Where is the Youth Work(er) in Afterschool?

Presented at National Afterschool Association Annual Convention, April 2012

Where is the Youth Work(er) in Afterschool?

Abstract: Youth work increasingly occurs in funding environments that demand that programs and services for young people be organized as--and be substantively in content and pedagogy--an extension of school-day activities so as to enhance academic learning. Pushing this trend are funding, accountability demands, and outcome-driven evaluation. Caught in these symbolic, programmatic, and structural changes are youth workers. These changes have direct consequence on worker role and on the worker herself. I present examples from my experience as a youth worker (integrating the experiences of colleagues) to show how these external forces are seen and experienced by those outside of and inside the multiple involved systems. My presentation is structured by questions, which can be used by others to assess local situations and their Existential consequences for worker choices and action. Particular attention is given to the vocational call to do and be a youth worker, and the possible contribution of these changes on vocation, which might lead to Existential burn-out.
In this presentation, I did three things: (1) presented a story that illustrated in some way the symbolic, programmatic, and structural positioning of youth workers in the realm of afterschool, (2) considered patterns in this story that may be familiar to youth workers, and (3) offered questions for young people and youth workers in order to consider their position in light of these changes. Examining the story I presented, I offered the following key distinctions between a Youth Coordinator implementing afterschool programming, and myself, practicing youth involvement with the young people I worked with:
Afterschool Youth Coordinator Aims Provide young people with educational opportunities and scheduled activities. Youth Worker Involve young people in working on issues and interests of importance to them. Talk to young people about what is important to them and work on it with them. Developed with young people.

Strategy

Develop activities in line with grant funding and accountability guidelines.

Curriculum

Developed by the Coordinator for young people. Parent, teacher, administrator Consumer, child, student Pull rank, blame external scapegoat (funding requirements), include complaints in making changes

Role of Adults Role of Young People Method for Dealing with Conict

Ally, colleague, co-worker, partner Ally, colleague, co-worker, partner Work with young people to create change.

To offer a way to gain perspective on these changing situations for young people and youth workers in situations similar to mine, I offered five questions for analyzing spaces where youth involvement approaches to youth work and afterschool programming meet, intertwine, and often collide. These questions can be used to interrogate our experiences of these changes, to gain perspective on these changes as they occur, and to ground responses to these changes in meaningful ways.

Presented by Alexander Fink, Ph.D. Student, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota nkx082@umn.edu | http://alexnk.com | Twitter @alexnk!

Where is the Youth Work(er) in Afterschool? Presented at National Afterschool Association Annual Convention, April 2012

Questions for Young People and Youth Workers

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. How do I (youth worker or young person) experience what is happening (we might ask this in terms of van Manens lifeworld existential themes of lived space, lived body, lived time, lived human relationships) (1990, p. 102-105)? How do they (youth worker or young person) experience what is happening? What are reasonable moral and ethical responses in working with kids? Are the issues we are facing technical, professional, moral, and/or political? The Existential question: 1. For young people: should I find somewhere else to go? 2. For youth workers: should I quit my job?

In my presentation, I briefly answered each questions to further flesh them out as a resource for youth workers and young people caught in these situations. Here, I provide a brief explanation of some of the questions to give hand holds for responding. I combined the first two questions, because they parallel each other: 1. How do I (youth worker) experience what is happening? 2. How do they (youth worker or young person) experience what is happening? Rather than understanding these changes only in moral, political, or abstract terms, I suggest turning to our lived experience.To understand our lived experience of what is happening, I offer Max van Manens four lifeworld existential themes of lived space, lived body, lived time, and lived human relationships (1990, p. 102-105). We might ask, how does my sense of space change in the way it looks and feels? Does it feel smaller or larger? Do I feel smaller in comparison to it? Do I feel free to move about it freely, or constricted by certain rules? We might also ask how our sense of our bodys experience changes. Do we carry ourselves more loosely or more rigidly? What do we feel comfortable wearing? How does our body language respond to others? In considering time, we might say that time feels more regimented, rather than flowing; that it drags, rather than gallops. Finally, we might think about how our experience of relationships with others changes. Do we relate openly, or do we consider carefully what we say? Do we feel like equals, or take positions in a hierarchy? Getting a sense of our lived experience--and that of those we work with--gives us perspective on changes that might otherwise be unconscious. 3. What are reasonable moral and ethical responses in working with young people? If we consider the implicit things we hope kids are learning (in my case, democratic participation, personal agency and efficacy, communication, etc.), is our response congruent with these aims? How ought we to respond to changes that strip young people of their voice, power, agency, and participation? What do we owe to young people in our role as youth workers? What do young people owe to youth workers/ organizations/communities? 4. Are the issues we are facing technical, professional, moral, and/or political? How do we respond to each of these types of issues? Do we respond differently to technical or professional questions than to moral or political issues? Is our choice of response congruent with the type of issue we face? 5. The Existential Question: should I quit my job? Conclusions In this presentation, I called attention through these questions, to the dramatic changes taking place in the lives of those who consider themselves young people and youth workers in the face of an ongoing trend toward afterschool programming. The everyday experiences of these changes may go unnamed, but they do not go unnoticed, and they have a deep effect on the way we work with young people, and on the young people themselves. By asking these questions and naming our experiences, I suggest that we might navigate these changes--and the choices we must make in response to them--more consciously, thoughtfully, and creatively. References Lopez, B. H. (1989). Crossing open ground. New York, NY: Random House, Inc. van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Presented by Alexander Fink, Ph.D. Student, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota nkx082@umn.edu | http://alexnk.com | Twitter @alexnk! 2