Knowing, Doing and Being in Context: A Praxis-oriented Approach to Child and Youth Care

Abstract

Engaging with youth and families in collaborative and respectful ways; taking practical actions to create the conditions for young people to experience meaning, worth and connection; supporting them to imagine hopeful futures for themselves; and bringing oneself fully to the therapeutic relationship are all hallmark characteristics of child and youth care (CYC) practice. Those who do this work and those who prepare practitioners for the field recognize the need for conceptual frameworks that can adequately represent the complexities of everyday CYC practice. By taking up the notion of praxis as knowing, doing and being in context, I hope to plant some fresh seeds to animate and extend current conceptualizations of everyday CYC practice.Keywords Child and youth care Á Praxis Á Conceptualiztions of practice Á Professional development Like many of the other human caring professions, everyday child and youth care (CYC) practice is complex, unpredictable, and value-laden. It is also highly relational work that is deeply embedded within very specific local contexts. Engaging with children, youth, families and communities in collaborative and respectful ways; taking practical actions to create the conditions for young people to experience meaning, worth and connection; supporting them to imagine hopeful futures for themselves; and bringing oneself fully to the therapeutic relationship are all hallmark characteristics of CYC practice. Those who do this work and those who prepare practitioners for the field recognize the need for dynamic conceptual frameworks that can adequately represent the complexities of everyday CYC practice, while also offering a practical tool for critical reflection and analysis.Building on the work of others who have highlighted the thoroughly interpretive and ethical dimensions of CYC practice (

An Ethos for the Times: Difference, Imagination, and the Unknown Future in Child and Youth Care

“…The social determinants of children's health (SDCH) include the following: quality child care, housing and food security, income and wealth distribution, and public policy and government intervention (Raphael, 2014). As CYC practitioners who prize holistic and contextually responsive approaches (Newbury, 2009;White, 2007), it is worth asking ourselves how well we take into account the sources of suffering in our work with children, youth, and families, and how well our preferred practices address the broader sociopolitical and historical influences on well-being (Aldarondo, 2007). If we fail to engage with the social and structural conditions that have such a clear and strong influence on the well-being of children, families, and communities, our efforts are bound to be inadequate.…”

“…These are complicated and troublesome questions that require richer, more politicized conceptualizations of practice that go beyond the articulation of professional ethics and competencies (Little, 2011;Loiselle et al, 2012;White, 2007). In other words, we need practice and pedagogical frameworks that can help us to engage with unprecedented levels of complexity.…”

“…Part of this effort will entail generating new questions, visions, and vocabularies for rethinking a changing world. For example, this could include advancing new ways of theorizing the self; enlarging our ethical vision; and complicating and politicizing our current notions of practice and research in CYC (Kouri, 2014;Kouri & White, 2014;Pacini-Ketchabaw & Pence, 2011;Skott-Myhre & Little, 2014;White, 2007). This work will inevitably involve disruption, change, and new ways of doing things.…”

Conversations on Conversing in Child and Youth Care

“…Many of us in the academy are active practitioners, and I think this artificial divide between theory and practice is, at this point, unavoidable, but at all points untenable. There is progressive work around the idea of praxis (White, 2007) but this does not, to me, appear to be embodied and gets taken up as a politically correct lingo of "practice". I also see the field grappling with EuroWestern paradigms of development alongside its purported strengths-based orientation.…”

The Canonical Self and Politicized Praxis: A Tracing of Two Concepts

“…The praxis framework (White, 2007) is quickly becoming a guiding pedagogical force at the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, as well as across North American Child and Youth Care (CYC). Building on the earlier knowledge, skills, self (KSS) framework, while transforming some of its central components, praxis offers us a way of integrating theory and practice in complex, shifting, and politically charged contexts.…”