, wider society and others with a relevant interest in the work, and that these accountabilities may be in conflict.
Develop and maintain the required skills and competence to do the job.
Work for conditions in employing agencies where these principles are discussed, evaluated and upheld.

Using this statement as inspiration, participants wrote their own personal codes of ethics. We then revisited their dilemmas and explored how participants might apply their codes to them.

Which commitments most align with your own ethical principles, beliefs, and values? What is missing from this statement for you? How could an ethical statement like this help or hinder good youth work practice?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

You are welcome to comment on this blog post. We encourage civil discourse, including spirited disagreement. We will delete comments that contain profanity, pornography or hate speech--any remarks that attack or demean people because of their sex, race, ethnic group, etc.--as well as spam.

Youth as partners in evaluation -- an idea that is catching on

2012-10-24T17:00:00Z

The American Evaluation Association (AEA) is holding its annual meeting in Minneapolis this week. AEA's new Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group (YFE TIG) launches with an impressive series of sessions devoted to evaluation about youth, for youth and with youth. It is exciting to see all the evaluation and research that is being done in partnership with young people. For me, these sessions underscore the potential benefits and barriers to engaging youth in evaluation.

As with other forms of participatory and action research, including youth in the process can:

]]>

Enhance the inquiry. Young people provide an important and legitimizing perspective on the programs that serve them, and their involvement can contribute to more valid and reliable findings.

Empower participants. When youth are involved as collective decision makers and change agents in the inquiry process, they can gain important skills and competencies.

Contribute to society. By recognizing youth expertise and equalizing power relationships, young people can help democratize knowledge and transform institutions to be more accountable to their communities.

When done poorly, however, youth-involved research and evaluation can be counterproductive. Potential barriers include:

Tokenism or exclusivity can result when youth participation is limited to a select few.
Organizational and community readiness are often the biggest obstacles.
Adequate training and support is critical for both youth and adults.

On Mon., Oct. 29, Dr. Kim Sabo Flores will present "Transforming Youth - Adult Relationships through Research and Evaluation". While this event is full, a recording of it will be posted on our website.

In your experience, what have been the key benefits and barriers to partnering with young people in evaluation and research efforts?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

The question of youth program accreditation

2012-07-25T16:41:42Z

A youth program funder posed this question: Should Minnesota funders require accreditation of out-of-school programs to ensure implementation of high quality learning opportunities? While accreditation systems to endorse after-school programs exist at the state and national levels, there is no widespread consensus for support in Minnesota.

To explore the implications of youth program accreditation, Greater Twin Cities United Way, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the Extension Center for Youth Development sponsored three invitational forums with a cross-section of field leaders that resulted in an issue brief on the topic.

]]> So why this conversation, and why now?

First, accreditation systems exist in early childhood education, school-aged care programs and formal education to guide investments and provide a common framework for improvement. As these systems are being widely implemented in Minnesota, it would seem reasonable that funders, policy-makers and even the public might expect a similar process in the out-of-school time field.
Second, youth program accreditation efforts and conversations are underway nationally and a proactive Minnesota-based conversation could inform how that plays out and ensure that any movement toward accreditation in Minnesota strengthens the field.
Finally, given the public funds that support many youth programs, could accreditation help funders and policy makers better define high-quality out-of-school-time opportunities and provide additional justification for increased investments

Both the literature review and the forums brought to the surface a range of potential benefits and limitations associated with youth program accreditation as well as different stakeholder perspectives. Often these values and risks represent two sides of the same coin:

I invite you to read the issue brief and weigh in here with your comments. What do you see as potential benefits or arguments against pursuing youth program accreditation in Minnesota?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

5 simple steps toward publishing

2012-03-14T20:33:07Z

Are you looking to publish, but don't know how to proceed? Too often lack of time, confidence or discipline gets in the way. Good ideas languish, important work goes unshared, and contributions go unrecognized. I've had my share of good and bad publishing experiences, benefited from amazing mentors, and picked up a few lessons along the way.

Here are five simple steps to get you moving toward the sometimes daunting process of publishing:

]]>

Present at conferences. Conferences force you to develop and articulate ideas for future articles. Posters and presentations provide a forum to get ideas out and gain valuable feedback. If you get in the habit of presenting regularly, you build in a structure (deadlines!) for generating new topics and keeping your writing moving forward.

Enlist buddies. Writing doesn't have to be isolating - recruit writing partners. This might mean writing collaboratively, inviting colleagues to be reviewers, or creating a writing support group. Let's face it, it helps to be accountable to others, and more heads are better than one.

Find a home. Location, location, location. A recent post reminds us that it can be hard to find outlets for youth development research. Start with your own bibliography. If a number of articles come from the same journal, it might be a good place to start. Also, consider your audience (e.g., Afterschool Matters, International Journal of Volunteer Administration) as well as your methodology (e.g., Action Research, Qualitative Inquiry) when trying to find a publishing venue.

Follow a template. Once you've picked the journal you will submit to, find a similar article to use as a model and imitate its structure. It doesn't need to be the same topic, but should use similar methods (survey, interviews, case study). The model can help you outline sections and know how long each section should be. Academic writing can feel formulaic and stifling, but I'd argue that it's easier to follow rules than make our own!

Make a plan. I recommend Wendy Laura Belcher's book, "Writing Your Journal Article in 12 weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success". It helps demystify the writing process and offers practical steps to move that conference paper into a published journal article. Also, Rich Furman and Julie Kinn's book, "Practical Tips for Publishing Scholarly Articles; Writing and Publishing in the Helping Professions". It guides readers through each step of the process, and even includes sample submission and revision letters.

How about you, what gets in the way of publishing? Do you use any of these methods? What other strategies or tips work well?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

Reflecting on a century of youth development research and practice

2011-11-03T21:00:44Z

Youth development is regularly described as an "emerging field." Yet youth development has been at the core of many youth-serving organizations founded in the early years of the 20th century such as 4-H, Scouts, and Camp Fire. In the past 100 years, youth development practice has evolved and advancements in youth development research have been made. What have been key trends, major contributions and core issues during the field of youth development's "coming of age"?

The current issue of the Journal of Youth Development: Bridging Research and Practice commemorates the 100th anniversary of many national youth-serving organizations. For this special issue, authors were invited to reflect on research trends and contributions that have influenced the field over time as well as to consider issues of practice that continue to evolve and challenge the field.

]]> Collectively, the articles provide an account of youth development over the years, covering such issues as how youth development has been studied, understood and measured to how youth development practice has evolved to support, engage and address the needs of young people. The volume concludes with two commentaries about future directions for research and challenges shaping the field's future.

Clearly, today's world is increasingly complex and diverse. The role youth workers and organizations play in helping prepare young people for that world has evolved. Our understanding of the skills required has grown and we've made advancement in how to measure them.

The special issue authors cite seminal scholarship, policy reports and paradigm shifts that have influenced our field over time. Where would we be without, for example:

Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological model that emphasizes studying young people in the context of the system of relationships that form their environment.
The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development's report, A Matter of Time, which raised awareness of the importance of out-of-school time.
A shift to a strength-based approach (especially the Search Institute's developmental assets) that moved beyond prevention to promotion.

Certainly, not all ideas and issues are covered in the special issue. I wonder, as you reflect on our growing field over time, what are some of the influential research contributions? What are some enduring issues of practice that continue to impact the field?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

Top 10 tech tools for our work

2011-06-22T17:00:00Z

Do you feel overwhelmed by all the technology options? Do you find it hard to choose from, or even keep up with, the flurry of possibilities?

I'm not an early adopter. I still have a land line telephone, buy CDs from a shop, and don't have cable TV. But professionally, I want to stay up to date on tools for doing my work as a researcher and evaluator. I imagine they could help program staff be more productive and progressive too.

]]> Here are my top 10 tools, based on personal experience, recommended by people I respect or that just look interesting, organized from finding and organizing information at the start of a project, to collecting data and presenting it to others.

Google Scholar. This academic search engine is my go-to place to search for scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources; peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
CiteULike. The web is full of interesting articles, but how on earth do keep track of and cite them?! This citation management tool is a fusion of social bookmarking tools like Delicious and bibliographic management tools like EndNote where you can store, organize, share and discover links to academic papers.
Basecamp. I was recently invited to join Basecamp for an upcoming project to take a class from in-person to online. Basecamp is where we will communicate and collaborate - upload files, send messages, or create events in the calendar. Keep track of to-dos, when they're due and who's doing them!
Doodle. Sometimes, the simpler the better. This tool finds the best time for a group of people to meet. Propose several dates and times and participants indicate their availability.
Evernote.The ultimate virtual Trapper Keeper! You can easily capture information (text, handwritten notes, pictures, webpage excerpts) from your real or digital life and makes it accessible, sortable and searchable at any time, from anywhere.
Bubbl.us or Freemind. Mind maps are diagrams of words, ideas, or tasks, arranged around a central idea. They are used to generate and organize ideas, make decisions or solve problems. We use them in Deliberate Practice Matters to map out dilemma scenarios in youth work practice.
Dragon Dictation. Just speak into your smartphone or computer and it types out your words instantly. I dictated my debriefing notes while driving home from a research interview to quickly capture my notes while my memory was still fresh.
Manyeyes. One solution to information overload is data visualization -- displaying data to show patterns and connections that matter. On ManyEyes, you can upload and visualize data sets. For more inspiration, see the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods, an interactive collection of possibilities.
Prezi.A web-based presentation application that uses a zooming, non-linear single canvas instead of traditional slides. A great alternative to Powerpoint.
Storyrobe. A digital story-telling app that allows you to piece together photos, videos, and then overlay sound bites to create a narrative. You can then share the final video via YouTube or e-mail. It's a fabulous way for evaluators or program participants to document youth programs or projects.

Have you used any of these in your work? What are your favorite tech tools, apps or resources that make your work life easier, more productive or maybe just a little more fun?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

Dilemmas of practice: What's a youth worker to do?

2011-05-24T14:46:24Z

Youth work practice is complex and dynamic. It is riddled with situations that are layered and involved, dealing with multiple considerations and changing circumstances. These dilemmas represent the knotty situations even experienced practitioners face every day. In these situations, there is no formula or manual that tells the youth worker what to do.

Last week, Cece wrote about how personal ethics inform decision making in these situations. Much of my work focuses on the dilemmas of youth work - exploring the range of dilemmas encountered, as well as the features of effective responses.

]]> This spring, youth workers participating in the Youth Work Institute course Deliberate Practice Matters were introduced to recent research I co-wrote on the diversity and complexity of dilemmas that youth workers face daily, and how their responses influence program quality. Together, they dug into the sticky challenges and issues of everyday youth work and examined ways to respond to real-life dilemmas. In addition to reacting to dilemmas identified by research, participants discussed and mind-mapped dilemma scenarios from their own work, including:

How do you deal with a "three strikes and you're out" policy that results in losing the very youth the program is intended to serve?
How do you respond when you witness a youth helping a parent tamper with a drug test in order to avoid jail?

The law, organizational policies, and ethical codes all speak to these tensions, yet they don't necessarily help the youth worker figure out how to respond to particular instances in ways that balancing competing concerns in ways that feel consonant with youth development values and principles. It can be difficult to figure out what to do, and often youth workers are left to navigate these challenging decisions on their own.

One way to help youth workers understand and effectively respond to dilemmas is to create a forum for them to talk about their struggles with one another. This might be through a course like Deliberate Practice Matters, dedicated staff meeting time for discussing dilemmas, or even social media, such as Australia's Youth Action and Policy Association's blog on ethical dilemmas in youth work. I don't have answers - in fact, I would argue that there typically is no one right answer. But I have seen how powerful - and empowering - it can be to strategize responses to these dilemmas with peers.

What resources do you use to guide your responses to dilemmas of practice? Consult a trusted colleague? Rely on your formal training? How do you decide what's right to do and good to be in your work with young people?

-- Kate Walker, research associate

How can we support youth who are "suddenly military"?

2011-03-04T19:19:43Z

US military families are facing unprecedented times of complexity and stress due to overseas deployment. Young people in these families have unique concerns and challenges, and often feel upset, distracted and scared as loved ones are deployed, sometimes multiple times. Many feel unable to tell anyone about it.

Youth program staff may be working with these "suddenly military" youth and not be aware of it, particularly when the deployed family member is in the US National Guard and Reserve. How can we better equip those working with youth in civilian settings to recognize and meet the needs of military youth?

]]> As part of the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development's national research and outreach, we recently invited Dr. Angela Huebner, associate professor in human development at Virginia Tech, to present findings on the impact of deployment on military youth and families. The event was funded by the Department of Defense through the Arizona Center for Research and Outreach.

Youth programs can be an important protective factor for young people, but staying involved when a parent is deployed can be a challenge for them. Program staff need to be aware that during parental deployment, youth may have other family obligations or need transportation or financial assistance to stay involved. There are programs to help, but as a community we need to have the issues facing military youth on our radar.

During the event, teen speaker Kiana Kelii, a National Guard youth and member of the Minnesota Military Teen Panel, shared her own home front experience of deployment. I was struck by Kiana's account of missing assignment deadlines and being dropped from the honors programs at school when her grades slipped during her father's deployment. Might her teachers have handled her situation differently if they had been aware of what was happening at home?

According to Dr. Huebner, if you know of a young person from a military family, some ways to help them cope with deployment are to:

Prepare them for change. Talk about the situation and what everyone can do to cope.
Educate them on normative responses to having a parent deployed, like worry, and poor concentration.
Normalize stress and conflict in the family. Have family meetings to address how everyone is feeling.
Encourage them to maintain positive friendships and support networks, especially with other youth with deployed parents.

But the fact is that with thousands of families affected in every state, program staff may be working with military families and not be aware of it. How else can we as a community--those of us working with and on behalf of youth--intentionally support young people before, during or after the deployment of a parent or loved one? If you have military youth in your program, classroom or neighborhood, what experiences have you had?

--Kate Walker, research associate

Editor's note: The Extension Center for Youth Development offers support to youth in military families through Minnesota Operation: Military Kids.