Educating youth workers as public advocates

The case is made in this article that public advocacy is an important practice for youth work in the current context and that it needs explicit training that entails the design of a professional youth work curriculum which equips practitioners to be effective. This includes having a stand-alone advocacy or social action subject in the formal curriculum, as well as a renewed concentration on the role of language and how 'youth problems' are framed. This can take different forms in different subjects. For example in a subject area such as 'Youth Policy' it may include analysing the 'problem setting' activities of the media and other policy makers. In history based subjects, it can entail a study of public and 'respectable fears' and how they are connected to the ways young people have been regularly described as 'hooligans' and trouble-makers , thus warranting 'special' treatment. Some of the central elements of a stand-alone youth advocacy or social action subject are also detailed in this article.