A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE. THE INFLUENCES UPON UNIVERSITY YOUTH WORKER EDUCATION PROGRAMMES IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE US. (original) (raw)

2019, How We Teach an exploration of our pedag (1)

What a youth worker is and does might appear to be obvious. However, national definitions and expectations applied by governing bodies and funders complicates the matter further so that disciplinary and practice boundaries are far from clear (Smith 2013). Numerous job titles in every country, including Youth Therapist, Family Care Manager, Indigenous Youth Worker, Residential Care Worker and Youth Alcohol and Other Drugs Worker highlight the complexity and variety of the roles available. All have the common element of working with young people despite different settings, work hours and programme outcomes (Smith 2013). This in turn has implications for the education and training of those working in the youth sector. Youth workers require a sound knowledge and understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors which impact upon the daily lives of the young people in their care and the diverse communities in which they reside. By providing this, there is a greater likelihood of youth workers successfully addressing the multitude of scenarios they can face in their daily practice. This chapter will identify the major influencers upon university youth worker educational offerings in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA as of 2019, including local practice frameworks and government policies. There will then be a brief look at the similarities and differences of the university programmes offered at each of the four sites. Every youth work graduate requires the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that allows them to undertake their work to the best of their ability upon the completion of their studies. In 2019, the diverse nature of the youth sector is further complicated by the perennial ethical issues of confidentiality and balancing the autonomy, control and further self-development of young people with the ideologies, needs and requirements of government funders, boards and other responsible agencies (Bowie 2005, Davies 2012, Ord, Moustakim & Wood 2012). However, there is no global definition of youth work, nor a uniform formula for preparing youth worker graduates. Rather, each nation has its own expectations of what a youth worker is and does, and as a consequence a number of factors, including national practice frameworks and professional expectations, shape the corresponding university programmes offered in each country. This study focuses on Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.