This article argues for youth and community work (YCW) to be recognised for its critical role in working alongside young people to enhance their well-being. We supply amalgamated vignettes as evidence from student's placement practice and explore the value of informal education practices in YCW in more formal settings. We assert that it is…

Youth in communities across the world are exposed to adversity and trauma at high levels. In this article, we describe a research-informed, resilience-promoting framework that can be incorporated into a variety of touch points for youth (e.g., school, family, community, extra-curricular activities). The PEEPS Framework is relational in nature and…

Professionalism in the context of public sector professions is a changing concept, which is subject to different interpretations. The sociologist Julia Evetts has developed two models, occupational and organisational professionalism, which are useful conceptual tools which help us to understand from a wider theoretical perspective the changing…

In this article, we discuss theater productions we mounted in the Marshall Islands as a case example of how the theatrical process, shaped by "polycultural" inclinations, contributes to the personal development of youth in the Marshall Islands. We contextualize and detail a unique theatrical process that has potential for fostering…

This is the first story in a new series of success stories focused on restorative justice work. The work featured in these stories seeks to acknowledge the impact of harmful practices and creates opportunities to heal that harm between those who enacted it and those impacted by it to transform the community. This report discusses The Hive, which…

Climate change is a critical crisis of our time and a difficult challenge for museums to address in their respective communities. The Wild Center's Youth Climate Program offers an example of how one museum is working with high school students as partners to advance climate change action in schools and communities to build climate resilience.…

Safety protocols for COVID-19 necessitated changes to this action research project. This article describes the theoretical framework of Community-Based Art Education for providing Service-Learning in an art education preparation program during the global pandemic. Art education students joined the local Boys & Girls Club (BGC) and a local…

This article discusses best practices learned from a corporate partnership between Bayer, 4-H county programs in Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and National 4-H Council. This corporate partnership has blossomed into a multi-level engagement that is offering unique opportunities for both Bayer and 4-H programs at the local and state level.…

"Youth" remains a symbolic source of investment in society at large: both perceived as a social problem in need of remediation, and seen as a potential source of social change, leading generational renewal. Contemporary youth culture literature is often still bifurcated between analyses of the ways that young people are disempowered by…

Objectives: Drug education is delivered by a broad spectrum of multi-disciplinary practitioners within the fields of health promotion, drug prevention and treatment, social care, and community and youth work. However, drug education is often misunderstood or conflated with drug information and/or drug prevention. This ambiguity of understanding is…

This article details a community-based art therapy mural project with young people involved in New York City's justice system. To address the racial and economic oppression they confront, the project aimed to increase social bonds and create social power shifts within a collective community. Examples from two projects, "Good Art: Bad…

In this exploratory study, we describe the learning experiences of adolescents from a social project called "Orquestrando Talentos," which offered violin and viola lessons in two high-needs schools for low-income students in Erechim, Southern Brazil. Grounded on the central tenets of popular education, on Paulo Freire's work, and on…

Innovation that benefits children does not always come from formal institutions. Communities around the world are finding creative ways to fill in the gaps in services and enrichment when the schools or other government-backed programs fall short.

During a sabbatical semester in Fall 2018, "Community Literacy Journal (CLJ)" co-editor Paul Feigenbaum volunteered as a "Scholar-in-Residence" at Youth Enrichment Services (YES), a nonprofit established in 1994 that is based in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Guided by its mission "to create hope out of…

Youth engagement is the meaningful and sustained involvement of young people in efforts to create positive social change. This approach requires youth-serving organizations to rebalance traditional power dynamics between adults and young people, allowing youths to take on decision-making responsibilities. Collective impact initiatives such as…