Talking about youth work values

Whereas students talked about being much more aware of themselves and their personal values, they spoke, somewhat surprisingly, with increasing ambivalence about youth work values throughout the second and third interviews. Tom’s description of youth work values as ‘Transient!’ (Interview 2) captures this, a comment to which I will return later.

In the second and third interviews, the male participants often responded more quickly and emphatically to the question about youth work values (like Tom’s above), whereas the female participants were more hesitant, initially expressing some concern or nervousness about outlining their understanding of the values of youth work. On hearing the question, Dani said she was ‘nervous’ (Interview 3) and Cate pulled a face, explaining….

… we talk a lot about professional values on the course, and being in year two now, I feel like I should understand more, and when I do go over professional values I do understand more and things, but when people say it, it’s a bit like “Oh, have I learnt professional values?” Cate, Interview 2

As well as Cate’s uncertainty about drawing on her learning in discussion with others, comments made by the female participants pointed to the pressure they felt under to give a ‘correct’ answer. Dani, when asked about youth work values, felt she should ‘just be able to

‘reel them off’’, and looking back at her answer from her first interview, she thought she was

previously ‘so much more precise and specific in listing them,’ whereas she described her understanding in interview 2 as having been ‘muddied by everything you learn and it’s kind of

overwhelming.’ Laura said, ‘I can remember now that I said last time “Oh what’s on the sheet about youth work values?”’ (Interview 2), suggesting she thought there was a definitive list of

values she ought to be able to recall. Cate echoed this in her third interview:

When you get asked the question of your professional values it is like sometimes people maybe are expecting a tick list that they can be like, ‘Oh, she said that, and she said [that]’… … When it comes to professional values I feel like I need to say the right words. Cate, Interview 3

Despite hesitancy amongst some, participants asserted that they had a greater understanding of youth work values, which they attributed to college learning – ‘I think my

youth work values that I’ve got now are from learning and understanding.’ (Cate Interview 2) –

and to placement practice with JNC qualified workers – ‘Working with people who are JNC

qualified and kind of know the rules, the principles etcetera, like the back of their hand, really helped a lot because the people I’m working with at the moment are not JNC qualified’ (Jamie

Interview 2). Laura was more aware of working with purpose: ‘Definitely I’ve got much more

of a sort of an aim in mind [...] I am concerned about their learning and their wellbeing…’ (Laura

Interview 2) and by the third interview, Laura said she ‘certainly [understood] more what

youth work is’.

Similarly, Samuel identified one of the changes that had happened for him over the research period was an understanding of the philosophy that underpinned youth work aims, purpose and practice – ‘I get the why,’ he said. He linked this to the idea of including young people and ‘working with’ them, evidencing an understanding of informal education principles:

When I am working with young people, if I am developing something, I like to have them integrated in that and some young people do think it’s funny, ‘Oh, are you asking me?’ But I am very conversation-like and before you know it, you never knew this young person had this wealth of experience. Samuel, Interview 3

In Interview 2, Cate referenced and discussed a number of components she classed as youth work values – giving young people advice, listening, supporting, empowering, intervention,

being a dependable worker without creating dependence, and giving young people a voice.

When asked what she noticed about these answers, she made an interesting comment about how students ‘learn the language’ of youth work: ‘I think you kind of learn the talk of a

youth worker, so you’re getting the same words thrown at you all the time and you pick it up and start using it yourself….. you can kind of learn the ways to say stuff.’ (Cate, Interview 2)

Cate echoed this in Interview 3: ‘There is a whole kind of jargon, the vocabulary of it and […] I

sometimes think I know the words but I feel ‘Is my understanding the understanding of someone else’s of that kind of particular value?’’ (Cate, Interview 3)

Cate’s comment about learning ‘the talk of a youth worker’ is telling. In her second comment she referred to her uncertainty about whether workers shared the same understanding as her of a particular value, something she also observed in her second interview:

[Empowerment] means something to me, but I don’t know whether what it means to me is the same as what it means to everyone else. I think some of the youth work values that I’ve picked up, all the terms and things, are quite abstract. Cate, Interview 2

Developing a ‘personal but shared’ (Jeffs & Smith, 1990:19) understanding of the meaning of values and how they might be implemented in a contextually appropriate way, yet still be recognisable as youth work, is an important function of professional training. This highlights the importance of spaces in training to discuss and explore the meanings students attach to key concepts in youth work, such as empowerment, learning and voluntary participation; and how values are actually realised in youth work settings by students in learning – in direct relation to their own practice – rather than in abstract ways, unrelated to real practice contexts.

Similarly Cate’s comment about learning not only the vocabulary, but also the ways to use the language convincingly could be interpreted in three ways. It could be that Cate, at the time, believed she knew and understood the language, was using it appropriately and that it

reflected her values and actions. Another interpretation draws on the popular idiom ‘fake it ‘til you make it’, an approach that seeks to mask either lack of knowledge, incompetence or a divergent view point, whilst trying to do one’s ‘professional’ best for young people, until the deficiency can be acquired. It could be that this was what Cate was doing here. This approach is similar to (and perhaps is a popular version of) the technique to ‘act-as-if’, drawn from Adlerian therapy (Watts, 2003; 2013). It could be that Cate was adopting this strategy to confidently ‘act-as-if’ she knew what she was talking about until the point she actually began ‘to know’. The ‘act-as-if’ technique ‘encourages clients to begin acting as if they were

already the person they would like to be — for example, a “confident individual.”’ (Watts, 2013).

Watts (ibid) modified its use, using a ‘reflective step backwards’ before acting, in order to guard against uncritical and uninformed action. This step supported clients to ‘reflect on how

they would be different if they were acting as if they were who they desire to be’ (Watts, ibid),

before then choosing to take action. This is a helpful process for youth work students in considering what values-in-action might look like, drawing on examples of ‘good practice’ they have seen in others as a guide, and is similar to other reflective models in use in youth worker education (eg. Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle).

In the context of value development, it is perhaps helpful for students to ‘practice’ their value talk, to test it out in different contexts until their use and understanding of the language becomes more specific and nuanced. This is also a technique that has potential uses for practice – to imagine the worker one would want to be, describe what that would look like and then ‘act-as-if’ that were the case, in order to practice, develop and habituate new approaches.

There was a sense amongst all the students in Interview 2 that they were able to employ the language of youth work and could ‘explain’ youth work concepts without fully grasping the implications of this for their practice – a feeling of ‘knowing about’ youth work, rather than a ‘knowing’ which they had appropriated for themselves, from within their lived experience. Significantly, this was something students observed about themselves, when looking at their answers from previous interviews.

Oh yeah. That was like I didn't really understand what empowering young people was. That is really funny I picked up on that last time, in the second interview, reflected on empowering young people bit. Laura, Interview 3

I think even what I said about last time, the way that I have said it I would probably think that it is kind of a bit more immaturity in there. But now … … I think … ... there is more to it than I may have thought before, kind of thing. Cate, Interview 3