Scott Howland

Youth Worker studying BA (Hons) Youth and Community Services at University of Worcester.

Social Networking and Youth Work

One of my in depth research projects at the moment is Youth Work and Social networking and policy regarding this social nightmare for organisations and youth workers.

One question I have been asking myself is if social networking is the modern day 'Youth Worker?'

Youth workers are said to work with young people to build strong positive relationships to enable the young person to show engagement, empower young people to further their development, to informally teach young people life skills and infomation they may need, to teach young people how to stay safe, to give young people a chance to have their own opinion and a chance to express their own feelings to both peers, parents, government, worldwide public etc, and to give a young person a voice. These are arguably the Youth Workers job are they not?

Well does Social Networking have the same impact for young people?

• Engaging young people - with the ever expanding social network structure this is a main strength of social networking as it engages an enormous amount of young people.
• Empowering young people - Social networking has given young people the chance to build a career. Take 'Justin Bieber' - Love him or hate him he built a career of a video posted on one of the frontrunners of a social networking service YouTube and even to the modern day SB.TV which was built on advertisement and videos on various forms of social networking services including FaceBook and YouTube and is run by Young People.
• Building Positive Relationships - Peers, Family, Colleagues - You name it they are on some kind of social network service. This enables young people to create a strong positive relationship with other peers and to connect with parents etc.
• Give a Chance to Express Feeling - Through status's, Pictures, Messages social networking gives young people the chance to express feeling. Granted this could be very public and there are huge implications to this but the young person may feel more comfortable this way?
• Giving young people a powerful voice - One way I feel young people are not interactive enough with their community, country etc is by having a voice. Social Networks give them this worldwide.

Any theories?or Questions please contact me!