The effective child and youth care intervention: a phenomenological inquiry
Date
2018-06-14
Authors
Garfat, Thom
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Abstract
Although the field of child and youth care has in recent years attempted to develop a framework for the child and youth care method of intervention, the effective child and youth care intervention is something about which very little has been written. In essence, we know little about why child and youth care interventions are sometimes effective and are, at other times, of no apparent consequence for the youth who experience them. While creative literature within the field has attempted to describe the experience, no research has been conducted into the phenomenon of the effective child and youth care intervention.
An interpretative phenomenological inquiry was undertaken into the lived experiences of participants to effective child and youth care interventions. Three (3) dyads of subjects (3 child and youth care workers and 3 adolescents) were engaged in focused narrative interviews to elicit their individual descriptions of a common experience of intervention which the youth had described as effective or meaningful for them. The goal of the inquiry was to understand better the experience of the effective child and youth care intervention.
From this inquiry themes relevant to the process and experience of the effective child and youth care intervention emerged. These are presented separately as: (1) themes from the process of intervention identified by the child and youth care workers, (2) themes from the process of intervention identified by the youth and (3) metathemes of effectiveness. The first two are descriptive interpretations of the process and the experience of the participants to the interventions. The third are interpretations by the author of the elements or characteristics of the interventions which may offer some understanding of why the interventions were considered to be effective by the youth.
The themes which emerged from the inquiry are integrated with knowledge from the literature of the field and the author then reflects on possible implications for child and youth care practice, based on how he has made meaning of the experience of the inquiry and his conversations about the interventions with the youth and the child and youth care workers.
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Child care, Youth, Youth, research