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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Draws on recent research to address key issues in residential child care policy and practice in the UK, offering guidance for developing best practice and improved outcomes for children and young people.

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.

This foundational resource is the first to explicitly detail the Child and Youth Care (CYC) core competencies for students preparing to take the Child and Youth Care-Professional (CYC-P) certification exam. Designed according to the Child and Youth Care Certification Board (CYCCB), this book offers a comprehensive review of the five domains of CYC practitioner competencies: professionalism, cultural and human diversity, applied human development, relationship and communication, and developmental practice methods. Pedagogical tools bring concepts to life through critical discussion and reflection. The text is packed with tables, chapter learning outcomes, reflection questions, end-of-chapter reference lists, glossary terms, definitions from the CYCCB, and real world case studies. A unique and practical textbook, this is an indispensable resource for introductory courses in child and youth care programs.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

With Children and Youth provides a snapshot of emerging theories and perspectives in the field of child and youth care across North America. Well-known scholars and researchers present new and innovative critical perspectives, written in a provocative manner and reflecting outside-the-box thinking. The book examines from scholarly and practical viewpoints the purpose of child and youth care practice, relational practice, post-modern approaches to thinking about theory and practice, and new and innovative thinking about the professionalization and accreditation of the discipline itself. Some chapters merge thinking about child and youth care with esoteric and literary prose; others use humour and satire as a way to represent both foundational and entirely new directions in the field. With Children and Youth provides no set conclusions or findings about the field; instead, it guides the reader to spaces of controversy, contention, and opportunities for innovation and change. Child and youth care practice and theory, it is argued, is based fundamentally on engagement across generations, cultures, and social positions, and this book exemplifies precisely that.