ABSTRACT

This is the book that youth workers who want to put into practice their desire to "meet youth where they’re at" have been waiting for. Narrative Approaches to Youth Work provides hope-filled and fresh conversational practices anchored in a critical intersectional analysis of power and a relational ethic of care. These practices help youth workers answer the all-too-common question, what do I do when I do youth work? The concepts and skills presented in this book position youth workers to do youth work in ways that honor youth agency and resistance to oppression, invite a multiplicity of possibilities, and situate youth and youth workers alike within broader social contexts that influence their lives and their relationship together.

Drawing on the author’s 30-plus years of working alongside young people and training youth workers in contexts ranging from recreation centers to homeless shelters, this book provides a rich and deliberate mix of theoretical grounding, practical application, real-life vignettes, and questions for in-depth self-reflection. Throughout Narrative Approaches to Youth Work, readers hear from a wise and thoughtful squad of youth workers talking about how they strive to do socially just, accountable, critical youth work.

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

Matching Your Practice with Your Intentions

part I|38 pages

Philosophical Groundwork for Relationally Engaged Youth Work

chapter 2|12 pages

Power to the People

Positioning and Author-ity

chapter 3|14 pages

Response-Ability

Relational Ethics and an Ethic of Care

part II|84 pages

From Philosophical Groundwork to Praxis

chapter 4|14 pages

That’s a Good Story

Conversations that Do Things

chapter 7|15 pages

I’m Not Telling, I’m Asking

The Art and Craft of Curiosity

chapter 9|12 pages

Turn it Up

Making Meaning of Pop Culture

part III|18 pages

The Personal and Political Labor of a Youth Worker

chapter 10|11 pages

Lemme Work on That

Cultivating a Reflexive and Deliberate Practice

chapter 11|7 pages

Fight the System

Critical and Political Conversations Beyond the Drop-in, Rec Center, and Squat