Appropriate Relations Online with Young People

August 13th, 2008 by mas | Filed under Innovation & Technology, Society & Issues.

There were some good discussions over on UKYouthOnline about developing policies for interacting with young people online.

In particular there was a debate about whether youth workers should separate their personal social networking profiles from their ‘professional’ persona’s (and profiles) that they use to interact with young people professionally.

Well over in the US theres a proposed law to make it illegal for school teachers to have ’social networking friendships’ with children and young people. CNN has an article online including an interview with a teacher who does use a Myspace page to allow students to contact him.

The proposed law has come about following fears that ’social networking sites are breeding innapropriate behaviour between teachers and students’. In the CNN article an Education Lawyer says that having clear professional boundaries are important “You’ve got to establish it from Day One and say, ‘I’m not your buddy, I’m not your friend, I’m just your teacher.”

I wrote something similar in ‘What Makes a Good Paid Youth Worker‘ - that relationships with young people need to be on the basis of what you can professionally offer them - not just ‘friendship’. But of course social networking is all about how many ‘friends’ you have and now that services offer to show how many of your email contacts are registered with them it means that any person you’ve had email contact is likely to easily find your profile.

Of course you don’t have to accept ‘friend requests’ providing you can get over the fear of causing offence! I’m not quite sure what I think about this yet - on the one hand some good clear rigid guidelines could work fairly well, on the other hand there is a point that its similar to saying if you work in an area you can’t also be seen to socialise there.

Actually that reminds me of a situation I found myself in when I first started as a ‘Youth Development Worker’ on an estate. I also played for the local cricket club and through one of the players I became friends with somebody who invited me for a meet up in their house which happened to be on the estate where I worked. I did attend, only to discover it was his parents house and his little sister was a regular member of one of my youth clubs - she wasn’t there but I did wonder about how weird it would have been if she’d been at home while I was getting drunk with her brother and his mates in the back garden!

For youth and community work the boundaries will always be a bit more blurred than teaching but it will be interesting to follow what happens in Missouri and whether or not it has any impact over here.

Related posts

« Stats & Figures - Young People & The Web
Child Protection Online Scenarios »

Viewing 3 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    The 'ban it' response is really not the way to go.

    But staff do need guidance and support in knowing when and /how/ they should and shouldn't use social network sites.

    For an adequately trained youth worker who has an established professional relationship with young people - there shouldn't be a problem with them visiting a young persons house to hand deliver an invite to an event, or even to meet them there or in a coffee shop in their estate for a conversation.

    There may well be something unprofessional about turning up there in a car with swear-word laden music blaring from the stereo and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a photo of a recent drunken night out.

    In the same way - contacting young people through social network sites - and being available for young people to contact you through social network sites is not, per se, unprofessional, innappropriate or problematic. /But/, staff do need to think carefully about the information they share with young people through these sites - and whether they are using them just as a communications tool - or are using wider features of them which could lead to inappropriate information being shared.
    • ^
    • v
    I think I agree with tim that a total ban is not the right way to go. It feels like a disproprionate response to a relatively small risk. I think teachers, youth workers and other professionals working with young people need to remember to be as transparent in their conversations with young people online as they are offline. Most practioners are aware of guidelines about ensuring things happen in a public space rather than taking very young people off on their own to a dark corner somewhere so the same principle can be applied online - talk on your wall where possible so that the level of intimacy remains appopriate and with regards to your private life share what you think is approriate that is what the privacy settings are there for surely? I think it is also useful to set up a space for the project for young people to join become friends with so that the line between work and individual is clear - hope that ramble makes sense LOL
    • ^
    • v
    I can't see that banning it would better protect young people - I think in that CNN article there was a bit of a suggestion that social networking might 'cause' inappropriate relationships but as somebody points out in the interview the 'bad' people will do whatever it takes - which no doubt would include ignoring and finishing ways to bypass a ban.

    I agree with your scenario Tim - except that in such a case it would generally be very clear that the professional was working, and also very clear what guidelines they had to work under - everyone - employer, employee, young person, parents would understand that the professional was working no matter how informal the nature.

    Online its not that simple - you're sent a message at midnight and you happen to be online, so you reply - but who knows you're working?

    There are further things such as say you'd been out drinking or drank a few glasses of wine at home and happen to go online - if you reply to messages on your facebook wall then are you fit to work?

    The public space thing you mention Ade is good practice in the real world, but again not so clear online. Is your facebook profile in the public domain? Who can delete things from your wall?

    I agree its about having transparent conversations. I wonder though whether in terms of developing guidance and policies its about adapting 'real world' ones to fit in, or is it about saying well actually the interaction on the web is different and will need a completely new approach? For example maybe there are no fixed working hours anymore - perhaps professionals on the web don't have the luxury of 'taking off the uniform' and are 'at work' whenever they're online?

    Think I'm gonna go round in circles on this one for a bit!

Trackbacks

close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus
Tags