Professional Youth Research Articles

Physiological adaptations to soccer specific endurance training in professional youth soccer players

Background: Improved oxygen uptake improves soccer performance as regards distance covered, involvements with the ball, and number of sprints. Large improvements in oxygen uptake have been shown using interval running....

Secondary traumatic stress among disaster mental health workers responding to the September 11 attacks

Relationships between secondary traumatic stress (STS) symptoms and therapist characteristics and assignment variables were examined for 81 disaster mental health (DMH) workers who responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Higher STS was associated with therapist variables of heavier prior trauma caseload, less professional experience, youth, and therapist's discussion of his or her own trauma or trauma work in his or her own therapy. Therapist gender and personal trauma history were not significantly related to STS. Assignment variables associated with higher STS included longer length of assignment and more time spent with child clients, firefighters (who suffered great losses in the tragedy), or clients who discussed morbid material. Recommendations for practice include informing DMH recruits of therapist risk factors and assigning at-risk DMH workers to lower-risk assignments.

Values versus Competencies: Implications for the Future of Professional Youth Work Education

The research presented in this paper is a study of the values underpinning the curriculum and teaching of current Australian degree‐level youth work courses, The paper looks at the implications that values raise for the introduction of competency‐based training in the youth and community services sector. The paper raises some of the potential risks for the status of youth work as a profession. The research investigates values in professional youth work education by using a qualitative, interpretative framework of inquiry and using a strategy of purposeful case study sampling and literature review. The data collection involved four case studies focusing on degree level youth work courses in four universities in three states of Australia. To facilitate the triangulation of data, a number of sources were used: students, lecturers, curriculum designers, curriculum documents and sector literature.

DEMOCRATIZING EDUCATION

This paper offers a strategy for teaching street children aged 13–18 to be professional youth workers via a six‐month post‐secondary college‐level program. There would be no literacy or academic prerequisites for entry to the program. During their involvement, the children would be given free room and board in the college student residential facilities; the cost being covered by international development organizations such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The model incorporates incentives provided to employers to hire these youth workers. A small contingent of the street children educated as youth workers would be retained as permanent, salaried members of the college faculty. This innovative pedagogy is thus a vehicle for social integration for these marginalized children, pulling them back from the fringes of society. In this model, the possibility for development of basic literacy skills is expected to arise efficaciously and naturally once the children are placed in a secure en...

Toward a Grounded Theory of the Psychosocial Competencies and Environmental Conditions Associated with Soccer Success

The purposes of this study were to identify and examine psychosocial competencies among elite male adolescent soccer players in order to present a grounded theory of factors associated with soccer success. Participants (N = 40) were 20 Canadian international youth soccer players (M age = 16.8 years), 14 English professional youth soccer players (M age = 16.2 years), and 6 English professional coaches. Using grounded theory methodology (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), data analysis followed several coding procedures geared toward theory development. Four major psychosocial competencies that appear to be central to success in elite youth soccer emerged from the data. The competencies were labeled Discipline (i.e., conforming dedication to the sport and a willingness to sacrifice), Commitment (i.e., strong motives and career planning goals), Resilience (i.e., the ability to use coping strategies to overcome obstacles), and Social Support (i.e., the ability to use emotional, informational, and tangible support). These results are compared to existing sport talent development research and a grounded theory of the psychosocial competencies and environmental conditions associated with becoming a professional soccer player is presented. Research and practical implications arising from this exploratory theory are discussed.

Transforming Orphanage Care: A Case Example in Zimbabwe

The author presents the voices of boys from an orphanage in Zimbabwe that he himself grew up in over a period of 10 years. After gaining professional child and youth care training in Canada, he has returned to the orphanage seeking to be an advocate and a catalyst for change in order to assist the Director and Board of Governors in the transformation of the residence.

Spirituality in Child and Youth Care: Considering Spiritual Development and “Relational Consciousness”

In response to the identification of spiritual development as part of children's lives in both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1991) and the Association for Child and Youth Care Practice's document: Competencies for Professional Child and Youth Work Practitioners (Mattingly & Stuart, 2001), this paper considers a theoretical model of children's spirituality, “relational consciousness,” as proposed by Hay and Nye (1998). The paper encourages the introduction of a framework for understanding and exploring spiritual development in child and youth care research and practice that respects the cultural and social diversity of both religious and nonreligious settings and the lifespan developmental processes of children.

Training for 'Glory', Schooling for 'Failure'?: English professional football, traineeship and educational provision

English professional football is a highly tenuous and unstable occupation. Because of this the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) have, in more recent years, overseen the establishment and introduction of a series of educational and vocational training packages into the game which have aimed to offer players some kind of safeguard against the high probability of occupational failure. Over the past two decades, many school-leavers, for example, have entered professional football via recognised vocational training programmes-YOP, YTS or YT-schemes which have provided opportunities for individuals to prove their sporting worth whilst fulfilling some form of broader educational pursuit [1]. This article draws on ethnographic research carried out with a group of professional football Youth Trainees during the course of the 1993/94 footballing season. It looks at how notions of 'education' and 'work' represented polarised entities in terms of trainee career choice, and how, as a consequence of this polarity, dismissive subcultural codes were attached to notions of educational pursuit and alternative career planning. The article utilises established research findings within its analysis, (cf. Hollands, 1990; Willis, 1977, 1990; Banks et al ., 1992; Bates & Riseborough, 1993), and in doing so illustrates that, like other occupational spheres, Youth Training in professional football may be seen to carry with it a plethora of assumptions and commonsense practices which collectively ostracise those who wish to supplement their everyday workplace position by pursuing programmes of educational development.

Young People and the Educational Role of Youth Work in the New Millennium: From Voluntarism to Compulsion?

ABSTRACT The theme of this paper is that provision for young people has changed direction in the last fifteen years, a process likely to continue under the present government. The aims of the Albermarle report,—to underpin a state funded, professional Youth Service providing for the voluntary association, leisure and personal developmental needs of all young people—are being relegated, as government resources increasingly target ‘excluded’ young people and those ‘at risk’. There is a shift to multi agency teams to combat social exclusion and make the disaffected more ‘employable’. The series of compulsory measures—including ‘youth advisors’, ‘connexions team’, careers awareness training, ‘learning gateways’ extended work experiences, ‘tracking’, youth offending teams and similar—are an undisguised form of social control reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. Since our effective education recreates social inequalities, it is those at the bottom of the social class spectrum who will be targeted by ‘youth brokers’. Against this background, of attempting to combat almost every common adolescent deviation, the role of youth workers is to remain vigilant and protect impoverished young people's interests being subsumed by illiberal measures; affluent young people will continue to be immune from such coercion.

The Uniqueness of Child and Youth Care: A Personal Perspective

The author draws upon 30 years of experience in the child and youth care field, personally carrying a “dual diagnosis” as a professional child and youth care worker and a professional social worker for most of that time. A definition of child and youth care is offered, and differences in focus and emphasis within the two disciplines are explored. Two underlying paradigms are suggested as contributing to the tensions apparent between the professions internationally, and the author concludes that the continuing struggle to develop a free-standing profession of child and youth care needs to be vigorously pursued because competent child and youth care workers are good for children and play a unique role in their lives.

Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood

* Introduction: Kinderculture, Information Saturation, and the Socioeducational Positioning of Children, Joe L. Kincheloe and Shirley R. Steinberg * Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Spectacular Allegory: A Diagnostic Critique, Douglas Kellner * Reading Nickelodeon: Slimed by the Contradictions and Potentials of Television, John Weaver * Kids and the News, Carl Bybee * McDonalds, Power, and Children: Ronald McDonald/Ray Kroc Does It All for You, Joe L. Kincheloe * The Bitch Who Has Everything, Shirley R. Steinberg * Are Disney Movies Good for Your Kids? Henry A. Giroux * Got Agency? Representations of Womens Agency in Harry Potter, Ruthann Mayes-Elma * Professional Wrestling and Youth Culture: Teasing, Taunting, and the Containment of Civility, Aaron D. Gresson * Home Alone and Bad to the Bone: The Advent of a Postmodern Childhood, Joe L. Kincheloe * Power Plays: Video Games Bad Rap, Stephanie Urso Spina * From Tupac to Master P and Beyond: Hip-Hip and Critical Pedagogy, Greg Dimitriadis

Ethics of child and youth care professionals: A code developed by the draft committee for the international leadership coalition for professional child and youth care

Ethics of child and youth care professionals: A code developed by the draft committee for the international leadership coalition for professional child and youth care

A review and analysis of the development of professional child and youth care work

The child and youth care literature and the efforts since 1961 to form a profession in the field are reviewed, with particular emphasis on the development of the knowledge base, education, and professional standards.

Review of Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care.

Review of Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care.

Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care

Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care

Applied Ethics:

Applied ethics are introduced as a means of preserving caring as the core of professional child and youth work. The Self Apprenticeship Training approach (Peterson, 1978) is discussed as a methodology for developing competency in applied ethics.

Worlds Apart?

Research and clinical practice in professional child and youth care ate often depicted as two dissimilar "worlds" within the profession. This paper argues that such perceived dissimilarity is principally a function of focusing on dissimilar aspects of the two undertakings: research product and clinical process. It is further argued that if one focuses on certain fundamental processes of child and youth care research and the processes of child and youth care practice, the two become quite similar and highly complementary. Indeed, skills in the one enhance abilities in the other.

?I know I don't have to apologize for crying?: When our history becomes our experience

Professional child and youth care workers in North America can derive strength and inspiration from the lives of many of their European ancestors. Notable among these is Janusz Korczak who, along with his staff, chose to accompany the children of the Warsaw Orphans' Home to their terrible death. “Family reunions” of those involved in child and youth care work from around the world are now happening with some regularity, and the author illustrates from his own experience how such international involvement can lead to important personal and professional transformations of perspective and attitude.

The educateur returns to America: Approaching the development of professional child and youth care cross-culturally through ILEX

Following a brief discussion of the historical roots of the educateur as a child and youth care work professional and a description of the ILEX program, the article compares American and European approaches to group care as experienced by visiting educateurs. Included are the philosophical frame of reference, the role of the worker, techniques, pedagogical action, and agency structure and orientation. The impact of the program on the European participants and its implications for practice in group care settings in the United States are discussed.

Real American children: The challenge for after-school programs

Several million American children are currently unsupervised during the hours between school and parents' leaving for and/or return from the workplace. Many families would prefer other arrangements, but cost or availability factors present insurmountable barriers. Although growing, the public response continues to fall far short of the need; in the meantime, private entrepreneurs are moving to fill the gaps in available services. But if these programs for school-aged children are to serve functions other than the aggrandizement of their sponsors, they must be focused on the real needs that exist among real American children. Among the real children in need of care are those who are impoverished, unsupervised, unfit physically, unprepared for the demands of school and workplace, hurried into premature adulthood, and/or disconnected from the social worlds around them. Professional child and youth care workers with experience in day care and residential settings have the preparation needed to take leadership roles in creating developmentally appropriate, effective programs to meet the emerging demands for school-age child care and to weave them into a fabric of youth-centered community services.