Concepts and methods of youth work looks at:

• youth work as a career, including career options, pioneering and settling activities, defining the nature of youth work
• youth work as a profession, including professionalism and ethics, multiskilling, future prospects for youth work
• models of youth work intervention, including personal, structural, power, feminism, nonviolence, values
• youth work general skills, including small group processes, music programs, mentoring, advocacy, activation, conflict resolution
• youth working and workplaces, large city work, new directions for youth work, soft cop syndrome, stress.

Introduction

Youth workers as workers
Rob White

Youth work as a career

1. Defining the nature of youth work
Rob White, Suzanna Omelczuk and Rod Underwood

2. ‘Pioneering’ and ‘settling’ activities of youth workers
Neville Knight

3. A career in youth work?
David Maunders and Robyn Broadbent

4. Mapping career options for youth workers
Judith Bessant and Ruth Weber

5. Youth service provision: Mapping the terrain
Rob White

Youth work as a profession

6. The youth work contract: Professionalism and ethics
Howard Sercombe

7. Professional lions and multiskilled kangaroos: Youth workprofessionalism in South Africa and Australia
David Maunders

8. ‘Up periscope’: The future for youth work in Australia
Judith Bessant

9. Youth work: The professionalisation dilemma
Howard Sercombe

10. Youth work: The Loch Ness monster and professionalism
Judith Bessant

11. ‘Embedded’ youth work: Ethical questions for youth work professionals
Howard Sercombe

12. Youth work: Has it reached its use-by date?
Vaughan Bowie

Intervention models

13. Youth work as a response to social values
David Maunders

14. Youth affairs in Australia
Michael Cusack

15. Models of youth work intervention
Trudi Cooper and Rob White

16. The search for a feminism that could accommodate homeless young women
Karen Crinall

17. Power, ethics and youth work
Howard Sercombe

18. Theorising youth and difference
Heather Stewart

19. Nonviolence as a framework for youth work practice
Graeme Stuart

20. From personal to structural: Towards critical change in youth work practice
Victor Wong

21. Youth work: The problem of values
Tim Corney

General skills

22. Small group process awareness: A field experience
David Goble

23. Sounds of the Street: An inner-city music Program
Phil Nunn

24. Mentoring: A case example and guidelines for its effective use
Eugene Clark

25. The role of an advocate for young people
Moira Rayner

26. The contradictory position of youth workers in the public sphere
Howard Sercombe

27. Ten arguments against youth curfews
Rob White

28. How effective are youth workers in activating young people’s voices?
Rick Flowers

29. Conflict resolution and nonviolence workshops with young people
Graeme Stuart

30. Whitelion individualised mentoring and employment program
Alistair Lemmon

Youth working and workplaces

31. Free market economics and new directions for youth workers
Judith Bessant

32. Youth workers in Sydney: Doing a lot with a little
Lisa Bourke and Pam Evans

33. Pros and cons of early intervention: Models, practice and environments
Rob White

34. Youth work: Challenging the soft cop syndrome
Scott Poynting and Rob White

35. Youth workers and stress
Vaughan Bowie