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Child and Youth Care


Child and Youth Care (CYC) is a profession or craft which focuses on the developmental needs of children and families within the space and time of their daily lives. Child and Youth Care is primarily a way of working with others and practitioners can be found in a variety of roles including direct care, private practice, educator, trainer, writer, supervisor, manager, researcher, and more. They are sometimes known as Child and Youth Workers, Child and Youth Counselors, Youth Workers, or Child and Youth Care Workers. There are strong connections around the world between Child and Youth Care and Social Pedagogy.

The International Child and Youth Care Network promotes reading, discussion, and networking among Child and Youth Care Practitioners through a monthly journal, 4000 member discussion group, and an archive of writing by and for Child and Youth Care Workers.

The Child and Youth Care Association of Newfoundland Labrador hosted the first Child and Youth Care World Conference in June 2013 in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. The second Child and Youth Care World Conference will be held in August 2016 in Vienna, Austria.

Child and Youth Care practice includes skills in developing relationships, assessing needs and strengths, supporting children and families in the life space, and participating in systems interventions through direct care, supervision, administration, teaching, research, consultation and advocacy.

This springs from what used to be known as children's homes or children's institutions which in turn used to part of a city's "charitable" work for children and families who had no access to professional services. Resources for this were always extremely limited and minimally staffed and the service could seldom see beyond a bed with a bedside locker and minimal food and adult attention. There was little or no staff training, with child-staff ratios often being as poor as 1:30.

It was those same staff members who originally bootstrapped their own training programs by soliciting the help of well-intentioned social workers and teachers into voluntary training opportunities, and rudimentary syllabi were developed into shared coursework. Similar grassroots efforts led to the formation, for example, of the National Association of Child Care Workers in South Africa, who over the years took over much of the organisation and work of this (largely voluntary) corps of teachers and child care workers, and who established further connections with helpful professionals.

Practitioners work in a variety of settings, such as early care and education, community-based child and youth development programs, parent education and family support, school-based programs, community mental health, group homes, residential centers, rehabilitation programs, pediatric health care, and juvenile justice programs.


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