‘Befriend them but not be their friend’: Negotiations of youth practice in a digital age

ABSTRACT

‘You’ve gotta befriend them but not be their friend’ is how one youth worker thoughtfully described the secret to successful youth practice. This paper draws on experiences of youth workers in the United Kingdom to consider how the growth of digital technologies comes to be negotiated and articulated in professional practice. Situating these experiences alongside young people’s accounts, this article highlights a distinction between young people’s relationship with the digital and adult perceptions of youth and technology. The aim of this paper is to consider what factors contribute towards this divide and where adult perceptions come from, if not from the experiences of young people themselves. The article then goes on to discuss the potential consequences of the presence of technology and discourses surrounding the digital for youth worker’s engagements with young people in professional practice. Overall, this article argues for the enduring relevance of youth workers and physical youth centres in a digital age and joins several scholars in critiquing the chronic under-investment in youth workers and provision in the UK and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth work
• young people
• digital technology
• boundaries
• relationships
• austerity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 High staff turnover was discussed in interviews as being attributed to low pay, anti-social working hours and lack of job security.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500215/1].