The Nature and Purpose of Youth Work In a Historical Context - Case Study Example

The Nature and Purpose of Youth Work In a Historical Context Introduction Youth work does not have any specific definitions. Generally it can be defined as the activities intended to impact the young people positively. This can be done with the help of a set of activities that have been defined, redefined, examined, and reinvented to suit the needs of the changing trends among the youth population. The concept of Youth work was evolved in United Kingdom. In UK, it is defined as the process of creating a suitable environment in which young people can engage in informal educational activities. In United States and Canada, youth work is an activity that seeks to engage young people in coordinated programs, which has recreational, educational, or social value by nature and design. In other words, the concept of youth work is evolved to utilize the youth energy in the constructive field. In many countries youths are wasting their time in many ways because of the underutilization of their potentials. Idleness often leads youths towards antisocial activities. If youths have given the opportunity for some constructive work, they will do it with enthusiasm because of the recognition they are getting out of completing a social service task. Robert Baden Powell (founder of Scouting), Dr Thomas John Barnardo (founder of the famous homes, Mary Carpenter (Founder of Pioneer of reformatory schools), Sandra Leventon, Josephine Macalister Brew (pioneer of informal education and of youth work), Lily Montagu (a pioneer of youth work), Hannah More (A key figure in the development of Sunday schooling), Charles Russell (a famous writer), Tom W. H. Pelham (Writer of one of the first texts on boys' club work and an important figure in the development of the work), Maude Stanley (A key figure in the development of girls' club work) etc are some of the prominent contributors for the development of youth works (Youth Work, n. d). This paper briefly analyses the purpose of youth work, context of youth work, forms of youth work, evolution of youth work over the years and the present challenges faced by youth works. Purpose of youth work Smith (1988) has mentioned many purposes of Youth work. In his opinion, “in order to make choices, we might ask what action is right or what action makes for the greatest good” (Smith 1988). Most of the youths fail in their attempts to segregate between the right and wrong because of their immaturity. They do not know what the right action is and what would be the wrong actions. The confusion over segregation between the concepts of right and wrong will most probably lead the youths towards a confusing stage. Youth work can streamline youths in the right track by avoiding such confusions. Youth work can avoid the ambiguity of an action. Many youths do not know how to measure the utility of an action. An action may have so many dimensions, but the inexperience may prevent the youths from evaluation the different dimensions of an action. Their evaluations based on incomplete dimensions may put them in big trouble. Youth work can help people in analysing or judging the utility of an action under different dimensions. People need to gain various dispositions or virtues which enable them to fit them together into a coherent whole. Individuals should work for the good of small communities, which, being small, help them to realize their own well-being. These small communities are, in turn, nested within larger communities and linking individuals to humankind as a whole (Smith 1988). Youths may not have such elaborated or integrated philosophies of life. They are only the beginners and hence it is necessary to shape their views, thoughts and attitudes in a fruitful manner to make them good citizens of a community. Many people have the belief that the purpose of youth work is applicable only in the religious settings. In fact youth work should be perceived on the basis of secular settings. Religions should not be an obstacle in the effective utilization of youth work. There is no Christian or Muslim or Hindu youth works. There should be a youth work with only one theme; servicing the community beyond the religious boundaries. The context in which youth work emerged Historically, numerous motives are there for the development of youth work. Most of the early youth workers in UK were from the middle class and they engaged in youth works in order to uphold their Christian faith. In other words, servicing of the community was perceived as a noble act by the Christian religion and hence youths engaged in service oriented youth works during the ancient period. Jesus Christ taught his disciples that whatever the services extended towards the poor and needy people would be benefitted once the life in this earth is over. Motivated by the above doctrine, ancient UK youths engaged in many community servicing programs. The second reason for the emergence of youth work in UK was because of a growing concern about the low and middle class among the youths. Beliefs in morality and ethical standards were comparatively high among the youths during the ancient period. In other words, ancient youths in UK had more service mentality compared to the modern youths because of their different philosophies of life. Most of the current youths are selfish in their character and they act for the benefits of their own needs. The industrial revolution in the nineteenth century served as a catalyst for the youths and it helped the youths to come out from their homes and to migrate to big towns in search of jobs in factories. In other words, the industrial revolution resulted in the emergence of a youth culture in the urban area. The youth culture in the urban area helped the emergence of Young Men Cultural Association (YMCA) and Scout like organizations. These organizations helped the earlier youths immensely in streamlining their youth energy in the right track for the betterment of the society. World War one and two also contributed heavily for the emergence of youth work. During these war periods, it was impossible for the British military or other social service organizations alone to protect the interests of the people. It was necessary for the people who were suffering from the war problems to get some assistance from the community and youths helped the community in different ways during that period. Now youth services are accepted as a national requirement. All the local government organizations in UK need to provide enough assistances to the youth work organizations. Forms of youth work Earlier youth works had not specific targets or dimensions. But after realizing the importance of youth work for the betterment of the community or society, it is divided into different forms nowadays. Centre-based work, detached work, school-based work, religion based work etc are some of the major forms of youth works at present. Most of the youth clubs come under the category of Centre-based work. It is a wide category and most of the youth work organizations come under this category. Detached work is a form of street-based youth work. Like in most of the other countries, in UK also many poor people live in streets in pathetic conditions. In some cases, the governmental organizations may fail to reach the needy people who live in streets. Under such circumstances, detached work or youth workers working in the street try to service the needy people with the help of whatever the resources available to them. Such youth workers normally give informal and social education to the needy people. Community youth workers or religion based youth workers provide community-based services work in the local communities such as places of worship, nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Community youth workers are normally operates within the frameworks of the religion. For example, Sunday school is a community based youth work organizations which normally function under the strict guidance and control of the church or the religion. Jesus Christ taught his disciples to love their neighbors and the core operating principle behind every Christian youth work organizations rest on the above teaching. In other words, Christian youth organizations are faith based organizations which work for the betterment of the community. School based youth workers usually join the organizations like Scout and Guides in order to service the community. In some cases, School based youth workers operate through organizations external to the schools. Some of the major services undertaken by school based youth workers are giving lessons to the needy people, formation of after-school clubs, giving education to the uneducated or illiterate people in the community. Evolution of youth work over the years and the policies which shaped youth work The evolution of youth work in UK is indebted to Christianity. Perhaps Sunday Schools organized in the churches were the primary form of youth work organizations. Robert Raikes was the founding father of the Sunday school organization. Robert Raikes started Sunday school in 1780 for factory children in Gloucester (Sunday school, 2008). Sunday schools were organized in churches with an intention to educate the children about the principles of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Servicing of the neighbour or poor people is the core of Christian belief. In other words, the Sunday school organizers realized that giving theoretical knowledge alone to the children may not help them to understand the core principles of Christianity. In order to give practical training to the Sunday school students on Christian principles, Sunday school organizers started to implement community servicing programs also as part of the Sunday school training of the students. These religious organizations like the Sunday school started the youth work in Britain for the first time. Followed by the emergence of Sunday school, ragged schools were emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century as ancestors of youth work. One of the great movements of Victorian philanthropy, ragged schools provided for children and young people who were excluded by virtue of their poverty from other forms of schooling. A key feature of their work was that they moved significantly beyond the simple provision of educational opportunity – and as such both provided an example for of youth and adult provision, and a concrete base for their development (Smith, 2001). Poverty is a big factor in preventing poor children from getting proper educations. It is difficult for the students to learn properly inside the classrooms while fighting against the poverty outside. Such students will not go to formal school because of the high expenditure of schooling and their inability in concentrating on studies. Ragged schools were evolved in order to help such children. Ragged schools were conducted by the volunteers or service minded people. They met the poor children in stables, under railway bridges, arches, church halls etc. The emergence of YMCA in 1844 marked the first official or formal organization in youth work. YMCA helped the world to realise the potentials of youth work. Moreover, the newspapers and magazines started to publish information about the problems facing by the youth community. These articles helped the social scientists to spend more time on adult problems. Thus many psychological theories with respect to adolescence were formulated by social scientists in the nineteenth century. One of the key moments in the establishment of youth work was the development of youth's institutes and clubs in the 1850s in Britain. Here the work of the Reverend Arthur Sweatman is of special note. He had been involved in setting up and running a youth's institute and had looked at the activities of a number of similar initiatives. Every evening between 100 and 200 young fellows quietly interest themselves with books, draughts, carpentry tools and games of various sorts (Smith, 2002). The concept of physical development has gained prominence during the nineteenth century which resulted in the creation of many sports and arts clubs in Britain. The issue of ‘physical development’ in youth work is a long standing discussion. Wholesome activity was a focus for other 19th Century initiatives: Quintin Hogg’s Regent Street Polytechnic gymnasium and the Boys Clubs in Kennington were some of the earlier organizations developed during the nineteenth century in order to concentrate more on the physical development of youths in Britain (Roberts, 2006) Many of the famous UK sports clubs like MCC, Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton etc were formed during the latter part of the nineteenth century as a result of the increasing awareness of the public about the importance of youth work. These club activists assembled in the club office at particular time on every day and arranged diverse activities with respect to sports and social service. Along with the male clubs, female clubs were also started to function during this period in order to exploit the youth energy of the female community. Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857 - 1941), an accomplished soldier, found the Boy Scout movement in 1907 (Smith, 1997). The aim of the Scout movement was to support young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, so that they may play constructive roles in society and become good citizens of the country. Scout movement adopted programs such as informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, like camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports in order to assist the youths in their physical and mental growths. As mentioned earlier, first and second world wars unveiled the importance of youth works in Great Britain. The government also started to realise the importance of organised youth works in dealing with situations aroused during war times. In short, youth works attained well organized forms immediately after the first and second world wars. The Labour Government in 1997 gave more emphasize on dealing with social exclusion, and they focussed more on services for youth rather than youth services (Jeffs and Smith, 2009). In other words, the labour government of the 1997 was instrumental in giving more aids to the youth services rather than taking the services of the youths. Challenges and opportunities facing by youth work at present Lack of professionalism, lack of belief in ethics, changing life styles etc are some of the major challenges facing by youth work at present. Even though, youth work has immense potentials even in the present world, the changing life styles, philosophies and attitudes are causing big threats to the concept of youth works. Modern youths are not much interested in servicing the community. Most of the youths of the modern era are spending time in front of the computers, chatting with their friends or playing games. Obesity is a big problem even among the youths because of the lack of physical activities nowadays. Modern youths are taking shelters in drugs, alcohols or internet and thereby losing the appetite for community servicing. Morality and ethics have less importance in the dictionary of the youths at present. There are many people in this world with multiple needs which were unmet because of wide range of reasons. Youths can play a vital role in helping such people. Many of the employment sectors are now facing shortage of suitable manpower. Violence, terrorism and other antisocial activities are increasing in the current world because of religious fundamentalism and contrasting ideologies different religions and people. Youth workers can make serious efforts to educate fundamentalist in their society to get rid of their antisocial behaviours. “The ‘internationalization’ of global youth work may promote a tendency to focus on faraway places and contribute to an ‘othering’ at the expense of a commitment to diversity, social justice and interdependence locally and globally”(Tierney, 2010). Globalization has opened many opportunities to the youth work. The differences and distances between the countries were reduced a lot because of globalization and youth work can operate internationally at present instead of operating in a small community or country alone. References 1. Jeffs T and Smith, M.K. (2009), ‘Social exclusion, joined-up thinking and individualization – new labour’s connexions strategy’ the encyclopedia of informal education, [Online], Available at: http://www.infed.org/personaladvisers/connexions_strategy.htm [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 2. Roberts, J. (2006) 'William Alexander Smith -the founder of the Boys' Brigade as a youth worker', the encyclopedia of informal education, [Online], Available at: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/william_alexander_smith.htm,  [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 3. Sunday school, (2008), The Columbia encyclopedia. Sixth edition. Online], Available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Sunday_school.aspx [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 4. Smith, M. K. (1997) 'Robert Baden-Powell as an educational innovator', the encyclopedia of informal education, [Online], Available at: www.infed.org/thinkers/et-bp.htm [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 5. Smith, M. K. (2001) 'Ragged schools and the development of youth work and informal education', the encyclopaedia of informal education. [Online], Available at: http://www.infed.org/youthwork/ragged_schools.htm [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 6. Smith, M. K. (2002), ‘Youth work: an introduction', the encyclopedia of informal education, [Online], Available at: www.infed.org/youthwork/b-yw.htm, [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 7. Smith, M.(1988), ‘Good purpose’, the encyclopaedia of informal education, [Online], Available at: http://www.infed.org/archives/developing_youth_work/dyw6.htm [Accessed on 19 November 2010] 8. Tierney, H. (2010), Promoting Development Education in Youth Work Training, [Online], Available at: http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue10-review1[Accessed on 19 November 2010] 9. Youth Work, (n. d) the encyclopedia of informal education, [Online], Available at: http://www.infed.org/youthwork/[Accessed on 19 November 2010] Read More