Personal development must always start from where you are and be guided by a reflective awareness of where you want to go, what kind of change you want to achieve. Youth work has a great potential to stimulate young people’s reflection on both where they are and where they want to go. It is when the young person feels that he/she owns the process and that it is for his/her own good, and not mainly in the interest of others, that real and sustainable change is most likely to take place. So, youth work dealing with problems or difficulties, should therefore have a constructive approach, focus on possible solutions and build its actions on the will and strength of those young people participating.
Youth work is often described or labelled as a preventive practice, but the heart and soul of youth work is promotion. It is through promoting young people that youth work creates added value for both young people and society. This will surely have a preventive effect.
To what degree does our local youth work meet this bullet point?
Are there sides/aspects of it that are not reached?
Are there differences related to different activities?
Are there differences related to different groups of young people?
Are there differences related to different youth work providers?
Are there other differences? Related to what?
What different steps do we need to take in order to meet this bullet point?
Do we miss any knowledge that we need?
Do we need to take contact with stakeholders not present in our discussions?
Do we need to develop new competences, methods, work processes or organisational structures?
Can we find good practices or tools that might help us to improve this?
Do we have positive experiences from other areas of youth work that we can use also in this case?
Are there other organisations that we can contact and learn from regarding this?
Do we need to take other measures?
Do we have to revise our perspectives and/or priorities regarding youth work?
