Since it's founding in 1997, the CYC-Net discussion group has been asked thousands of questions. These questions often generate many replies from people in all spheres of the Child and Youth Care profession and contain personal experiences, viewpoints, as well as recommended resources.
Below are some of the threads of discussions on varying Child and Youth Care related topics.
Questions and Responses have been reproduced verbatim.
Listen to thisSearch Institute has just launched, with support of the John Templeton Foundation, a major initiative on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. This initiative is to be international and interfaith in scope. Our first step is to begin gathering what is known and who is involved in studying in this area around the world. Two books will be developed out of this first phase. One will focus on scientific perspectives on spiritual development. The other will focus on religious perspectives on the topic. If you want to know more about the project, visit the project Web page: http://www.search-institute.org/research/SpiritualDevelopment.html
We are currently looking for scholars (social
scientists and religious theologians) who are doing work in this area. I
have a pretty good handle on who's doing the work in the United States. But
my network is more limited in other parts of the world. We'd like people who
could be interviewed or could contribute to one of these volumes. We'd also
just like to begin keeping a list of folks who are interested.
If you know (or are!) studying this area, please drop me a line about where
you are and what you're doing. I'll follow up with you individually.
Thanks for your time. I look forward to being part of this list.
Gene Roehlkepartain
...
In 1996 the UK Central Council for Education and
Training in Social Work (CCETSW) published:
Crompton, Margaret: Children, spirituality and religion: a training pack,
CCETSW, London, 1996. It might be worth a look.
Alan MacQuarrie
...
Contact Harry Aponte. He should be fairly easy to find. I just attended a
workshop of his last week, entitled The Spiritual Foundation of Therapy. The
workshop centered on a practical approach to working with the connection
between clients' personal struggles and the power of their spirituality,
including therapists' use of their own spirituality in their clinical
practice. Aponte handed out two recent articles to support his ideas: 1)
Aponte, H. (2003) The soul of the marriage & family therapist. Family
Therapy Magazine (Vol, etc. unknown); and 2) Aponte, H. (2002)
Spirituality: The heart of therapy. Journal of Family Psychotherapy.
Vol. 13. No. 1/2 pp. 13-27. Aponte's approach is still based on Structural
FT, and has a number of good ideas related to use of spirituality.
Jack Nowicki
...
Dear Gene
You can put me on your list. I am working on the traditional Zulu spiritual
world view of youth awaiting trial for criminal offenses and who are
contextually embedded in the Christian world of institution and city.
The Revd Barrie Lodge
Johannesburg
...
Thank you for so kindly featuring my piece on spiritual well-being in
CYC-Online. There has already been an interesting spin-off in terms of an
invitation to contribute a chapter to a Handbook of Spiritual
Development in Childhood and Adolescence. I'm not convinced that I'm
the best person for such an undertaking but it's flattering to have been
asked.
On a different matter – by the end of this year we should know if the module on spiritual well-being that we have been working on with the Scottish Social Services Council will be incorporated into the care qualification framework for the UK. The intention is that the module will be offered as an option for the care qualification for front-line Child and Youth Care workers in the UK.
Robin Jackson
