Youth Work Characteristics

There are many different qualities and traits that make up a good youth worker. According to Youth Work: Preparation for practice, an book introduction written by Jason Wood, Sue Westwood, and Gill Thompson, there are seven key characteristics that define a youth worker. These characteristics include seeing youth work as an educational, social, and welfare practice, actively challenging inequalities and working towards social justice, choosing to involve the young people, seeking to strengthen young peoples voices and influences, and working holistically with young people. Each of these characteristics are unique and important for all youth workers to have.
Youth work is considered an educational practice. This is because youth workers are like teachers to young people. Educational practice includes youth workers engaging with young people in the form of formal or informal education. Most young people are aware when the education is formal since this is what is mainly used in their classroom setting. However, an example of informal education could include a youth worker creating some sort of ice breaker game, where the children are learning names, things about different cultures, etc like we will do when conducting our purposeful play activity. In addition to youth work being educational, it can also be a social practice. This means that the youth worker is using "case work approaches" when working with young people. This can include the youth worker giving advice and playing the role of a counselor. It is important in this practice that the young person has a good and trustworthy relationship with the youth worker because they may or may not be disclosing personal information to the youth worker that no one else knows. As a youth worker, it is also important to report anything if necessary. Lastly, youth work is a welfare practice. This means that the youth worker is promoting the safety and welfare of the young people. This can include working with young people who have greater needs and higher deprivation, which like social practice, may lead to the young person disclosing personal information to the youth worker. 
Another characteristic that makes an ideal youth worker is actively challenging inequalities and working towards social justice. This includes working with youth who may be "on the margins". This means these people that are "on the margins" are being excluded for race, ethnicity, class, and many more characteristics. The role of the youth worker in this case is to have an understanding of oppression and power and not to say/do something right based on the fact that they want to avoid law enforcement. One of my personal favorite characteristics that I feel as though youth workers should have is to involve the young people. Involve them in decision making processes, let them have a vote for what they believe in. A great example of this is when we put together our community norms for this class. Everyone got to contribute what they saw as important and no one was left out. Another important trait for a youth worker is to help the young people. Help the young people to strengthen their voices and show them how much of an influence they can have. Young people sometimes feel as though because they are young that their opinions don't matter and I think this goes back to decision making. If young people know they are heard and feel as though someone is listening to them, this will help them in the end. It will help them by knowing how and when to use their voice and it can help them to influence other young people. Lastly, it is important to work with young people holistically. Holistic can be defined as "characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole" (Dictionary.com). Youth workers will take into account each part about the young people: the social, the educational, welfare, etc. All of these characteristics make up a great youth worker that young people look up to and feel comfortable being around.