In today's digital world, digital youth work is rapidly becoming a novel area of specialization. The digital environment in professional practice is an up-to-date dynamic force that places us at the forefront of the hi-tech revolution, inspiring youth work both as a scientific field and as a profession. First, this chapter provides a synopsis and a serious perspective on digital technologies in youth work practice. Researchers believe that the functions of digital technology have an impact on a wide range of youth service settings. Various nations have reacted in different ways in terms of policy and practice. Second, research concerns, as well as a new policy development plan, research accuracy, more theoretical complexity, and awareness of the need for multidisciplinary work, are discussed. Moreover, there is a need for participatory research that can provide a better understanding of the experiences and needs of youth workers using digital technologies as well as how these needs can be met.
TopIntroduction
Youth work is one of the few occupations that enables a person to do real good in the world. Youth work is characterized by a special recurrence, with younger generations relying on certain key values and principles that require the development of voluntary links with younger generations, relations with societies and other associated organizations, and specialized guidance from professional practitioners (Sapin, 2013). Unfortunately, most communities face a desperate shortage of youth workers. As a result of the economic recession, the younger generations are struggling with social, emotional, behavioral and mental issues. Therefore, the need for caring and qualified youth workers continues to grow. Thankfully, digital technologies make it possible for many youth workers to perform their duties effectively despite the shortage. Generally, it has been found that youth workers benefit greatly from the adoption of technology in their practices (Harvey, 2016).
In addition, positive perspectives on technological advancement in youth work appear to be satisfactory and inspiring in the studies of community and youth work. For example, the use of digital technology in different contexts of youth services have been explored (Buckingham, 2008; Rafferty & Waldman, 2006; Székely & Nagy, 2011). Not only that, there are textbooks on how digital technology can be used in youth work practice (Hill & Shaw, 2011; Watling & Rogers, 2012).
Some studies have addressed the role of technology in the clinical practice of youth work (Erstad, 2012; Livingstone et al., 2014), while others have recognized the importance for experts and other adults in youth work to have supervision and opportunities to become capable, proficient, and up-to-date about the educational role and potential of digital technologies. These studies condone the use of digital technologies to reinforce many features of youth work practice and to enhance opportunities towards reinforcing connections between research, policy and practice (Bamber, 2014).
Empowered by the opportunity to share best practice, the Italian National Agency of Erasmus and the current European Union Youth Work Plan for 2016-2018 established a number of technological criteria and prepared courses to ensure that qualified youth workers were appropriately competent to serve a progressively tech-savvy population. As increasingly more youth work clients are facing technological problems, youth workers need the ability to understand technology and find appropriate solutions (Pawluczuk et al., 2019). Youth workers of the future, therefore, need to be proactive in their research of emerging trends, productive in their reactions to technological innovations, and should reject technology only if it does not bring benefit to their cause or younger clients.
Even though it is crucial to prepare for the incipient technological revolution in youth work, there has been a great deal of resemblance to the work that needs to be done to realize the remarkable potential of digital technologies in youth work practice (European Commission, 2018). As much of the current discourse on ethics and technology in youth work practice takes a very cautious and restrictive approach to digital technology, there is also a need to identify some of the challenges that have caused digital youth practice, research and policy to receive less attention in literature. The main objective of this chapter is to draw attention to these issues and to plan the research agenda. After a summary of studies and public policy literature identifying key issues and challenges facing youth work in the digital age, we discuss the new paths that we believe need to be addressed in this field. In the current chapter, consideration is given to the issues, challenges and ways forward for research in five areas: prevalence of digital youth work, international focus on policy development, definition issues, quality of methods and theoretical issues or problems.