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What Is Youth Work Praxis?

April 17, 2012 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

Youth work praxisQ: What is youth work praxis and what does it mean?

A: The origin of the word praxis comes from the stem of the Greek verb prassein, which means to do or to act. From prassein we get the Greek word praksis, spelled more commonly as praxis in English, which means practice, action or doing.

In Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, Paulo Freire writes that through praxis – through putting learning into action – the oppressed are able to gain more of an awareness of their situation and, in turn, are able to gain freedom and liberate themselves.

Youth work praxis is therefore when you put the theory you learn into your day-to-day youth work practice. This theory could have been learned through a conference, training, course or book. However you learned the youth work theory, what’s important is not only learning it, but putting it into practice.

Youth work praxis can take many forms, but here are three ways you can put youth work theory into practice:

1) Youth group development

Identify which stage of group development your youth are in, then use that knowledge to help guide them through the process of developing as a group

2) Set objectives

Use SMART or SMARTER targets to set goals and aims for your youth and your youth work programming

3) Child protection

Learn about best practices in child protection and then make the necessary changes or improvements to policies and procedures. Make sure that those procedures are put into place each and every time you work with youth

Question: What theory have you learned that you put into practice or need to make part of your youth work praxis? How did it go? Let us know in the comments below.

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Problem Solving And Praxis From A Global Youth Worker

September 1, 2011 By Shae Pepper 1 Comment

Youth Work Blog

Welcome to the first post on the Youth Workin’ It blog, where we’ll be sharing our ‘pearls of wisdom’ about all things youth work related.

In the future we hope to be able to offer guest writing spots, so if you enjoy the blog and have something interesting, funny or useful to share about working with young people anywhere in the world we would love to hear from you.

I want this to be a really useful resource for people working with young people ages 11-21 the world over. Some topics we’ll be covering include (but are not limited to):

  • Global Youth Work
  • Best Practice
  • Youth Empowerment & Youth Participation
  • Youth Work Program Administration And Development
  • Youth Work Session Plan Ideas
  • Youth Group Fundraising and Grant Writing Ideas
  • Problem Solving – in the form of Q & A sessions (so if you have an idea, comment or question get in touch or put it in the comments section on any blog post and we will try to cover it in the future)
  • Plus many more!

Before we get started you may be wondering ‘What is Praxis?’ I’ll always do my best to explain any youth worker speak in an easy to understand way. Praxis is the combination of Theory – all that book-learnin’ – and Practice – what actually happens when you’re working face to face with young people. For more information, see our post where we answer the question What Is Youth Work Praxis?

The best practitioners (there we go again – people who ‘practice’ or ‘do’ the profession of youth work – be it voluntary or paid employment) I have met are able to take what they learned in a class, training or read in a book and put it to good use, in a real and practical way, with young people.

This website and blog are dedicated to serving young people by equipping their youth workers and youth organizations with the tools, resources, ideas, training and support to provide the best programs for them.

Join in the conversation and community! You can start doing this by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

 

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