Approaches to Youth Participation in Youth and Community Work Practice: a Critical Dialogue

Participation, and the inclusion of young people in decisions that affect them, is important to professional youth and community work practice (Smith 1983, 1988; Jeffs & Smith 1987; Irving, Maunders & Sherrington 1995; Harrison & Wise 2005; Ord 2007; Wood & Hine 2009; Batsleer & Davies 2010; Sapin 2013; Corney 2014a, 2014b). However, application of the concept is contested (Farthing, 2010, 2012) and, as Smith (1983) has warned, participation, while central to youth work, has not been well understood. Ord (2007) goes further to suggest that understanding what is meant by participation is crucial to good youth and community work practice.