Detached street worker programs

Book developed out of work undertaken by the editors with a skinhead gang. The members talk about community, the gang, schools, clubs, jobs, bosses, immigrants, violence, football and the police.

There is an introduction and conclusion from the editors. Good example of limited-term work with a self-organizing group. Department of Education and Science Some detached youth and community work in Sheffield. The only inspectors report devoted to a review of local detached youth work practice. Outlines the range of provision; the nature of the work; some issues around management, resources and finance; and comments on training.

Includes some material on project work. Edginton, J. Study of a long established YWCA detached and project work initiative earlier reported on by Cox Makes a case for a community approach to youth work. Includes chapters on researching youth and community work; the development of the project ; the area; neighbourhood teamwork; decision-making and communication; aspects of fieldwork; working with agencies and agency and community perceptions of the project.

Appendices deal with staffing; aims; and the agency survey. Eggleston, J. Bibliography, index. Major research study examining youth work practice in the early s. Farrant, M. Practical guide for workers wanting to make contact with young people. A stage in the detached work process , London: Street Aid. Grounded discussion with plenty of good advice. Gardner, M. Useful collection of project summaries — following the earlier YSIC tradition. Gibson, A. Young people, youth workers and projects , London: Jessica Kingsley.

Introductory guide to project work with groups of young people. Part 1 examines skill development, dialogue, groups, power and trust, evaluation and the context of your project. Part 2 is looks at how these things may be practised. Goetschius, G. Contains rich case study material and displays a detailed attention to analysing process. Chapters examine the background to the project; the sequence of events; the problems of fieldwork; observations concerning key themes young people, unattached needing help, neighbourhood, staff etc.

Social education ; implications; and conclusions. Substantial appendices provide facts and figures about the project, discussion of training opportunities, and an exploration of Christian commitment in working with the unattached. One of the best studies of youth work published.

Gosling, R. Taken together they provide a wonderful insight into the possibilities and pitfalls of experimental work in the early s. Green, J. Responding to the needs of young women at risk or involved in prostitution , Leicester: National Youth Agency. A helpful overview of some of the key issues for young women and workers around prostitution. Includes a case study on work with young men selling sex. The report includes a discussion of the role of the youth service, recommendations for policy and practice, and provides an annotated bibliography of resources for workers.

At its centre, though, is an exploration of practice. This is drawn from various sources but includes several case studies involving detached or outreach work.

Includes a useful set of guidelines for good detached or outreach practice produced by Streetwise Youth. Grunsell, R. Originally published as Born to be Invisible — Macmillan Story of three years work settingup and running an intermediate treatment centre. Gives strong flavour of project work with young people.

Hening, M. Arose out of work in Manchester and includes a discussion of the scope of detached work and models for evaluation — and then examines a number of case studies. Holden, H. Includes a summary and recommendations and appendices giving a chronology of key events, the role of the consultant, and a person view of Hoxton. Holman, B. A preventive project on a council estate , Oxford: Blackwell. Chapters examine the beginning of the work; the clubs; youngsters; parents; the community; the job; the relevance of the church; and future developments.

The workers also lived on the estate. Hope, P. A handbook on project planning for youth and community workers , Leicester: National Council for Voluntary Youth Services. Practical guide — as the title says. Ince, D. A report on a project with unattached young people in an area of high social need in Liverpool , Leicester: Youth Service Information Centre.

John, G. The political culture of youth and community work with Black people in English cities , Leicester: National Association of Youth Clubs. Kingsland, M. Looks at provision association, activities, advice, action in the community, access to life and vocational skills ; provides some case studies; and discusses emerging issues.

Leach, S. Booklet provides brief account of the project with a number of appendices dealing with job specifications, report forms, code of practice etc. Leissner, A. Examines the nature of delinquency and delinquent subcultures; key dimensions; detached group work or street club work and supervision. Lewis, B. Marchant, H. Report of a Youth Development Trust action-research project.

Chapters on theoretical background and plan of project; the girls; beginnings of fieldwork; developing relationships; termination; research analysis of fieldwork; and the project in retrospect.

There are also conclusions and recommendations and appendices giving details of recording forms; results and research findings. Marks, K. Five years of city centre detached work , Leicester: National Youth Bureau. Provides the background to the project and various aspects of the detached work process: surveying the area; contact work; city centre groupings; working relationships; work with individuals; styles of work; use of time; referrals; volunteers.

Further sections look to evaluation and support for the worker. Brief but useful review of detached work asking whether it has become established, how it is supported and what are the patterns of staffing? Discusses practical aspects such as funding and expenses and personal support. Masterson, A. Mountain, A. A handbook for women working with young women at risk or in trouble , Leicester: National Youth Bureau. This may be due to several factors. For instance, real-world conditions sometimes preclude the implementation of a true experimental design Esbensen et al.

Despite the lack of quality evaluations and other major challenges, we still need to attempt a synthesis of what we think we know from the evidence to date and extract key elements to better inform policy and practice. American scholars have given more attention to the subject of youth gangs than anyone else. The influence of the United States on the youth gang knowledge base cannot be overstated and, as such, readers should exercise some caution before readily extrapolating American findings to the situation or context in Canada.

Nonetheless, an assessment of the American experience is extremely useful to understanding and informing the work that needs to be carried out here in Canada. In preparing this document, information was gathered from many diverse sources Footnote 1. A vast body of work was identified and over scholarly journal articles, government reports, and books published between January 1st, , and April 30th, , were reviewed for possible inclusion in the literature review.

The final selection, comprised of over 35 sources, primarily included those that focused on evaluation results and attempted to ascertain the effectiveness of gang prevention, intervention and suppression programs, policies and strategies. Dating as far back as the pioneering work of Frederic Thrasher , there is now over seventy-five years of accumulated research knowledge pertaining to youth gangs.

This report relies, in large part, on the comprehensive reviews that have been conducted by others in recent years. For instance, the recent text by Malcolm W. Klein and Cheryl Maxson was particularly useful as it offered a thorough, up-to-date review of current literature and practice. The present document focuses mainly on substantive and practice-oriented, rather than methodological and theoretical, issues.

Notwithstanding, it is important for the reader to be aware of some of the current definitional issues associated with the study of youth gangs. For instance, Sullivan notes the various problems and challenges associated with the loose manner in which the term gang is used by the news and entertainment media, law enforcement and scholars alike.

Accordingly, confusion in public discourse and in scholarly analysis concerning how youth gangs are broadly defined has important implications both for understanding youth gangs and for developing and implementing solutions to address them Short and Hughes, Similarly, Klein and Maxson argue that a clear, concise definition allows us to better focus our efforts by setting aside groups such as adult crime groups, motorcycle gangs, prison gangs, and the vast majority of youth groups that infrequently participate in criminal activity.

It may be prudent, therefore, for readers to educate themselves and be aware of some of the youth gang definitions that are being developed and used by scholars, policy-makers and practitioners. The response to youth gang problems in the United States and elsewhere, particularly over the past three decades, has produced three primary strategies: prevention, intervention and suppression.

Gang prevention programs typically focus on discouraging children and youth, especially those at high-risk, from joining gangs. Gang intervention programs, on the other hand, generally target active gangs and gang members.

Given that literally hundreds, if not thousands, of varied responses have been developed and implemented over the years to respond to the youth gang problem, it is simply not possible or even practical to provide an overview and assessment of each and every one in the present review.

Furthermore, as stated earlier, the majority of these responses have not been rigorously evaluated. For these and other reasons, the following are provided as selected examples of promising approaches that contain elements of good practice, as well as those approaches that appear not to work so well.

Not only is it essential to know what works, it is equally important for us to know which youth gang responses are ineffective. Policy makers and practitioners wish to avoid wasting time, money and resources doing things that we already know, through high-quality research, simply do not work.

They also want to know that the interventions they are supporting will produce more positive benefits than harmful side effects.

Suppression alone does not work. Despite the fact that gang suppression is probably the best known and most practiced strategy in response to youth gang problems, it is generally regarded as less effective than many prevention and intervention approaches Decker, As with suppression, incarceration alone does not work.

There is a growing recognition that not only do correctional institutions rarely rehabilitate, they also tend to further criminalize individuals, often leading to re-offending and a vicious cycle of release and imprisonment United Nations, In fact, several research studies suggest that youth gang members are considerably more likely to be re-arrested and re-incarcerated following their release from custody than non-gang members Benda and Tollett, ; Tollett and Benda, ; Benda et al.

Detached worker, also known as street gang worker, programs typically provide services and support to gang members in their own environment Thornberry, With respect to this type of intervention program, it is important to review the seminal work of Malcolm Klein He found that earlier versions of this type of program actually led to increased gang crime as a result of detached workers inadvertently enhancing, as opposed to breaking, gang cohesion.

According to Klein :. Any prevention program that selects potential gang members and gives them special attention runs the risk of creating the problem it is aimed at preventing. Past programs in Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles seem to have demonstrated this outcome. The G. According to its official website Footnote 3 , the program was developed in through a partnership involving the Phoenix Police Department in Arizona and the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The program was modeled after the much touted, but largely ineffective, Drug Awareness Resistance and Education D. Very briefly, the G. The session middle school component is the core, compulsory component.

A five-year longitudinal evaluation found that, while the G. Klein and Maxson contend that four basic factors explain the failure of the G.

To date, one of the best known and probably most evaluated responses to youth gangs is the U. It is essentially a balanced, three-pronged approach that encompasses prevention, intervention and suppression activities.

Despite the various limitations and challenges that have been identified Footnote 4 , there are many lessons learned for those considering replicating this model.

Between and , Dr. Irving Spergel and his colleagues at the University of Chicago collected and analyzed the policies and practices of agencies throughout the United States involved in combating gangs Spergel et al. From this work, Spergel developed a comprehensive model program to reduce and prevent gang crime and violence. The model was piloted in the Little Village neighbourhood of Chicago, Illinois, starting in According to Wyrick , , the OJJDP has implemented this model in over 25 urban and rural locations since With respect to the Little Village Gang Project in Chicago, Spergel summarizes its effectiveness Footnote 5 as follows using arrest history data:.

The reduction of serious violence arrests was more than 60 percent greater for program than for comparison seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds — the highest-rate offenders in that age group — controlling for other variables in the equation. The project had an across-the-board effect in reducing the levels of arrests for serious violence for all age groups in the program sample in relation to the comparison and quasiprogram samples. The project was particularly successful in reducing drug arrests for program youth compared to comparison and quasiprogram youth, who showed increased drug arrests.

Program youth showed nonsignificant greater reductions in arrests for other types of arrests such as mob action, disorderly conduct, and obstruction of a police officer but no difference in the reduction of total arrests mainly property crimes.

The most significant reduction in all types of arrests was by the nineteen-and-older youth across the three samples and, especially, in the program sample. There were, however, a number of challenges and limitations identified with this model.

In , interim process evaluation reports indicated slow start-up at the five aforementioned test sites as well as a significant number of serious implementation problems. The most notable of these was, arguably, a failure to clearly articulate the model sufficiently for the various sites to follow. Unfortunately, the first clear articulation of the Spergel Model was conveyed three and a half years after the programs had commenced, and well after the original Little Village model had been implemented Klein and Maxson, Furthermore, Klein and Maxson note that the complexities of carrying out the Spergel Model may have been beyond the capacities of many of the participating sites.

Lastly, there were both political pressures e. Few innovative — if even effective — programs survive, or develop further, unless they serve and sustain important organizational and political interests. The Boston Gun Project was developed in the mids as a problem-oriented policing intervention expressly aimed at reducing youth homicide and youth firearms violence in Boston, Massachusetts. The project commenced in early and implemented what is now known as the Operation Ceasefire intervention, which subsequently got underway by the spring of The initiative represented an innovative partnership between academics and practitioners who worked together to diagnose the city's youth homicide problem and to develop and implement viable responses Braga, Kennedy, Piehl and Waring, The Boston Police Department and researchers from Harvard University initiated the project by approaching other key criminal justice and social service partners and stakeholders in the city to participate on a working group and support a research-based process.

These stakeholders initially included: the departments of probation and parole, Streetworkers Footnote 6 , the Office of the Suffolk County District Attorney, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.

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Our customised offerings are focused on reducing the cost of training while maximising results. Tel: Email: info kipeducation. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Whatsapp. Search Courses. Engage respectfully with young people Provide needs and circumstance-based services Plan, implement and support youth services programs Develop effective communication strategies Facilitate and review case management practices.

We had detached youth workers and numerous good schemes , most of which have disappeared. Detachments of workers are sent into the universities. During the Russian Revolution of , he was a member of an armed workers ' detachment in Mykolaiv. A detachment of railway workers had surrounded the town and not all the bandits got away on their swift horses.