The purpose of this thesis research is to better understand the experiences of street-involved youth in educational institutions. Data for this study was collected through a five-wave panel study of street-involved youth in Victoria, British Columbia (N=64). I used Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) as a framework for analyzing the responses to open-ended questions regarding the participants’ experience with education. At the time of first interview, 89% of the participants had not continued past grade ten and their average age was 16.7 years. Salient themes throughout the analysis included not fitting in, re-engaging, and connectedness. Under not fitting in participants detailed strained relationships with peers, staff and teachers, and difficult experiences trying to engage with their education and learning that did not fulfill their natural curiosity for knowledge. The experiences of not fitting in led to a devalued view of education. Participants also spoke extensively about trying to re-engage with their education and encountering many barriers. Their experiences re-engaging highlight difficulty fitting in within the school environment, policies that prevented their full participation and continued difficulties within the school environment. Despite this, through re-engaging with mainstream schools or alternative education programs some participants were able to find spaces where they fit. Points of connection within schools including positive relationships, positive experiences, and meaningful learning opportunities worked to encourage their participation and attendance in their education. The thesis concludes with a summary of the findings, limitations, implications for practice and future research. / Graduate

In South Africa, alternative care solutions such as foster homes, child-headed households, placements with relatives and Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs), are under pressure to provide for the large numbers of children who need care. Child and Youth Care Centres include facilities such as children’s homes, places of safety, secure care facilities and schools of industry or reform schools. South African legislation offers guidelines towards the fulfilment of children’s needs in CYCCs by providing them with Children’s rights. Unfortunately, not only is literature on children living in CYCCs limited both internationally and locally, existing literature regarding children’s care in CYCCs in South Africa points towards a gap between legislative guidelines and practice of care provision. For example, apparently, children in CYCCs are not afforded opportunities to voice their opinions, and many CYCCs in South Africa are not legally registered. As a result, an obvious indication of the care and interaction taking place between caregivers and children in CYCCs is not available. This inductive, qualitative study aimed to explore and describe the views of children living in Child and Youth Care Centres in the Vaal Triangle area, Gauteng, South Africa, in an effort to gain a better understanding of children’s perceptions of their interactions with their caregivers. One-on-one interviews with children from three CYCCs were conducted. Interviews were voice-recorded and later transcribed. While being interviewed, participants were asked to take part in a role-play exercise and to make a collage of their interaction and relationship with their caregivers. Data was analysed using Creswell’s spiral of analysis and Thematic Analysis by Braun and Clarke. The findings revealed four themes, which encompassed the perceptions of interactions with caregiver: 1. Daily activity with caregiver; 2. Special time with caregiver; 3. Behaviour management strategies; and, 4. Relationship with caregiver. The key findings indicate the valuable insight that was gained by affording children in CYCCs the opportunity to voice their perceptions on their interactions with their caregivers. This not only empowers children and fulfils their right to be heard, but also provides a better understanding of whether needs are being met or not. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

In South Africa, alternative care solutions such as foster homes, child-headed households, placements with relatives and Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs), are under pressure to provide for the large numbers of children who need care. Child and Youth Care Centres include facilities such as children’s homes, places of safety, secure care facilities and schools of industry or reform schools. South African legislation offers guidelines towards the fulfilment of children’s needs in CYCCs by providing them with Children’s rights. Unfortunately, not only is literature on children living in CYCCs limited both internationally and locally, existing literature regarding children’s care in CYCCs in South Africa points towards a gap between legislative guidelines and practice of care provision. For example, apparently, children in CYCCs are not afforded opportunities to voice their opinions, and many CYCCs in South Africa are not legally registered. As a result, an obvious indication of the care and interaction taking place between caregivers and children in CYCCs is not available. This inductive, qualitative study aimed to explore and describe the views of children living in Child and Youth Care Centres in the Vaal Triangle area, Gauteng, South Africa, in an effort to gain a better understanding of children’s perceptions of their interactions with their caregivers. One-on-one interviews with children from three CYCCs were conducted. Interviews were voice-recorded and later transcribed. While being interviewed, participants were asked to take part in a role-play exercise and to make a collage of their interaction and relationship with their caregivers. Data was analysed using Creswell’s spiral of analysis and Thematic Analysis by Braun and Clarke. The findings revealed four themes, which encompassed the perceptions of interactions with caregiver: 1. Daily activity with caregiver; 2. Special time with caregiver; 3. Behaviour management strategies; and, 4. Relationship with caregiver. The key findings indicate the valuable insight that was gained by affording children in CYCCs the opportunity to voice their perceptions on their interactions with their caregivers. This not only empowers children and fulfils their right to be heard, but also provides a better understanding of whether needs are being met or not. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Male child and youth care (CYC) practitioners have rarely been queried about how, or if, they use therapeutic touch (TT) with clients. A significant amount of literature suggests that TT with children and youth can have a positive impact on development, social, emotional and physical wellbeing, and a reduction of aggressive behaviour. However, for male practitioners, using caring touch with clients grows ever more precarious given the increased perception that they are vulnerable to allegations of misconduct and concern that touching clients could be triggering. This narrative inquiry examines how male CYC practitioners make sense of, and engage in, the use of therapeutic touch. Through interviews of five men from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, stories were collected about experiences, values, and personal histories to discover how they were informed about and navigate therapeutic touch with clients. Four themes were identified including, the story of patriarchy, fear, vulnerability and connection. How participants approach their use of therapeutic touch was found to depend on early life experiences, important life events, anecdotal evidence that reinforced fears about using touch, and the current social and political culture such as the #metoo movement. This study also finds that more research, dialogue and training is needed in order for male CYC practitioners to feel safe and competent to use therapeutic touch in a way that is beneficial for clients. / Graduate

<p>Despite remarkable strides being made in legislation in South Africa, the country still faces immense challenges which directly impact on the care and protection of its children. Many children are removed from their families and placed into alternative care because of high risk factors in the family and community. However, because of the socioeconomic<br /> situations of families, many of these children will not be able to return to their family. It is, therefore, essential that in the residential care programme, efforts are directed towards permanency planning for each child in order to ensure long term placement in a family. The host parent programme which has been introduced at Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) acts as a precursor to foster-care placements. Following on this, host parents provide the child in need of care with opportunities to interact and form positive relationships with adult caregivers. This study has explored and described, by means of qualitative research, the experiences of host parents who accommodated children in need of care. Nine host parents were purposively selected from three participating CYCCs in Athlone, Cape Town. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. The data was analysed according to the steps by Tesch in Creswell (2009). The findings suggest that host parents are instrumental to those children who cannot return to their natural families. The host parents&rsquo / interaction with the CYCC was both positive and negative at times. Recommendations and guidelines in order to develop and improve existing hosting programmes at CYCC&rsquo / s are provided.</p>

<p>Despite remarkable strides being made in legislation in South Africa, the country still faces immense challenges which directly impact on the care and protection of its children. Many children are removed from their families and placed into alternative care because of high risk factors in the family and community. However, because of the socioeconomic<br /> situations of families, many of these children will not be able to return to their family. It is, therefore, essential that in the residential care programme, efforts are directed towards permanency planning for each child in order to ensure long term placement in a family. The host parent programme which has been introduced at Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) acts as a precursor to foster-care placements. Following on this, host parents provide the child in need of care with opportunities to interact and form positive relationships with adult caregivers. This study has explored and described, by means of qualitative research, the experiences of host parents who accommodated children in need of care. Nine host parents were purposively selected from three participating CYCCs in Athlone, Cape Town. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. The data was analysed according to the steps by Tesch in Creswell (2009). The findings suggest that host parents are instrumental to those children who cannot return to their natural families. The host parents&rsquo / interaction with the CYCC was both positive and negative at times. Recommendations and guidelines in order to develop and improve existing hosting programmes at CYCC&rsquo / s are provided.</p>

Outdoor adventure programming is a diverse field of study with multiple scopes of practice. Outdoor adventure literature often focuses on the risk management of participants’ physical safety. There is a lack of focus on participants’ emotional safety which is important in many areas of practice, and predominantly when working with youth. Outdoor adventure programs hire staff with technical skills training, and post-secondary education programs provide such training. Child and youth care is a post-secondary degree that provides graduates with skills to work alongside youth in a variety of settings and contexts. Content analysis was used to examine the intersection and alignment of outdoor adventure and child and youth care post-secondary education programs by analyzing five upper year required courses. The results show that child and youth care students are receiving explicit interpersonal skills training, which the outdoor adventure literature states is important. This study provides insight into what components of outdoor adventure youth work are important for students to learn, and insight on how to enhance education and knowledge for front-line workers. / Graduate

In this study, classic grounded theory is used to explore and explain the relationship between street-involved youth and the streets. The main concern of the youth in this study is negotiating duality, and at the heart of this negotiation process is seeking safety on the streets while struggling to emerge into mainstream society. Data was collected in a mid-sized urban Canadian city through semi-structured interviews, observation, conversations and photography with 52 current street-involved youth, 6 former street-involved youth, and 8 adults who work with this population. The study led to the development of a substantive theory of negotiating duality, the core construct which emerged as the means by which street-involved youth handle their need to both survive in the day-to-day context of the streets while simultaneously working their way off the streets and back to mainstream society. Four domains of duality emerged as significant: dual logic, dual space and place, dual identity, and dual normality. Additionally, three interrelated concepts (social processes) emerged from the data: seeking safety, struggling to emerge, and living outside normal. These processes were characterized by five bifocal strategies: escaping, provisioning, anchoring, routing, and using (in)visibility. This theory is a model of person-place interaction, explaining the dynamic relationship street-involved youth have with and between the street and mainstream society. The findings of this study enhance understanding about street-involved youth and their interaction with the streets and mainstream society and provide a framework that can be utilized to inform youth homelessness services, policy development, and future research. / Graduate

As suicide is a leading cause of death for young people, child and youth care professionals are likely to encounter adolescents who are contemplating ending their lives. Recognizing and responding to the needs of a suicidal adolescent is challenging for the professional as they attempt to balance their relationship with the young person while simultaneously following customary rules of engaging in situations involving suicide. The need for theory to deepen understanding of child and youth care professionals’ mental health literacy practices with suicidal adolescents led to this grounded theory study. Derived from interviews with 19 participants including child and youth care professionals, supervisors at youth-serving agencies, educators in schools of child and youth care, and textual analysis of policies, assessment tools, and curricula, the Balancing Perimeter and Proximity process was identified as the core category in the analysis. The Balancing process suggests professionals’ mental health literacy practices fluctuate between circling care and circling defensively. Circling defensively refers to the professional taking up literacy practices that establish a perimeter of protection; whereas literacy practices within circling care position the professional in relational proximity where they connect and attend to the adolescent holistically. The theory extends current conceptualizations of mental health literacy, and contextualizes professionals’ practice in identifying the conditions influencing the Balancing process, thereby providing an understanding for how existing structures (e.g., suicide education, agency policies) influence child and youth care professionals’ mental health literacy practices with suicidal adolescents. / Graduate

The ultimate aim of this inquiry is to expand understandings of what it can mean to engage meaningfully with children, youth, and families and the systems designed to support them, in context. By widening our gaze to include the discursive, political, and other dimensions of lived experiences, practitioners and policy makers may be able to engage in practices that prioritize the wellbeing of all community members, recognizing social justice as central to this development. Methodologically, the challenge has been to work emergently, in line with social constructionist and postmodern understandings of social reality in which conditions are always in flux. Since there has been a call from qualitative researchers to make visible more ‘messy texts’ through which decision making processes can be made transparent, this document tracks the course of the study from beginning to end. By making explicit the methodological decisions as they are made, and contextualizing these decisions within not only the academic literature and data but also within personal and political realities, the author aims to demonstrate an ontological approach to learning and change. By experiencing research not only as product (findings), but also process (ways of engaging), the researcher highlights the transformative potential of relating differently with(in) one’s inquiry. The five-part exploration itself begins by unpacking dominant discourses of both struggles and support, which are becoming increasingly individualized due to a number of contextual realities. It then explores relational theories of subjectivity as well as theories of multiplicity, in an effort to look at other – albeit often concealed – dimensions of experience. By taking these theories and the multitude of practices they inform into consideration, possibilities for other ways of engaging in human service practices and policy development become intelligible. However, even when relational processes are acknowledged, avenues for action are significantly constrained through power relations. Deliberately incorporating notions of nomadism, non-unitary subjectivity, situatedness, and diversity into our discourses and practices can function politically in that they can provide opportunities for us to embrace and enact new narratives and ways of being. These in turn open space in which different kinds of meaningful social engagement can occur. In the pursuit of more just ways of being, deliberately attending to multiple stories can thus contribute to shifts in practice and policy that are responsive to what was, what is, and what may be possible. Drawing from existing empirical research as well as personal narratives shared by community members and policy makers, this dissertation argues that by blurring lines between self and other, contextualizing practices, understanding change as ontological, reconceptualising power, and recognizing justice as an ongoing and shared responsibility, we might collectively access and mobilize fruitful possibilities that are often obscured. / Graduate