Practicing youth development: Differences in the approach and implementation of youth development programs

Eric Lock
University of Chicago
School of Social Service Administration
969 East 60th
Chicago IL 60637
USA
Phone: 773 643 6986
FAX: 773 702 0874
Email: e-lock@uchicago.edu
 
Purpose: Youth development programs are found in a variety of organizational settings, be they in schools, churches, or community and social service organizations. This paper explores how youth work practice varies between programs and investigates the degree to which differences in organizational setting accounts for this variance. As research on youth development programs and practices is relatively scarce, the questions at the heart of the paper are primarily descriptive: how do workers in different programs vary in the way they define their role and function? What tasks do they engage in? And how do they approach the execution of these tasks and their roles in general?

Methods: Data come from three intensive case studies examining programs situated in three different organizational contexts, all operating in the same community of a large Midwestern city. Qualitative observational methods were employed to gather data on three dimensions of youth work practice: 1) the actual tasks workers carried out; 2) the establishment and maintenance of control over the work setting; and 3) workers’ styles of interaction with youths.

Results: Preliminary findings suggest that the three case study programs represent distinct approaches to youth work despite the fact that they operate in the same community and espouse the same general philosophy. For example, in one program workers envision themselves as agents of both individual change as well as institutional change in the school their program inhabits. This differs from that of the other two programs where workers see themselves strictly as agents of individual change.

Implications for practice: These findings will provide researchers, advocates and practitioners in the youth work field significant insights into the degree of practice variation among youth development programs, as well as the process by which managers and practitioners go about constructing policy and practice.