GENIUS Remaja as an Initiative Towards Empowering At-Risk Youth in a Digital Society

This article describes how today's youth are those categorized as Gen Z and Millennials who were born and brought up in the Information Age. As it brings benefits, the Internet could also cause harm if it is misused. Using a system theory approach, the GENIUS Remaja community program was introduced to address concerns particularly among at-risk youth living in the city. This is done by giving them healthier alternatives for their choice to channel their energy. This chapter will share the success stories and also the challenges in the implementation of the GENIUS Remaja community program in Malaysia.

Sharing the Stories

Digital technologies can provide youth work researchers with the power to conduct large-scale research on processes and outcomes of youth work services. This includes collaborative evaluations across programs, as a way of capturing the story of what happens in youth services, as a form of digital storytelling. Where this collaborative evaluation work is founded in youth-adult partnerships, it is a form of youth work. In this chapter, the authors outline the need for collaborative evaluation in their own context of Canadian youth work, and their experience of collecting digital program data in youth services. They offer a working model for digital youth service evaluation, which places the collective engagement of youth and other partners at its centre. Drawing on the model, they discuss the lessons we have learned in this process. To be successful, digital youth services evaluation requires building relationships and connections across digital space and adherence to youth work principles.

Digital Technologies and Youth Work

Within this chapter the authors explore the implications of ‘digital disruption' for key youth work concepts like friendship, relationship, trust, and community and how changing everyday understandings of these concepts can be, or should be, adopted into youth work theorisation and praxis. Secondly, the authors discuss Freirean critical dialogue and the development of critical consciousness, and how this is challenged by the targeted disinformation found in social media. We argue that micro-targeted disinformation has profound implications for the practice of critical pedagogy. Finally, the authors provide an overview of the opportunities presented by digital technologies, particularly when integrated with existing methods, and some examples of successful practice.

Digitalization, Social Work, and Youth in an Indian Perspective

This chapter describes how presently, India has the largest proportion of youth population in the world and will continue to hold for the next 20 years. The challenge for the country is to increase the human resource potential for the country. The demographic data of the country's youth is a challenge which needs to be addressed, one of the challenges is not being able to access the digital world due to illiteracy, lack of knowledge on computer technology and social media, and proficiency in manual work. The chapter examines youth work in the context of the Indian sub-continent.

Theory and Application to the Digitization of Young Human Capital Support

The chapter presents a review of a variety of theories and models of adopting and adapting new technological tools such as social media for young people and the impact of their outcomes such as employment, learning at work, and communication. The chapter tries to explain the influence of digital technologies on young adult career selection. The chapter encompasses four principles including self-concepts, adult learner experience, opinion polls, and readiness to learn. As youth workers are expected to be lifelong learners, and youth work itself is an area that continues to be established in learning settings, this chapter on the values of adult learners, alongside theories, helps learners to understand and create more practical learning environments.

Youth Work and Digital Technologies

In today's digital world, digital youth work is rapidly becoming a novel area of specialization. The digital environment in professional practice is an up-to-date dynamic force that places us at the forefront of the hi-tech revolution, inspiring youth work both as a scientific field and as a profession. First, this chapter provides a synopsis and a serious perspective on digital technologies in youth work practice. Researchers believe that the functions of digital technology have an impact on a wide range of youth service settings. Various nations have reacted in different ways in terms of policy and practice. Second, research concerns, as well as a new policy development plan, research accuracy, more theoretical complexity, and awareness of the need for multidisciplinary work, are discussed. Moreover, there is a need for participatory research that can provide a better understanding of the experiences and needs of youth workers using digital technologies as well as how these needs can be met.

European Youth in the Perspective of E-Youth Work

This study intends to analyze e-youth work from a global perspective focusing on European data. This chapter attempts to prove, that besides family and school there is a third main socialization environment: the leisure time socialization area. This study offers some insights into the leisure time activity of young people and shows that it is full of media usage, presents the recent data about the European young people's media consumption, the use of the Internet and smart tools, etc. Furthermore, another key topic is youth work which can be and is carried out in various digital spaces. Characteristic features of this space will be introduced with special focus on the general rules which define it. In the end, practical examples are introduced whose success should be followed as models, and general fundamental rules are formulated which are worth maintaining if we wish to pursue youth work in the virtual space.

Digitisation of Youth Work and an Evaluation of Social Media as a Tool in Meeting the Profession's Core Principles in a UK Context

While some commentators have rightly questioned characterisations of the 20th century as the ‘Century of the child,' sociologists have gone as far as claim a more accurate title would be that of the ‘Century of child neglect.‘ In this respect, numerous provisions from the late Victorian period onward, many enacted through legislation, within the fields of social care, youth justice, education, and welfare all help to characterise the immense strides made in drawing the care and interests of children and young people more centrally into the focus and attention of policymakers and society more widely. These developments build on positivistic ideas of societal causation: that the structure of society, and in particular inequality, neglect and oppression, were contributory factors in the behaviours and vulnerabilities that people express and experience, and social welfare responses needed to aim to ameliorate such structural impositions. This chapter considers how digital technologies, specifically within the form of social media, figures as a form of youth engagement and outreach.

Emerging Digital Social Innovation in Youth Work Practice

Recently, the field of social innovation (SI) is making rapid progress and this development is being supported by unprecedented opportunities for digital technology. However, digital social innovation (DSI) should be seen as part of a youth work practice where alternative solutions can be found to improve the living conditions of communities and young people. DSI encourages young people to explore how innovative technology can be used to address societal challenges. To date, no studies have been conducted to support youth workers in the areas of digitalization and SI. This book chapter, therefore, explores the relevance of DSI to youth work practices. This chapter gives an overview of the meaning of SI, DSI, and a renewed focus on DSI and related concepts in youth work practice. It concludes with a framework for DSI in the field of youth work and the implications of indicators.

Enhancing Learning Through Digital Technology in the Practice of Youth Work

The goal of youth work is to facilitate and contribute to the positive development of young people, as well as to resolve issues that are problematic to them. In the process of this growth and development, their learning is paramount, particularly in the nonformal form of learning. While learning has to be anchored on classical learning theories and concepts, the advent of digital technology has caused a paradigm shift in the learning approaches of youth learning. How they relate to each other is what this article is about. It examines the theoretical concepts of learning, what these digital tools and platforms are, and how they relate to each other. Nevertheless, youth workers have to be equipped with a foundation of youth development before they can effectively use these digital tools to facilitate learning. Digital technology tools with their platforms are merely a medium for learning, not part of the end process of learning, and youth workers have to differentiate the specific role of these digital tools.