Youth Work

A youth worker? What do youth workers do? Do they work with problematic youth? Take care of young people with a disability? Drug users? Juvenile delinquents? Are they something similar to social workers? Do they work with unemployed young people?

These are the questions that generally go through people’s minds when you mention 'youth work'. The answer to those questions is not as straightforward as I wish it is when these questions arise. Yes, they do work with the people mentioned above; but not exclusively. The job of a youth is to work with young people. Not because they have problems but because they’re young people. What does working with young people mean? What do they work in? Well, in practice, youth workers fill a myriad of roles but they are first and foremost educators. They’re not part of the formal education system. They work informally. Although they can work in schools, their work transcends the traditional educational institutions and can occur in any setting. Youth workers provide informal and non-formal personal, social and political education. Education in youth work comes in many forms: informal conversation, non-formal exercises, discussion of local issues, outdoor education, projects, cultural exchanges, community involvement etc.

Unfortunately, the concept of ‘youth worker’ is not widely used in Malta. It is understood even less. The idea that a youth worker could be a professional is in fact still somewhat unimaginable to the general public. Not that we don’t have people working with young people; but such work is generally expected to be voluntary. How do you sell the idea that youth work should be a profession when its educational value, due to its informal nature, is not directly measurable? It is even more of a mammoth task when the prevalent mentality is one which necessitates economical justification for everything. Fortunately, the youth-work-as-a-profession mentality is starting to slowly creep in the local consciousness. Some part-time posts are popping up sporadically in places like the youth empowerment centres. This is a great step and it is to be commended. However, like everything else, there is much more to be done. There are a lot of Youth and Community Studies graduates. The problem is that most of them already have steady jobs. Since the course is offered in the evening, youth work students are already gainfully employed. Would anybody leave a secure full-time job for a part-time post in youth work? I think not. But hopefully we’ll get full-time posts someday.

Youth work is a liberatory form of education. That’s why I find it appealing. Youth work could be the other side of the educational coin. In the words of Freire:

"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

While the formal education system is generally interested in the former function of education, youth work can provide the service for the latter. The lack of formality gives youth workers the space to engage and encourage young people to question and challenge the dominant ideologies, structures and complementing myths and promote participation in the transformation of the community, country, continent and the world. Youth work is thus an anti-oppressive practice. Like everything else, it's not neutral. Unlike most other institutions, however, it does not side with the powerful. It is where education regains its true meaning: liberation. In a time when our education system feels like a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode, it is time to explore and give more importance to new methods of education, particularly that in the form of youth work.