Brian Belton and Simon Frost provide a starting point for an approach and direction to teaching and learning in the context youth work education at the professional level. While a good deal has been written about youth work practice, material specifically devoted to the content and method of teaching of the discipline is scant. At the same time, all too often those involved professional youth work training find themselves absorbed into forums, programme content and teaching and learning strategies not wholly suited to their specialist function or professional trajectory. This has not helped the status of the profession or the development of best practice in the field.
As such Belton and Frost, senior tutors in the UK’s largest and leading institution (the YMCA George Williams College in East London) specifically devoted to the professional development of youth workers, make a timely and authoritative endeavour to build a foundation on which this deficit might begin to be addressed. This task is undertaken firstly by providing a cogent examination of differentiated teaching and learning, forged with the training of professional youth workers held in tight focus. This is followed by an exploration of the conduct, purpose and ethical disposition of youth work practitioners via an analysis of a long debated question about the professional role; do/should we work ‘with’ or ‘on’ clients?
This consistently critical and questioning book represents a valuable resource to all those involved in teaching and evaluating youth work practice. But it is also important asset for trainers across the horizon of ‘people work’ (social work, nursing, teaching etc. ) and practitioners looking to maintain and develop their understanding and delivery of services.