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Dilemmas in Youth Work Online: A self-study

2 girls mad on a bench

Youth workers face challenging situations that require them to address multiple, often competing considerations in their daily work with young people. In this basics class, participants will learn what research tells us about the range of youth work dilemmas, responding to dilemmas in ways that meet the developmental needs of youth, and generating responses that balance competing concerns. This course concludes with practical resources for incorporating reflection and discussion of dilemmas in your work, including a bank of dilemma scenarios and related activities for use in your own practice.

How it works

Participants can expect to

The course is free, but registration is required.

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Module 1:  Research to Practice

  • What does the research tell us?
  • What categories do youth work dilemmas fall into? And how do these categories help us think about the dilemmas of everyday youth work?
  • What are some of the features of effective responses to dilemmas of youth work practice?

Module 2: Generating Youth Centered Responses

  • How do youth development and youth needs figure into a response to a dilemma?

Module 3: Generating Balanced Responses

  • What are some of the concerns that may play into how one might respond to a dilemma?
  • How can we identify those considerations?
  • How can we balance competing concerns when crafting our response?