Professional Issues in Child and Youth Care Practice

This book provides an overview of the core professional issues in the field of child and youth care practice. The author explores themes ranging from relationships and the exploration of Self to career building and field-specific approaches to management. The book is written from a pragmatic perspective, and serves both to advance current thinking in the field about professional issues as well as to provide the student of child and youth care practice and practitioners with practical and accessible approaches to developing a strong and sustainable professional identity. All of the themes in this book are explored within a context of ethical decision-making and practice approaches informed by a commitment to children’s rights and empowerment. Throughout the discussions, concepts and themes are considered in relation to four specific lenses: the power lens, the diversity lens, the language lens and the transitioning from theory to practice lens. These lenses serve to ensure that the reader adopts a critical understanding of the professional issues in the field and is able to develop his or her own professional identity while mitigating the power and identity issues necessarily associated with being a practitioner in a helping profession.
This book was published as a special issue of Child and Youth Services.

Kiaras Gharabaghi is Assistant Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, and has been involved in child and youth care practice for over twenty years.

Introduction 1. Professional Issues in Child and Youth Care 2. Boundaries and the Exploration of Self 3. Values and Ethics in Child and Youth Care Practice 4. Relationships with Children and Families 5. Relationships Within and Outside of the Discipline of Child and Youth Care 6. The Community Context of Child and Youth Care Practice 7. Professional Issues of Child and Youth Care Through the Language Lens 8. Professional Development and Career Building in Child and Youth Care 9. Child and Youth Care Approaches to Management 10. Conclusion