Moving Towards Emancipatory Practice: Conditions for Meaningful Youth Empowerment in Child Welfare

Abstract

<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #000000; font-size: small;">What are conditions that facilitate the development of youth voice in child welfare? This article will build on current literature that emphasizes the critical importance of treating youth in the care of the public system as valued resources and agents of change in their own lives who can contribute to effective service delivery. A focus will be on comparing principles of youth empowerment and the general purpose of child welfare systems in Canada and the United States. Challenges to the implementation of this model will be highlighted and recommendations to facilitate its execution at the individual, organizational, and policy development levels of our youth serving agencies will be made.</span></p>

Youth-Adult Partnerships in Work with Youth: An Overview

“…Some, such as youth engagement, youth participation, and youth empowerment, are unidirectional, implying a process of adults engaging youth, empowering youth, and evoking youth's participation (Ramey & Lawford, in press). Dupuis and Mann-Feder (2013) and Shaw-Raudoy and McGregor (2013) have highlighted some of the challenges and subtleties inherent in the use of the terms youth empowerment and youth-adult partnership. For example, Dupuis and Mann-Feder (2013) pointed out that the language of youth empowerment does not fit with the work done in the child welfare system, where adults are responsible for the welfare of the child, and are legally and morally obligated to make choices for them.…”

“…Dupuis and Mann-Feder (2013) and Shaw-Raudoy and McGregor (2013) have highlighted some of the challenges and subtleties inherent in the use of the terms youth empowerment and youth-adult partnership. For example, Dupuis and Mann-Feder (2013) pointed out that the language of youth empowerment does not fit with the work done in the child welfare system, where adults are responsible for the welfare of the child, and are legally and morally obligated to make choices for them. In these contexts, young people are frequently involuntary recipients of services.…”

“…In these contexts, young people are frequently involuntary recipients of services. Dupuis and Mann-Feder (2013) suggest that, given these circumstances, sweeping cultural changes to child protection would be required for the language of "empowerment" to be meaningful. Shaw-Raudoy and McGregor (2013) argued that the term youth-adult partnership reinforces boundaries between youth and adults, and therefore reinforces youth as learners and adults as knowledge holders.…”

“…They suggested that too much focus on youth-to-adult empowerment maintains youth's dependency upon adults, making it impossible for youth to become agents of change in their own right. Following Dupuis and Mann-Feder (2013) and Shaw-Raudoy and McGregor's (2013) arguments, however, none of the terms currently in use appear impervious to criticism. That is, in any organization that maintains adult-created mandates and structures, equal decision-making power and access to resources might be impossible.…”

“…Although historically, funding for youth-adult partnerships within the settings of child and youth care has been limited (Blanchet-Cohen, Linds, MannFeder, & Yuen, 2013;Dupuis & Mann-Feder, 2013), youth engagement has become a program requirement for some funders, both for established programs or for new funding opportunities (e.g., Laidlaw Foundation, 2016).…”