Dilemmas of Practice: Challenges to Program Quality Encountered by Youth Program Leaders

To create and sustain high quality youth development programs it is important to understand the challenging situations and dilemmas that emerge in program leaders’ daily work with youth. In this research the experiences of leaders in 12 programs were followed over a 2–9 month period, which led to th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of community psychology 2010-06, Vol.45 (3-4), p.338-349
Main Authors: Larson, Reed W., Walker, Kathrin C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescence
Adolescent
Adolescent Development
After school programs
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Children & youth
Clinical Psychology
Community and Environmental Psychology
Development Programs
Health Psychology
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Original Paper
Personality
Personality and Social Psychology
Practitioner dilemmas
Program Evaluation
Program quality
Psychology
Public Health
Quality Control
Quality of education
Schools - organization & administration
Schools - standards
Youth
Youth development
Youth practice
Youth work
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Summary:To create and sustain high quality youth development programs it is important to understand the challenging situations and dilemmas that emerge in program leaders’ daily work with youth. In this research the experiences of leaders in 12 programs were followed over a 2–9 month period, which led to the identification of 250 dilemma situations. Qualitative analyses identified 5 categories and 12 subcategories of dilemmas that reflected distinct types of considerations (e.g., youth’s personalities, relationships with the community). The analyses also found that the experienced leaders in the study typically responded to these dilemmas in ways that were youth-centered and that balanced multiple considerations. It is argued that researchers need to go beyond identifying features of high quality programs, and more fully examine how effective leaders create and sustain high quality in response to the challenging situations of practice.
ISSN:0091-0562
1573-2770
DOI:10.1007/s10464-010-9307-z