The first of its kind, this practicum-specific resource serves as an accompanying guidebook for fieldwork, placement, or classroom instruction in child and youth care practice. Child and Youth Care in the Field: A Practicum Guidebook uses critical reflection to facilitate student learning and growth throughout the practicum experience. Students can apply and build upon the theory and skills acquired during their fieldwork by utilizing the engaging workbook features and writing spaces included in the text. This resource helps prepare students for practicum and expand their self-awareness by discussing the challenges and difficulties they will encounter in the field, and by providing insight on how to navigate the decision-making process. With the increasing need for a hands-on resource in child and youth care studies, this book is well suited for first year, field placement, and professional skills courses in child and youth care programs at the college and university level.

In an inviting and conversational style, author Kiaras Gharabaghi offers a concise guide introducing foundational research methods for the study and practice of child and youth care, aiming to awaken a lifelong interest in how research can inform, improve, and evoke critical reflection on what child and youth care is, and can be, about. Presenting research as a relational tool, the text builds basic practical research skills, such as how to conduct interviews and focus groups, how to construct research questions and surveys, and how to select research designs to best serve each project. This essential volume highlights research as an important element of child and youth care practice, explores different qualitative and quantitative research designs, and examines how they are implemented, including various aspects of recruiting research subjects, the collection and analysis of data, and the limitations of research. Written from an explicitly anti-racist perspective, the text includes a chapter dedicated to Afrocentric and Indigenous research approaches and draws all its examples from the field of child and youth care. The rich in-text pedagogical features include a glossary of key terms and two appendices that detail an ethics protocol and describe a small research project from start to finish. Students of child and youth care, social work, and youth work/development programs are bound to appreciate this engaging and highly readable text. FEATURES: - Covers the politics of research, the intersections of research and advocacy work, and Afrocentric and Indigenous research lenses - Features text boxes showcasing research insights, interviews with child and youth care researchers, and ethical considerations - Accessible for those new to research in child and youth care, while offering insight into how to deeply understand research at more advanced levels of engagement

Provides an overview of the spectrum of concerns within the field of child care in Canada. The book pays particular attention to developments in the field from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

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

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

"Written in an inviting and conversational style, this text introduces foundational research methods for the study and practice of child and youth care, aiming to awaken a lifelong interest in how research can inform, improve, and evoke critical reflection on what child and youth care is, and can be, about. The text builds basic practical research skills, such as how to conduct interviews and focus groups, construct research questions and surveys, recruit research subjects, collect and analyze data, and select qualitative and quantitative research designs to best serve each project. Drawing all its examples from the field of child and youth care and written from an explicitly anti-racist perspective, the text covers the intersections of research and advocacy work and includes a chapter dedicated to Afrocentric and Indigenous research approaches."--

This title was first published in 2002. The field of child and youth care is under increasing pressure to optimize its mission: to deliver high quality support and to help children, parents and families in need of care. Two questions have arisen in many countries in the face of this pressure: the professional quality of childcare and the participant quality of childcare. These issues have traditionally been discussed separately; this unique book brings them together for an enlightening discussion. Examining the possible antagonism of childcare workers operating as professionals and clients participating as fully engaged partners, the book brings to light a new vision on developments and research in the field and informs the reader on recent findings. The expertise of the contributors makes this a truly valuable read for practitioners, policy makers, researchers and students in the field of child and youth care.

Use this newly developed family-oriented approach to be a better youth worker! In A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families, practitioners and trainers in a new child methodology show you how to expand your youth program to involve family work using the Child and Youth Care Approach. This book provides a new way of looking at work with families in which the helpers are involved in the daily life of the families they are supporting. This book will be valuable to practitioners and instructors of the Child and Youth Care Approach as well as to youth workers, foster parents, and social workers who want to develop their own knowledge and skills in working with families. A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families is designed to help youth care workers engage in a working relationship with young people and families that can facilitate change and allow families to live together more effectively with less stress. This book emphasizes that the family be involved in the care and treatment of young people. The authors reveal methods for connecting with each family by reflecting their rules, roles, culture, rhythm, timing, and style. This book will help you: develop your proficiency with the Child and Youth Care Approach to working with families shift from working in residential-only programs to in-home family prevention create as many moments of connection as possible among family members learn what boundaries need to be maintained to gain credibility with families provide effective supervision for staff working with families create activity-oriented family-focused work to develop family relationships and more! The authors of A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families offer unique insight into the successes and failures of those who have moved into this area of helping troubled youths and adolescents. Special features of this book include specific learning exercises and short stories and case scenarios for you to practice alone or with your colleagues, as well as tables and figures. This book will introduce students, practitioners, and programs directors fully to this latest development in the field and help them engage more effectively with families. All royalties from this book will go to support CYC-Net (www.cyc-net.org).

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