Learning from the Streets

Is there a different way?

I dont know about you but I have always found something jarring about trying almost to ‘retrofit’ the kind of work that we do as youth and community workers; conversations, group work, project work, activities and specialised groups into the normative expectations of ‘Management culture’ – which has words like:

Effectiveness

Outcomes

Control

and evaluates often according to expectations that things are predictable, linear and able to be controlled.

I.E if we do _______ then we will expect ________ and be able to see change in ______ way.

When in reality our work can often be do A get F and with a whole load of unexpected M, P and U, its not A to B.

Yet, it has seemed like this is the almost only way, and I know Im setting up a straw man argument here, and things might have changed, but I haven’t seen much evidence to the contrary….yet, and especially in organisations that get nervous about their survival and existence, quick fix and quick win overtake thought.

After all, it’s not like we dont want youthwork to be effective do we? but is that really what its all about?

Then I looked at the books and resources I have read, or tried to understand ‘management’ from.

And looked at the cultures that they are written from.

Western (tick)

Often Male and masculine (tick)

Consumerist/Capatalist (tick)

Big corporation (often)

and if not written by this demographic, certainly written to it… (yes these may be contested terms, but you get the drift)

More about doing… than being.

So, if the language of mumbo jumbo, or business speak has implicitly become the dominant force in organisation culture, in regard to management and leadership – might it be no wonder that this has shifted a human values based practice into complying with the forces of the market. (Oh shit im starting to sound like Paulo Freire again)

So I started to think back to what it is we do.

We could dress it up in a lot of fancy words, but bottom line is, is that ‘We care’

We care that young people have space to grow and be themselves (however this is defined)

We care that young people have a say in things that are important to them

We care that young people _________ (insert your own)

It’s about care. Professional care. Personal care. And doing this in ways that are often about interactions, and in those interactions care is given/received through conversations.

So we care.

We be. Is more important often than what we do.

Yet, Care, doesn’t feature much in ‘control, effectivity, outcomes, does it’ – its that retro fitting again…

So I began to wonder, might there be other models or theories of management, ones that seemed to emphasise the persons, care and development, than, the language of business?

And I found this

These are taken from Action Aid 10 principles of feminine leadership

There’s more on Feminist leadership if you type it into the usual search engine. Many of the projects that are developing this are ones that are for women, relating to abuse situations and oppression groups. There is also a Centre for global equality who are developing feminist leadership in the UN.

Yet, might it do a disservice to call these principles feminist necessarily?

Surely, these principles are good for leaders everywhere. Surely they link to good human values. Surely they counter the bullish and power hungry world of business and commercialism, and seem to me more like the values that have been talked about in youthwork for years, even if those are hard to quantify. But put it this way, Courage, Self care, inclusion, sharing power all said above, all enable the care of others, and isnt that what we do as youth workers. Care.

To be better humans ourselves so that those who we interact with have the opportunity to be better humans also.

And when so many of our young peoples lives are filled with a trauma not of their own making, shouldn’t we as organisations find ways of being caring, and being able to care better? (and this isnt a trauma piece, but clocking it here)

So… what might it look like for leaders in caring organisations, and the culture within to reflect care more? What of faith organisations too? and what kind of principles/values might enable this to be valued, pursued and emphasised…rather than value for money…

I wonder…

If care is a more female trait…shouldnt the way we structure what we do reflect this too?

(Please forgive the overuse of contested male/female terms in this piece, I know, caring isnt just female, I know, but just for the sake of simplicity)

Thank you for reading this piece, more on detached youthwork, faith based youthwork and church are on this site. If you have enjoyed this piece and would like to make a donation towards my work and writing, you can do so at this page here, thank you. Do have a look at the menu above if you would like me to do some work with you to develop your thinking and practice on any aspect of youth and community work, for you or your organisation.