Review Model In Youth And Community Work - Essay Example

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF PLAN DO REVIEW MODEL IN YOUTH AND COMMUNITY WORK Introduction By definition, a youth worker is a person who meditates or acts on behalf or other youth to facilitate on their general developmental factors such as of social or personal nature and through it gives them an influence or placement in society, especially on their transition to independence to dependence. A youth worker is more of a community worker. A community worker is a person who provides direct or indirect services to the community for its benefits; and may or may not be paid. In youth work, the core objectives are aimed at bettering the society, and as such, a youth worker is expected to be defined by supporting values. These include discipline, honesty, self-help, determination, teaching and teachable nature, self-drive, creativity, and reliability to mention but a few. A youth worker must therefore be a reflective practitioner. As Knott & Scragg (2010, p. 7) define it, reflective practice is the act of reviewing what one has done and evaluating between what has been done well, and what needs to be redone or improved to achieve the “best” status. This is important in that it allows for improvement or the sustenance of effective practices aimed at achieving development. In the light of this, there is the issue of critical campaigning which refers to the provision of a base for amplification of youth [workers’] voices and in the process seeking to protect and advocate for democratic and emancipatory youth work. The definition and values above act as a guide in identifying some ways through which youth workers can succeed in impacting positive change in the wider society. In elaborating this, the following section will highlight the role played by the youth during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s in pursuit of the end to segregation and racial inequality. Although the campaigns are popular as advocating for the rights of Blacks, a significant fraction of Whites also supported the movement and today, it remains one of the most successful and significant social campaigns on the planet. According to Azikiwe (2010, n.p.), The role played by youth in the Civil Rights Movement was big, and accounts largely for its success. The youth had their organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and it was the motivation and energy of youth that enabled these organizations to be bold and powerful in their advocacy towards equality and racial respect (Hampton & fair 2011, p. 15). The largest percentages of these movements were college students and school-age students. The 1963 Children’s Crusade is one of the most significant campaigns run by the young people. There were high school, college, middle, and elementary school youth in the Birmingham demonstrations. The idea of incorporating youth in the protests was proposed by one James Bevel, an accomplice of Martin Luther King. The reasoning was because unlike the adult population, children would have nothing such as jobs to lose upon being arrested. The protests broke out in May that year with 800 youth surfacing on the first day, where about 600 were arrested. The following day, 1500 showed up, and the emerging unrest caught the attention of the entire world, and the pressure was too much for President Kennedy to hold, and on June 11th, he announced an end to all forms of racial injustice (Reynoldson & Taylor 1998, p. 53). This was not the end of the protests; in August of the same year, approximately 200, 000 people, and mostly youth, participated in a Washington demonstration, this time pursuing jobs and economic freedom for the people of colour. Concisely, the younger population was the core driver for the success of the Civil Rights Movement in attaining community cohesion and diversity (Batsleer & Davies 2010, p. 136). In essence, the Civil Rights Movement’s was advocating, or was rather inspired by the need to create black consciousness; black consciousness in this context referring to the need of the black race to think beyond their pigments and focus on the mental. In short, it was the time for the people of colour to break away from the assumed imprisonment cast upon them by the white race and come together in fighting for their rights and justice (Hill 2006, p. 271). The consciousness was meant to reveal to the blacks that they were not any inferior to the whites and that since they were born in the United States, then they had the right to exist freely and in equal measures as did the white man. The reason why the whites were able to oppress the people of colour for so long is because since they had come to the United States as slaves and in small populations, they grew up adhering to the white man’s exploitative attitudes which had brainwashed them into believing that white was normal, and black was abnormal and inferior (Hohle 2013, p. 23). As such, the blacks lived “in fear” of the whites. These were the factors of unconsciousness which the black man had realized needed some addressing and through leaders such as Martin Luther and massive youth campaigns, they boosted the Civil Rights Movement into power and with it; black consciousness succeeded and manifested itself through the abolishment of segregation and racial inequality. In a nutshell, black consciousness was about the blacks’ unity, realization of self, and persuasion of freedom. Aside from just youth campaigns or work, all other aspects of social or community work require a systematic plan that guides its application so that by the end of its timeline, it successfully achieves its objectives. In this particular context, the Plan-Do-Review model best applies. It encompasses three phases; planning, doing, and reviewing, although there exists a silent “understanding” phase before the planning. The [silent] first phase before planning is to understand. In understanding, it means that there needs to be a subject under review, and which inspires the need to come up with a plan of addressing the topic. In short, it highlights the need. In the planning phase, a potential means of addressing the highlighted topic are tabled. This can be better put as what activities need to be done in achieving the set objectives. The doing phase is crucial in that after understanding what needs to be done, then planning on how the best identified means of achieving the objective will be implemented, it introduces the actual activities. The doing adheres to what the plans dictate. The final phase is reviewing. Reviewing follows the doing phase, and it entails evaluation of what has been done in terms of strengths, weaknesses, failures, or successes with regards to the set objectives (Gidey, Jilcha, Beshah, & Kitaw 2014, p. 2). If at some point there was a failure or weakness, means of correcting the issue are invented so that the objectives are met. On the other side, it is possible to maintain or further improve the strengths and successes. The Plan-Do-Review model has its strengths and limitations. First; the strengths. The biggest advantage is that the process is a cycle which is planned in advance, and every necessary move is planned. As such, it is under constant monitoring and assessment, and errors can therefore be identified and corrected before they cause any inconveniences to the cycle. The second strength is that since the planning and all are laid out before any execution commences, then it prevents the issue of people complaining when the cycle is in progress (Finlay 2008, p. 7). In short, if anyone has to complain, they have the chance to do it before the plains roll out. Finally, in relation to this point, such a model creates grounds for people to support rather than resist any changes being proposed by it. This is because every action is debated and carefully though before it gets finalized upon. On the contrary, the Plan-Do-Review model has limitations as well. First of all, it requires maximum patience in its creation, and as such, can consume a lot of time and resources before a complete model emerges (Surgenor 2011, p. 20). Secondly, the process might be complex in determining some aspects of it such as time required or the budgeting, and worst still, it may be impossible to predict the outcomes when the model is applied. Finally, the meeting of objectives may be impossible in the event that any of the constituent elements (plan, do, or review) fails or is absent. In short, if planning fails, there can be no doing, thus no reviewing, and no attainment of goals. The Plan-Do-Review model can be utilized by a youth worker in acting as an enabler advocate with regards to the youth consciousness and development. The advocacy in this context referring to actions levelled at supporting the best interests of youths. These interests may include, amongst others human rights and aiding in the relationship, health, employment, and life skills (Ord 2007, p. 69). In collective terms, a youth advocate prevents youths’ self-esteem from deteriorating as they navigate life. In this model’s view, a youth worker first of needs to understand or recognize which issues are likely to negatively affect or hinder youth development. From the understanding, they can then analyse all the potential mitigation measures available and decide on the best one, and which one would be most effective in both application and results. From the planning, the youth advocate does the actual acts of implementing the plan, which is resolving the highlighted issue. The last phase, reviewing, is all about previewing the progress and effects of the doing and comparing it to what was expected. For instance, say a youth advocate seeks to address youth unemployment (understand), they can bring in the government to establish youth grants or loans (plan), then they have to oversee the dissemination of the grants or loans (do), and finally, they have to conduct analyses to tell whether the loaning and giving of grants are working to solve the issue of youth employment (review). From this, the youth worker or advocate can determine which areas need sustenance, improvement, or restructuring. It is justified to define youth advocacy as aimed at inflicting change on the lives of youths positively. In the light of this, it may have to implement the STEP model of change as defined by Kotter in application of affirmative action towards the development. The STEP project works by creating urgency so a need for change emerges, form coalitions with similar objectives, create visions for the required change, communicates the vision, removes all the restricting obstacles, creating short term goals, works towards the change, and finally strives to make change a permanent occurrence in the wider social mainstream. For instance, according to Wood & Hine (2009, p. 16), there should be much advocacy against the stereotyping of youth, or the stereotyping of jobs meant for the youth. Better put, there should be no stereotyping that since one is a youth, then they have to be treated just as “a youth” irrespective of whether they have extra qualifications or not. This should be the same when it comes to allocation of jobs; there should be no segregation arising from stereotyping. This was evident during the Civil Rights Movement, and particularly in the last mass protests which were advocating for equality in the allocation of jobs. This was inspired by the observed trend that certain jobs were not being allocated to the blacks. This, however, changed after the campaigns against the job segregation were conducted. There exists an interconnection amongst all the discussed aspects of reflective practice, the plan-do-review model, and critical campaigning in respect to youth and community work. These can be derived from the particular occurrence in the Civil Rights Movement. There were youth advocates such as James Bevel who were directly involved in planning, overseeing and restructuring the student (youth) organizations to inflict maximum pressure on the authorities to observe the rights of blacks. The issue was advocating for the end to racial segregation and injustice, and the plan was to bring together as many people as they could. Upon its reviewing, the plan risked failing if the people were arrested and that is when the idea of using the schooling population came up. This idea sailed past all the phases and at the end, the objectives had been attained. Conclusion It is sufficient to conclude that a youth worker, as a community worker, upon possessing and applying the supportive values has the power to facilitate development in the youth fraternity. This can be furthered by incorporating a reflective practice of standing aside and reviewing what one has done, and from that determining what needs improvement or sustenance as long as it works for youth development. This application was evident in the structuring of the Civil Rights Movement, which led to the emergence of black consciousness. In conclusion, though consciously or unconsciously applied, all these adhered to the Plan-Do-Review model. Bibliography Azikiwe, A 2010, “Youth played pivotal role in civil rights, Black Power movements” Workers World, Available at http://www.workers.org/2010/us/youth_pivotal_0218/ [April 3, 2014]. Batsleer, J, & Davies, B 2010, What is Youth Work? Sage Publications. Finlay, L 2008, “Reflecting on Reflective Practice”, Practice-based Professional Learning Centre, 1-27. Gidey, E, Jilcha, K, Beshah, B & Kitaw 2014, “The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle of Value Addition”, Industrial Engineering and Management, 3 (1), 1-5. 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