Challenges in Youth Work: Self-Reflection and Relationship Building

This essay provides a self-reflection on the challenges faced by youth workers when building relationships with at-risk young people. It highlights issues such as fear of rejection, past relationship experiences, high caseloads, and the emotional trauma experienced by the youth. The importance of undivided attention, understanding the emotional constraints, and avoiding excessive involvement are emphasized. The essay also discusses the significance of safe relationship attachments, the need for youth workers to be good listeners and empathetic, and the necessity for institutional-level changes to achieve desirable outcomes. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of a youth worker's commitment to making a difference in the lives of young people, alongside the need for institutional support to meet required service standards. Desklib offers similar solved assignments and resources for students.

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SELF-REFLECTION AS A YOUTH WORKER
Name:
Course:
Professor:
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Date:

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ABSTRACT
Youth workers are required to regularly look back and reflect on challenges they face
when building a relationship and supporting at-high-risk young people. Working cohesively and
harmoniously with the at-high-risk young people can be a back-breaking task if not handled
properly. It becomes difficult sometimes for a youth worker to find a way to build a relationship
with a young person who has at one time or severally been hurt by an adult. The youth workers
require guidelines to help them work effectively with vulnerable young people. The purpose of
this write up is to identify the challenges faced by youth workers when dealing with young
people considered to be at-high-risk.
Keywords: Youth workers, at-high-risk, young people, challenges

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INTRODUCTION
Building relationships with at-high-risk young people as a youth worker remains a
challenging task. The at-risk young people may include youths with a history of inflicting self-
injuries on their body parts (Scary, 2013), older children detached from their parents, and young
people suffering from effects of substance abuse or mental health issues. The quality of the
relationship between the social youth worker and the vulnerable young people provides a
framework for benchmarking on what has already been achieved and what needs to be done
(Care Inquiry, 2013, p2). There is sufficient evidence from previous research to demonstrate the
importance of a stable adult in the life of a young person (Singer et al, 2013).
The purpose of this paper is to provide reflective insights to youth workers dealing with
at-risk young people based on a short film from an at-risk young person (Scary, 2013). Sufficient
and effective ways to build a positive relationship between a youth worker and the young people
at-risk and challenges faced in trying to achieve them will be explored.
CHALLENGES IN BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
Young people at risk may fail to welcome relationships gestures from youth workers due
to fear of rejection (Reimer, 2010). In the short film by Siffa (Scary, 2013), she is so nervous
when demonstrating her past self-inflicted physical body harms. At one point she exclaims of a
point where she lifted up her arms and her boyfriend happened to see the scars on her arms. She
describes the reaction she got from the boyfriend as very bad.
It is important for a youth worker to understand the past relationship experiences of their
subjects while at work to prevent cases where the worker and the young person at risk might find
themselves in bad terms. Some of the young people at-risk may present themselves as fully
detached from their past relationship experiences. The youth worker should be able to identify

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the inter-dependency of this young person’s past experience to the current state in order to help
the young person.
High caseloads may deter the youth worker from performing duties assigned to them
effectively (Broadhurst et al, 2010). Undivided attention from the youth worker is required due
to the sensitive nature of the emotional breakdown of recovering at-risk young people.
Sometimes divided attention due to a big workload may render relationship building process an
up-hill climbing task. Balancing the amount of time and level of care accorded to different young
people may prove difficult thereby jeopardizing the emotional strength of the young person.
The physical vulnerability of a young person at-risk may blind the youth worker from
seeing the emotional trauma being experienced by the young person. The worker may only see
the physical self-inflicted injuries but fail to understand the emotional trauma the young person
has gone through in the whole ordeal (Queensland Government. Department of Child Safety,
2008). Most of the at-high-risk young people have a prolonged history of physically injuring
themselves. Through this long period, they experience emotional breakdowns. The youth worker
should identify the emotional constraints the at-risk young person has gone through to enable
them to build a lasting positive relationship with the young person.
Too much involvement on the part of the youth worker may lead to inauspicious
emotional effects. A youth worker may only predominantly see the risk posed by an unstable
young person to themselves but fail to recognize the danger they pose to other people around
them. Most young people are in their adolescence stage. The abuse suffered at the tender age of
the young person and their current emotional and stage of growth issues amplifies their
likelihood to cause harm to other people than to themselves. The youth worker should, therefore,

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be able to keenly observe the behavioral change of the young person (Ruch, Turnley & Ward,
2010).
Lack of time on the part of the youth workers to build relationships with the vulnerable
young people remains a challenge (Stanley et al, 2012). The youth worker should find alternative
caregivers who are conversant with the issues the at-risk young people are going through
whenever they are not able to attend to them. The alternate caregiver should be amongst one of
the team members involved in the process of attending to the needs of the young people (Henry
et al, 2010).
The absence of safe relationship attachment to the youth worker by the young at-risk
person makes it difficult for the youth worker to effectively build a positive relationship. This
lack of attachment may be attributed to past stigmatization experience, mistrust, fear caused by
past abuse and exploitation by other adults. It can also be caused by a constant impetuous change
of workers and failure to involve the young persons when making decisions that affect them
(Furnivall, 2011). Some of the young people at-high-risk may not disclose all their problems to
the youth worker due to fear of stigmatization, it, therefore, calls for the youth worker to learn,
understand and psychologically detect when the young person is holding onto something.
It’s therefore important for the youth worker to reflect on the challenges facing both the
young people he ought to help as well as those affecting him in order to achieve a meaningful
positive relationship. The youth worker should be a good listener, be readily available, and
empathize with the traumatized and hurt young people (Queensland Government. Department of
Child Safety, 2008). It’s also important for the youth worker to understand the vulnerability and
the existing context of the at-high-risk young people. The youth worker should be unreservedly
committed to making a difference in the lives of the young people for desirable results to be

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achieved. However, to achieve the required standards of services, changes at the institutional
level are unavoidable.

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REFERENCES LIST
Broadhurst, K, Wastell, D, White, S, Hall, C, Peckover, S, Thompson, K, Pithouse, A & Dave, D
2010, Performing ‘Initial Assessment’: Identifying the Latent Conditions for Error at the
Front-Door of Local Authority Children’s Services, British Journal of Social Work,
40(2), 352-370
Care Inquiry 2013, Making not breaking: Building relationships for our most vulnerable
children, London: House of Commons
Furnivall, J 2011, Attachment-informed practice with looked after children and young people,
Glasgow: Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services
Henry, P, Morgan, S, & Hammond, M, 2010, Building Relationships through Effective
Interpersonal Engagement. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from A Training Model for Youth
Workers:http://youthworkireland.ie/images/uploads/general/buidlingrelationshipthroughe
ffective.pdf
Queensland Government. Department of Child Safety. 2008, A framework for practice with
‘high-risk’ young people (12-17 years). Retrieved May 20, 2018, from Practice Paper:
https://www.communities.qld.gov.au/resources/childsafety/practice-manual/prac-paper-
framework-high-risk-young-people.pdf
Reimer, D 2010, ‘Everything was strange and different’: Young adults’ recollections of the
transition into foster care, Adoption and Fostering, 34, 14-22
Ruch, G, Turney, D & Ward, A 2010, (eds) Relationship-Based Social Work: Getting to the
Heart of Practice, London: Jessica Kingsley
Scary, S (Director) 2013, My Horrible Self-Injury Scars *Trigger Warning* [Motion Picture]

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Singer, ER, Cosner Berzin, S & Hokanson, K 2013, Voices of Former Foster Youth: Supportive
relationships in the transition to adulthood, Children and Youth Services Review, 35,
2110-2117
Stanley, N, Austerberry, H, Bilson, A, Farrelly, N, Hargrieves, K, Hollingworth, K, Hussein, S,
Ingold, A, Larkins, C, Manthorpe, J, Ridley, J & Strange, V 2012, Social work practices:
Report of the national evaluation. Research report DfE-RR233, London: DfE
Winter, K 2011, Building relationships and communicating with young children: a practical
guide for social workers, London: Routledge