Reflections of a Youth Worker: Physical Interaction with a Young Person
By: Daniel John Carter
Tags: Youth, Youth Work, Education, Reflections, Professional Development

Context: A reflection from a series I did for my studies several years ago, reviewed and published to encourage reflection on both a small and large scale within youth work. No real names or organisations have been revealed. The reflections all follow David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle as a method for reflective practice.

Concrete Experience

This reflection is about an incident where I was working on a youth exchange in the Balkans. One of the participants from Wales was a 17-year-old boy with Pakistani heritage who was heavily into bodybuilding and attending the gym. The relationship we had built up over the last few days during the exchange had been based on sarcastic humour and what one may describe as ‘banter’. The young male would repeatedly call me a ‘Jonny’ which is a term used by some in the Pakistani community to describe White people in the UK, it is not a common remark, but I had heard it before. While engaged in some sarcastic dialogue the young male felt the need to prove he was a ‘man’ in doing this the young male threw me to the ground and pinned me there. Initially, I took the whole moment as a joke and went to push the young boy off me so I could stand up as I felt it was an inappropriate situation to be in with a young person. Now as article 2.12 of the Code of Occupational Ethics for the Youth Service in Wales states ‘ensure that young people themselves understand the boundaries between occupation and personal relationships’. However, the young male felt a need to keep me there and show his strength. The young male was considerably taller, larger, and stronger than me and I was unable to move him without exhibiting a force I did not wish to try and use amongst young people. After about a minute or two of verbally warning the young male he must remove himself and cease what he was doing he eventually allowed me to stand up. I warned the young male that such things cannot happen again, and he must show at least some form and respect, if not for me as a group leader, as least for my personal space. I also stated that if such situations arise again I will have to inform his parents. The young male laughed, but also looked nervous and later in the day asked me if I was going to tell his parents. I informed him I would only do so if such an incident were to happen again, they did not and the relationship between us continued humorously and sarcastically.

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Reflective Observation

One of the first notable observations on the situation is that the young male was enormously proud of his heritage as well as religion, which is never usually an issue for me in any way. However, when the young male started calling me ‘Jonny’ it did start to antagonise me, and this may have contributed to the sarcastic manner of our dialogue. The young male was also immensely proud of his strength and body in such a manner that can be deemed overly confident by some. I did start to consider the boy extremely ‘cocky’ and personally, I have a disliking for such personalities in my private life, I believe this also may have played a part in developing such a sarcastic relationship with the young male. When the young male threw me to the ground I was firstly very surprised and expected it to be a brief situation. However, when the young male refused to let me up I grew very angry. I felt disrespected, I felt vulnerable, and I felt humiliated and extremely confused about how to handle the situation. I had not experienced such a situation before and almost had a physical outburst. However, I managed to hold my composure and either through my words or his boredom the young male ceased.

“There is an important difference between feeling in control at work, and not necessarily exercising control” — Tony Ghaye, Teaching and Learning through Reflective Practice

I was extremely unsure about how to handle this situation now, but some knowledge of general Pakistani culture helped me. Although all individuals and families are unique I knew that in a lot of Pakistani families this act of disrespect towards a person in authority would be considered an embarrassment upon the family. This is why I chose to inform the young male that repeating such acts would result in me contacting his family. Although the young male laughed, I believe this was due to the presence of other young people. He also looked very worried and later asked me if I was going to tell his parents. The warning seems to have been effective; such a situation did not arise again. However, I must note that my personal reactions to being called a ‘Jonny’ and the boy’s noticeably confident manner could have played a big part in his reactions to our sarcastic conversations.

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Abstract conceptualisation

Having myself be called ‘Jonny’ touched a nerve, I started to think about how people would react if I used such terms some members of the White community use for Pakistani’s. However, I reminded myself that such words used by the white community as far more offensive and come with a history of oppression that has an impact that my white privilege cannot fully understand.

“Even if we are full of good intentions in relation to anti-discriminatory practice, unless we are actively seeking to eliminate racist thoughts and actions from our day-to-day dealings, they will ‘filter through’ from the culture and structure into which we were socialised and which constantly seek to influence us” — Neil Thompson, Anti-Discriminatory Practice

I tried to leave this and forget about it, but its constant use started to antagonise me. I believe that this led me to reply to the young male’s general remarks in a sarcastic manner that could sometimes be deemed aggressive. The fact that the young male also had the personality of a type of person I generally dislike within my personal life affects my dialogue with the young male leading myself to bring prejudge towards the young male. The feelings I felt while on the ground were very hard to understand and control, my inexperience of firstly feeling such an array of emotions at once along with being in a situation of which I did not know how to amend was a frightening experience. However, I am happy that I resisted a potentially volatile outburst and managed to stay calm until the situation resolved with time. Hiding the feelings of disrespect, fear and vulnerability were hard, but a necessity. Dealing with the young male afterwards was a gamble; I chose to use some basic knowledge I had through growing up in an area with a large Pakistani community and growing up with Pakistani friends. How I handled the situation was not taken from a manual or code of conduct; it was derived on the spot from previous experience. It worked, and for the rest of the exchange, I managed to retain a good relationship (if slightly sarcastic at times) with the young male.

Active Experimentation

In future, I definitely have to practice dealing with dialogue and interactions that have a personal effect on me. While working with young people these things are going to happen and one must understand how to control such reactions and not allow them to have an impact on the working relationships with young people as well as lead to prejudice. In turn, the overwhelming feelings I felt during the physical interaction were still controlled and maintained to lead to a calm resolution of the situation. This shows my professional development is growing in such areas as reflection-in-action and patience with young people. Looking at the final dealings of the situation I have concluded that my ability to work with (as well as the quality of that work) young people depends not only on my academic and professional training but also my life experience. Drawing on all of these areas will allow me to be an effective worker with high-quality interactions, working relationships and results for young people.

“So the skills and knowledge of leaders are shaped by their career experiences as they address increasingly complex problems” — Peter Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice