Community youth workers are young people and adults who are engaged in education, empowerment, activism, or other activities focused on adolescents in community-based settings, including churches, schools, or community centers. As a distinct field, community youth work, (often just called youth work), has been established in the United States since the early 20th century. Youth organizations including the YMCA, Boy Scouts, and 4-H set the early standard for youth work. Many believe they were simply following the lead of organizations in the United Kingdom. Since that time a plethora of groups have become active, leading advocacy, research, and education about community youth work around the world.
Famous quotes containing the words community, youth and/or workers:
“The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)