Special issue: Youth work and social pedagogy
Introduction
Social transformations can sometimes take an agonisingly long time, especially when the social tide is against them. For Dutch youth care this seems to be particularly true. Dutch youth care can be situated at the intersection between pedagogics and (mental) health care. Although these two orientations may in principle be complementary to each other, the mental health care orientation in particular has a tendency to be the dominant framework for questions relating to development, growing up and raising children. Consequently, what used to be understood as pedagogical issues tends to be problematised and medicalised. Ever since the publication of the 1976 report by the Interdepartmental Working Group on Youth Welfare Policy, policymakers have repeatedly attempted to push youth welfare provision in the Netherlands towards a social pedagogically framed practice (Gemengde Interdepartementale Werkgroep Jeugdwelzijnsbeleid, 1976). Yet realising this transformation has proven to be persistently elusive. A transformation refers to a dynamic process of change in social practice, involving a shift in norms, discursive constructions and the way professionals understand their role (Boland, 2024). Instead of progressing towards this envisioned ideal of realising a positive developmental perspective for children and adolescents, we observed an increase in child-behaviour medicalisation and a significant expansion of professionalised youth care services. Since 1976, the provision and use of professional youth care has risen sharply. In 2024 alone, one in seven children per municipality received a form of youth care. In comparison, this was one in 27 children per municipality in 2000 (Centraal Bureau Voor De Statistiek, 2024, 2025; Van Yperen et al., 2023).
From a critical social pedagogical perspective, increasing medicalisation risks reducing children to individual diagnoses, treatable with interventions and medication – overshadowing and neglecting the role of social, relational and contextual factors in which emotional and behavioural problems arise. This, we argue, is a form of intergenerational unfairness, because it holds children responsible for problems that are partly social, economic or relational in nature by framing them as individual disorders. Moreover, it delays investing in structural factors, such as poverty or housing. Children today are thus inheriting problems caused by adult-made systems. As of 2024, ensuring intergenerational fairness is a part of the portfolio of the European Commission for Youth. This includes addressing complex structural societal challenges, such as housing, poverty and environmental justice (European Commission, 2024).
In this changing context of growing up and raising children, the booming expansion of youth care has been at the expense of youth work as a practice grounded in everyday pedagogical support, empowerment and community building. But in the past decade, the tide seems to be turning. In the Netherlands, youth work is increasingly being rediscovered as a potential carrier of this long-envisioned social pedagogical perspective. For a meaningful contribution towards this shift, youth work must be embedded in children’s everyday areas of life, most notably, schools. This article therefore aims to answer the central question: what is necessary from youth workers in primary education to facilitate this transformation towards a social pedagogical perspective? In doing so, it seeks to explore and describe this new, emerging role of Dutch youth workers in primary education, as well as the barriers that they experience in supporting this transformation.
In this article, we first introduce the Dutch context. We argue that the distinction between youth work and youth care has become a delicate issue in the Netherlands and we discuss in this respect the relevance of recent changes in youth care provision. We then position youth work as an emerging practice of social pedagogy. Then we describe youth work in the Netherlands. We conclude with an overview of research concerning the cooperation between youth work and primary education and three sub-questions that help answer the central question of this article.
The rediscovery of youth work in the Netherlands
New ideas can sometimes be surprisingly old. In 1976 the Joint Interdepartmental Working Group on Youth Welfare Policy published a report that can be translated into English as ‘Youth Welfare: Towards Coherent Policies’. The report was highly critical of the fragmentation, inconsistency and lack of transparency in the Dutch youth care system up until then. It argued for structural reforms of youth care policies towards a more social pedagogical perspective, with a greater emphasis on prevention and the organisation of support in children’s own environments. According to the authors of the report, support had to be offered as early as possible, as lightly as possible and as close as possible to the child and their habitat, using existing relationships and networks. Although the report marked an important change in the development of Dutch youth care policies, it did not immediately result in structural changes in practice. On the contrary, in the decennia that followed, the focus increasingly shifted towards professional youth care. Between 1976 and 2025, the Dutch youth care system1 has been slowly growing, both in terms of services offered and in the number of children receiving support. According to numbers by the Centraal Bureau Voor De Statistiek (2025), 20 per cent of all children aged eight to eleven received a form of youth care in 2024. In addition, one in seven children per municipality receive some form of youth care in the Netherlands (Centraal Bureau Voor De Statistiek, 2025). The growth of the youth care system has been acknowledged as problematic by policymakers, researchers and professionals alike (Jeugdautoriteit, 2024). Concurrently, various national reports have also raised concerns regarding the mental health of Dutch primary school children (aged six to twelve) in the last decade. For instance, the HBSC, a (inter)national study on the mental health and well-being of children and youngsters, reports that the number of children recording emotional or behavioural problems such as anxiety or sadness has risen from 11 per cent in 2017 to 23 per cent in 2021 (Boer et al., 2022).
The Youth Act 2015 can be seen as a critical juncture in realising the transformation towards a more social pedagogical perspective. In response to the long waiting lists and the complexity of the financing system (BMC, 2009) the Dutch government made municipalities responsible for organising and financing youth care and welfare services under the Youth Act, which effectuated in 2015. In this act the Dutch government upholds a vision that youth care and welfare work should be organised as locally as possible, with municipalities being best placed to serve their citizens (Sabel et al., 2023). Moreover, the Dutch government aims for (youth) care services to be demedicalised, unburdened and normalised (Youth Act, 2015, n.p.). Normalisation in this case means not unnecessarily framing and problematising behaviour in medical terms (often referred to as medicalisation) and thereby reducing the burden on (mental) youth care. Advocates of this pedagogical perspective resorted to well-known one-liners such as ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ – which emphasises the idea of shared responsibilities in childrearing and the importance of taking into account the context around children when dealing with problems and adversity (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Janssens, 2023).
It is against this backdrop that youth work in the Netherlands has been rediscovered as one of the potential carriers of a social pedagogical perspective. The Youth Act has created an opportunity for youth work to contribute to this transformation. Aligned with the government vision of normalisation, municipalities are actively recalibrating the role of youth workers. It remains ambiguous, however, what the added value of youth workers is in relation to the goal of normalisation.
Youth work as an emerging practice of (critical) social pedagogy
Finding a common pedagogical conceptualisation of youth work is difficult, because of the diverse and complex nature of young people that youth workers encounter and the varieties of contexts in which they participate (Council of Europe, 2015, 2020). An alternative approach would be to attempt to conceptualise the essential principles of youth work as a social pedagogical practice (Cooper, 2018).
These essential principles are discernible in different conceptualisations. For example, De St Croix (2017) defines youth work as ‘a practice of informal education in which youth workers build relationships with young people in community settings such as youth clubs, community centres and on the streets’ (p. 414). Batsleer (2012) suggests that youth work offers a critical stance towards hegemonic practices, operating in a critical space and applying counterhegemonic practices. In other words, it challenges unfair power structures and helps young people find their voice. Similarly, the final declaration of the third European Convention on Youth Work states that youth work is a social practice that both connects and challenges the social structures in which it operates (Council of Europe, 2020). These principles also reflect the important developments that youth work has been through on a European level, from a situation where it received little to no attention, to gaining concrete (political) recognition in 2025 as a distinct area of policy and practice. Here, youth workers operate as ‘supporters and defenders of spaces for young people to raise their voices and to build bridges for them in order to take the next steps, with confidence and competence, in their lives’ (Council of Europe, 2020, p. 4).
The aforementioned conceptualisations of the principles of youth work show similarities to the theoretical underpinnings of social pedagogy. As Petrie (2015) describes, social pedagogy focuses on issues of power, inclusion, exclusion and the (social) development of young people. Young people are seen as active, capable people that are able to make decisions that affect their own life. They should be encouraged and helped to raise their voice in struggles and problems. Conceptualised as a pedagogy of social justice, social pedagogy is frequently related to core values such as solidarity, responsibility and tolerance and as an end-goal to help young people find their place as an active member of society (Eichsteller and Holthoff, 2011).
Hence, the synergy between social pedagogy and youth work can be seen as practices that place human rights – in this case young people’s rights – at their core, aiming to help children get their voices heard, based on core values such as empowerment, inclusion and support. These shared foundations can offer meaningful extensions of youth work into new, adjacent domains, (in)directly helping to reduce intergenerational unfairness.
Conceptualisation of youth work in the Netherlands
Formally, Dutch youth work is not covered by a specific law such as the Youth Act. Rather, youth work is part of a broader social domain and is mainly the responsibility of municipalities based on the decentralisations in the social domain since 2015. In addition, youth work in the Netherlands is largely financed from municipal funds (De Meere and Stoutjesdijk, 2019). As in many other European countries, the Netherlands does not offer a specific training programme for youth workers. Instead, broader vocational education or a bachelor’s degree in social work, which includes aspects of youth work, can be pursued (Sonneveld et al., 2022).
In recent decades, Dutch youth work has transformed from a leisure-related and group-based practice to an individualised and context-sensitive profession. The most recent national survey on the state of Dutch youth work (De Meere and Stoutjesdijk, 2019) describes how the profession has become more focused on individual counselling of youth undergoing the transition to adulthood in society.
Dutch youth workers take a voluntary, open-ended and flexible approach (Sonneveld et al., 2020). This means that children themselves decide if, when and how they join activities organised by youth workers. Youth workers work together with children to recognise, clarify and address certain questions by providing early support and referring to more specialised forms of youth care if needed. Moreover, Dutch youth workers base their practice on the habitats and everyday life of children. Based on this, youth workers use flexible methodical actions in response to the experiences, needs and interests of young people, rather than time-bound interventions (Sonneveld et al., 2020).
As in other welfare states, youth policymakers in the Netherlands are increasingly interested in the practices of youth work and how it adds to the early signalling and prevention of emotional and behavioural problems (Metz, 2020; Sonneveld et al., 2020). This interest is also explicitly connected to decreasing the need for special or complex forms of help for young people (Sonneveld et al., 2022). Research claims that mental health problems of young people may well be improved through youth work rather than through a medicalised mental health approach (Elsen and Ord, 2023).
Metz (2020) describes four methods through which youth workers in the Netherlands generally operate:
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(1)
Ambulatory youth work (or detached youth work): a model of youth work practice where youth workers offer support in children’s own environments such as streets, parks, cafés. It is characterised by purposeful interactions, with the goal of building a trusting relationship with socially vulnerable children.
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(2)
Group work: offering help and stimulating children to participate in group processes and peer support, aiming to improve both the group and the individual, through in-group activities or spontaneous meetings.
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(3)
Individual guidance: aimed at supporting young people one-on-one and possibly helping them get better or more specialised help if necessary.
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(4)
Information and advice service: on topics such as alcohol, drugs or other issues children come across for the first time.
Youth work takes place where young people are and outside the family and home, school is one of the most important places (Koetsenruijter et al., 2023). From a critical social pedagogical perspective, cooperation between youth workers and primary education can support individual children and help them engage with their broader environment, acting as a pivot between various domains of children’s lives – for example, sports, the street(s) and school – potentially empowering these domains (Koetsenruijter et al., 2023). From this perspective it is crucial to understand how youth work can cooperate with primary education in order to contribute to the normalisation of practices.
Cooperation between youth work and primary education in the Netherlands
There is limited research available on the role and the added value of youth workers in primary education, nationally and internationally. Typically, Dutch primary school children are between four and twelve years old (Centraal Bureau Voor De Statistiek, 2026), while youth workers mainly support young people aged between 10 and 23 (Metz, 2020), an age at which children in the Netherlands largely attend secondary school or higher education. Most studies are, therefore, focused on the cooperation between youth work and secondary education (for example, Koetsenruijter et al., 2023), where youth workers offer a cohesive range of activities fulfilling different functions which are similar to the methods described by Metz (2020). However, the traditional age boundary associated with youth work is gradually shifting. This shift is informed by an increasing emphasis in policy on providing more continuous support; for example, in the transition from primary to secondary education. Hence, youth work organisations are extending their role into primary school contexts.
The limited knowledge of the role and added value of youth workers in primary education suggests there is room for further research. The potential added value of youth workers in primary education may help identify possible solutions for urgent problems that affect children attending primary school, such as an increasing number of emotional and behavioural problems (Boer et al., 2022) and their disproportional representation in youth care numbers (Centraal Bureau Voor De Statistiek, 2025).
The aim of this article is to fill this gap in knowledge and to explore the role of youth workers in Dutch primary education, with a special focus on the role of normalisation in Dutch youth care policy and intergenerational (un)fairness. Based on this framework and to answer the central question, we address the following sub-questions in this study:
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What role and functions do Dutch youth workers fulfil in primary education?
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In what way can the presence of Dutch youth workers in primary education add to intergenerational fairness, specifically at the level of mental health?
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How does the application and role of youth workers in elementary education relate to the policy goal of normalisation?
Data and methods
To address these questions, we employed a qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with primary school professionals, specifically youth workers, school leaders, teachers and supporting staff (such as individual school counsellors, school psychologists, teaching assistants). The interviews were conducted in five primary schools, including three public institutions and two affiliated with a Protestant–Christian denomination.
Two groups were not interviewed directly: local government employees and pupils of elementary schools. First, we chose to exclude local government employees because they were often (partly) involved as commissioning parties during the data collection. Interviewing them could have affected the independence of the research. Second, we did not interview elementary school pupils directly, but rather chose – because of their young age (under 12 years) – to let teachers and youth workers represent their views.
In total 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2022 and 2024. Interviews lasted approximately 45 minutes. Participants were selected through purposive sampling to ensure diverse perspectives on the role of youth work in primary education. The semi-structured interviews explored participants’ experiences, perceptions and professional insights on the role of youth workers in primary education and how their role adds to the policy goal of normalisation. Data were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically using an inductive approach to identify key patterns and themes. All participants gave their informed consent for the use of this data. This research was conducted through a ZonMw grant (10190022010006). The transcribed interviews were stored on a secure drive that only the researchers could access.
A thematic analysis was applied with AtlasTI (version number 25.0.1). The analysis consisted of three phases. The analysis started with the creation of a codebook based on codes derived from theories on youth work, intergenerational (un)fairness and normalisation. These codes were applied in a first ‘open’ reading of the transcribed interviews. Three researchers independently coded an interview. To promote the validity of the analysis a consensus method was applied, where the researchers discussed similarities and differences in the coding process by comparing the separately analysed interview. While developing the codebook, the aim was to formulate excluding codes to avoid conceptual overlap as much as possible. The second phase of the analysis consisted of an inductive coding process with the aim of identifying new codes. The consensus method was also applied in this article, with the researchers coding an interview to identify potential new topics and themes. The third phase consisted of an analysis of all 32 interviews by one researcher. After analysing codes inductively and deductively, overarching themes were identified that formed the basis for the results section.
Results
In what follows, we present our findings in four sections. First, we will talk about what youth workers think their core values are when working with primary schools. Second, we discuss the role and tasks of youth workers in primary education. Third, we discuss how youth workers cooperate with other professionals (mainly teachers) in primary education. Last, we discuss how youth workers interpret and apply normalisation in primary education. Quotations are marked with ‘YW’ for youth workers and ‘T’ for teachers. We translated the quotations from Dutch to English.
Core values of youth work in primary education
Youth workers mention a number of values that they themselves consider core values of their work in primary education. Below we briefly discuss three recurring subthemes and how they relate to each other.
Prevention as a core task
One of the core values that youth workers mentioned is that they see their work as part of a preventive approach. Preventive in the sense of being able to address problems or challenges that children and youth encounter before they (potentially) escalate. By being present at various places, including schools, they are able to catch problems that children encounter at an early stage. They focus on both collective and more individual prevention of problems. Youth workers define this as a core task because, from their ‘natural’ presence in the schools, they are able to observe whether there are any problems or themes (such as the resilience of students or bullying) which they need to address collectively or individually.
Low threshold, contact and presence
Another important subtheme mentioned as a core value of youth work is the approachability and presence of youth workers so that they can easily connect with children. By being visibly present in the school, such as during lunch break, children can easily interact with youth workers. This can be for a conversation, playing a game or just a cup of tea. The initiative lies with the children themselves, they decide if they want to divulge something or not and how the youth worker can possibly help them.
Many youth workers, however, are not continuously present in the schools, but rather attend a number of times each week. Therefore, youth workers also mention their alignment with school staff, such as teachers, as important, because these people are present throughout the week:
Above all, keep the approachability low. So especially in the auditorium, whatever you want to call it, stay there. So that the children really know that they can walk by here. I think the ideal situation is that they really know and really do that. If there is the need for it, of course. If there is no need, then of course they don’t have to. (YW)
Youth work as a connecting and continuing factor
Being present at school, but also at other places that children frequent, such as playgrounds, hangouts or sports clubs, contributes to the visibility and approachability of youth workers. They see themselves as a connecting and continuing factor across various domains of children’s lives. For example, this emerges in the transition from primary to secondary education, which is a big step for many children. The idea is that if youth workers are present in both places, they are already a familiar face to children, which may make it easier to respond to problems that arise during this transition, or problems that are not related to school, such as causing trouble in the neighbourhood. As a youth worker states: ‘We have to be where the young people are.’
The role of youth work in primary education
As an emerging profession within primary education, youth workers have an idea of the tasks and methods they should be responsible for (self-ascribed tasks) and tasks and methods they actually perform. Both are outlined below.
Most common tasks
When describing the tasks of youth work, the examples given generally suggest that youth workers work multi-methodically and that group work is the most used method. This consists mainly of providing resilience training (in a group as a whole or in separate boys’ and girls’ groups) and joining or organising lunch-break activities. This training is provided on a teacher’s request. Teachers often find these trainings necessary because of certain concerns in their classroom: bullying, social anxiety or insecurity.
Based on their core values, youth workers also regularly offer prevention lessons on the use of drugs and alcohol; for example, in preparation for high school. The latter is a specific form of groupwork; namely, ‘providing information and advice’. This is also given to parents of elementary school children; for example, during parents’ evenings. As a youth worker explained:
I very often mention the resilience training. Those are often also already internal, but still very different from how we offer it, because we use a certain methodology. But it is not a fixed training, it can be distinct in every class. (YW)
After this, individual counselling is generally mentioned as an important task, although there is also doubt among youth workers as to what extent this is part of their duties:
I think we especially can be a listening ear for the pupil and give some tips or advice … But it would be going too far to then go to the family and say: I hear this and this, maybe it is good that you do this and that … those are more the systemic therapies. (YW)
Self-ascribed tasks of youth workers
Youth workers state that they like to work in a demand-orientated way. They do this by first building up trust with children, teachers and parents. According to the participants this is easily established with children because youth workers often do fun activities with them, such as games in the school playground. It is mentioned that there is a different bond of trust between children and youth workers than between children and teachers. With teachers, children sometimes feel forced to do something, while youth workers present their contact with children as non-committal. As a teacher said:
Learning is not always easy and fun for everyone, and I think there can be quite a bit of friction with a child … And I especially think that how the youth workers have started, they’ve started with fun activities, they literally play with the kids, they go and play football with them and they do games, I think that’s the difference between the relationship with the teacher and the relationship with the youth workers.
Youth workers are seen by primary schools as coaches, present at the smallest conflicts between children. As a teacher, this is not always feasible, due to a lack of time. From the interviews it is clearly valuable that youth workers see the child both inside and outside the school. Youth workers have a different perspective of the child because they can adopt a helicopter view, more so than a teacher who is primarily involved with a child in the school context.
There are schools who mention that youth workers can play a valuable role with parents, different from that of teachers. Parents may not accept everything a teacher says, but sometimes a youth worker can offer guidance that is more accessible and therefore more valuable. Youth workers themselves see it as their task to connect education and welfare. As a youth worker said:
It’s what I always say, I’m not a counsellor. I’m a youth worker, prevention worker. But it’s kind of a grey area: when is something help? And when are you a counsellor and why is a youth worker not a counsellor? … And of course you do provide support and help and trust, but we don’t have to write complete indications and plans.
Establishing youth work within the primary school context
Because youth work is to some extent a non-protocolised profession, youth workers can largely determine their position and role in the school themselves. At the same time, other professionals (for example, teachers) also have expectations of youth work within their school.
Expectations prior to working in primary education
Before starting in primary education, youth workers had certain expectations about the nature of their role. First, they expected to need time to adjust to the younger age of children compared to the teenagers they were used to. Second, youth workers hoped to avoid being perceived as or treated as teachers or teaching assistants. They did not want to be there to give lessons or to impose rules on children; in other words, they were not there to take an instructive or disciplinary role. Rather, youth workers hoped to be able to be there for the children, and to meet them in a new environment, besides the youth centre or on the streets:
I hoped that it wouldn’t really get super-school like and that you were fully teaching. (YW)
Despite this, youth workers acknowledged that it would be necessary to adjust to the rhythm of the school to some extent, though the boundaries of this adjustment were unclear. On the one hand, youth workers acknowledged the need to support classroom rules. On the other, they emphasised the importance of remaining approachable for children. A youth worker said:
Yes, yes. There was a bit of an expectation that, among other things, we were also going to … well, I wouldn’t call it enforcement, but we were going to adopt a little bit of the rules of school.
Second, in the interviews, youth workers made the distinction between themselves and youth care, stating that youth care is often focused on individual interventions for which a referral is required. Youth work can play a role in this process by fulfilling a signalling function (and referring a child if necessary) or a preventive function, by offering early help. In contrast to youth care, youth workers emphasised their universal presence and non-problematising approach. In their own words:
Children don’t need a problem to come and see us, youth work is for every child. (YW)
Cooperation with teachers
Cooperation with teachers is seen as very important by youth workers. For example, it can be comfortable for teachers to be able to share certain problems a child has with the youth workers. At the same time, it is mentioned that there can be overlap in tasks, but that it is important not to take over someone elses tasks. A youth worker said:
I want the teacher to really be and become a co-owner. That requires a lot of consultation with the teacher and in particular a lot of questions: what do you see, how would you approach this, how are we going to do this together?
Teachers generally appreciated the presence of and cooperation with youth workers, although they were unsure about what questions and tasks they should delegate to them. The forms of cooperation also varied: some teachers preferred intensive cooperation with youth workers and structural meetings, while other teachers would rather work independently. One teacher said:
But usually when you see a child, the first signals, it’s not that I go straight to the youth worker. Often you try first yourself, because you do have a certain bond of trust with a pupil.
Youth workers confirmed this variation in cooperating with teachers, noting that the teacher’s attitude determines the extent to which youth work is involved with individual students or classroom processes. While youth workers consider themselves supportive to teachers, they also state that they do not hesitate to talk to teachers when there are reasonable grounds for concern about a child. Nevertheless, they emphasised that the primary relationship that children have in school should be with the teacher.
Experience of role ambiguity
Both youth workers and teachers report experiencing role ambiguity regarding behavioural questions and certain lessons. Role ambiguity is, based on the results, defined as experiencing a lack of clarity in the division of roles, tasks and responsibilities in primary education.
One of the most discussed examples concerns the question of when a teacher is responsible for certain questions or lessons and when a youth worker is (being made) responsible. Youth workers, for example, give resilience training in most primary schools, discussing topics such as personal boundaries. This is a topic a teacher also discusses in a different lesson (based on a specific programme called ‘Kanjer Training’, also a form of resilience training), leading to confusion in authority and responsibility. A teacher said:
But I did notice during the resilience training, I came in and then I found it difficult to ask who is ultimately responsible? And of course I am, but to what extent is X, who gives the resilience training, didactically trained to do that herself?
Youth workers also reported that due to time constraints and teacher shortages in primary education, they were often asked to take on tasks and roles that they felt were not a part of youth work. This led to uncertainty and confusion about professional (pedagogical) responsibilities and boundaries and also the identity of youth work within primary schools:
Well, you could say, yes, sorry school, but you also have budget for this and teachers who can give that. They didn’t have a teacher for that at that time. So they came to youth work. And we did ask ourselves, should we teach that lesson? Because actually it is also a school lesson. (YW)
Role ambiguity also influences the clarity of the youth workers’ position in the eyes of children, according to youth workers themselves. When youth workers are in primary schools and enforce certain rules, it contradicts the usual image children have of them, of informality and approachability, which can potentially cause confusion about the nature of their relationship.
Youth work and normalisation
This theme regards how youth workers interpret and apply the principle of normalisation within primary education. Although interpretations varied, three recurring subthemes were identified: (1) not unnecessarily problematising children’s behaviour; (2) taking the context into account; and (3) creating more space to talk about mental well-being more openly.
Not unnecessarily problematising children’s behaviour
The results show that normalisation is often connected to not unnecessarily problematising children’s behaviour. Teachers, youth workers and individual counsellors often connect this to being cautious about the premature use of psychological concepts; for example, ADHD. A youth worker stated:
A child is just who he is. A disorder is just a disorder because you show certain behaviour. You can have ADHD, but also just be a busy child who needs to move around a little more.
Moreover, participants emphasised the importance of considering whether certain behaviour is normal for a child’s developmental stage. Certain behaviour, such as not adhering to the rules, arguing with teachers and not listening to them can be seen as normal behaviour for children to a certain extent.
Participants advocate for a pedagogical approach – for example, investing in a safe pedagogical climate – when encountering deviant behaviour, instead of a medical approach, where this behaviour could be interpreted as a disorder.
Taking the context into account
Youth workers also highlighted the need to contextualise children’s behaviour within their broader environment – for example, at home, in sports clubs or on the streets – instead of framing it as an individual problem.
Several youth workers reflected on how dominant local norms and values influence normalisation. For instance, one youth worker described how in smaller communities, strong social cohesion and an emphasis on emotional restraint may discourage children from openly discussing their own mental well-being within their immediate environment (for example, at home). At the same time, multiple youth workers note that children find other outlets to talk about their own mental health, especially through social media:
I think a little more, of course it is a village, we live in the east of the country. I think that sometimes it is less open, that they like to keep it (emotional problems) a little bit behind the front door. (YW)
Parental influence was deemed a key factor in understanding a child’s behaviour. The way parents interact with each other and with their children is decisive in how a child functions at school. If parents fight with each other, for example, or are unable to provide a safe home environment, children will struggle at school. Teachers hope that the insight of youth workers, as professionals who operate in various domains of children’s life, will help build connections with parents.
Opening up space to discuss mental well-being
Normalisation was also linked to making discussions of mental well-being more common and less stigmatised. A participant states that normalisation should mean, in a sense, that it should be normal to talk about personal and emotional problems, with children experiencing more freedom to talk about what’s on their mind. This relates to prevention as a core task, which we discussed earlier in the results section:
It should become a norm for children to talk about their own personal issues. (YW)
Discussion
Youth workers: carriers of a social pedagogical perspective?
Youth workers are increasingly seen as carriers of a social pedagogical perspective that may help contribute towards a long-envisioned transformation. The results, however, reveal barriers that may undermine this contribution. First, this concerns the role ambiguity and unwanted shifts in pedagogical responsibilities. Youth workers sometimes are asked to do tasks they feel unfit for. The argument for performing these tasks is also questionable: due to time constrains of teachers. Although we do recognise the teacher shortage and subsequent work pressure in the Netherlands (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, 2024), shifting pedagogical responsibilities from teachers to youth workers is undesirable due to the fact that youth workers are simply not teachers. Youth workers work from a low-threshold position of equivalence and the work is voluntary, while teachers have an educational responsibility and a disciplinary role, especially in primary education. This point may compromise the role and identity of youth workers and teachers, which is undesirable.
In addition, youth workers should be aware of the potential influence of a medicalisation framework that shapes their actions in primary education. The results show that youth workers seem to stand at an important crossroads: on the one hand, youth workers emphasised their non-problematising approach and agree that unnecessary problematisation of children’s behaviour is undesirable; on the other, a large part of the tasks and actions of youth workers in primary education appear to be shaped by a medicalised framework, in this case through the problem-driven experiences of teachers. Youth workers seem to embrace these tasks and actions. While youth workers proclaim to work on a demand-driven basis, this primarily seems to be the demand of teachers who have concerns about children in their classroom. This clashes with the idea that youth workers are primarily helping children’s voices be heard in society (Batsleer, 2012). Instead, youth workers primarily seem to be placing the concerns and problem-driven experiences of teachers on children.
This has two important consequences. First, it results in youth workers mostly carrying out interventions and forms of micro (crisis-)management via resilience lessons, prevention lessons and individual counselling at the request of school staff. This, concurrently, clashes with the idea of normalisation and not unnecessarily problematising behaviour (Janssens, 2023). Second, the voluntary nature of youth work can be compromised (Council of Europe, 2015): the resilience and prevention lessons are often during school hours that are mandatory for children to attend. Therefore, children don’t have a choice in participating in these activities by youth workers.
Under the current conditions, contributing towards a social pedagogical perspective is difficult for youth workers. This is not a surprise: with the presence of a dominant medicalisation discourse, introducing a new perspective is particularly challenging. We cannot expect them to promote a social pedagogical perspective in primary education alone; schools must be active partners. This research indicates the need for structural space for teachers and youth workers to reflect on children’s behaviour, amongst themselves but also in conjunction. Developing a shared, social pedagogical language and new social practices requires sustained transdisciplinary conversations. In addition, in order to be aware of medicalisation frameworks, a clear identity for youth workers in primary education is necessary. Based on this research, this may be focused on promoting children’s voices and rights, connecting children’s habitats, strengthening social embeddedness and emphasising voluntary participation.
Limitations
This research has an important limitation: the diversity of the participants was limited to youth workers, teachers and supporting school staff. We chose to let teachers and youth workers represent the view of children, meaning we cannot directly conclude anything about how children experience the presence of youth workers in primary education. This limitation had little influence on this research, given the focus on the emerging role of youth workers and professional dynamics within schools. Although we did include children in this study, the data did not allow for conclusions on this specific topic. Further research should include children to represent their views on the new role of youth workers in primary education. Moreover, we chose not to interview local government employees due to them (partially) being a commissioning party in the research. By interviewing them we were risking the independence of the research. However, interviewing local government employees could have placed the evolution of Dutch youth work within a societal perspective, and shed light on the attempt of the Dutch government to push a social pedagogical perspective in youth welfare provisions. This, however, has little influence on the results in this specific research on the role of youth workers, as government employees are normally not fully acquainted with the role of youth workers in primary education.
Conclusion
In this article we asked: ‘What is necessary from youth workers in primary education to facilitate a transformation towards a social pedagogical perspective?’ To answer this question, we explored and described the emerging role of Dutch youth workers in primary education. Our exploratory results highlight that youth workers currently fulfil three concrete tasks in primary schools: delivering resilience training, prevention lessons and offering individual counselling. These activities are primarily conducted through group work and individual counselling, in line with the methods described by Metz (2020).
While youth workers report operating from a voluntary and demand-driven perspective, results suggest that there is a difference between self-ascribed tasks and actual practices. Participation is often explicitly expected – for example, with resilience lessons – and demand often stems from teachers rather than children themselves.
Central to the emerging role of youth workers in primary education is their aim to be present for children as a pedagogical pivot – by offering a continuous support framework and being the continuing and connecting factor for children across various habitats (Koetsenruijter et al., 2023). By acting as a pedagogical pivot, youth workers can invest in strengthening social and relational factors and social embeddedness in specific contexts (investing in the village) (Janssens, 2023). In addition, by working in different habitats, youth workers can identify and promote the interests and rights of children (De Meere and Stoutjesdijk, 2019), identifying systemic and contextual issues that might otherwise be overlooked in medicalised frameworks.
The initial insights presented in this exploratory study indicate that the introduction of a social pedagogical perspective by youth workers in primary education is constrained by several barriers. Addressing these barriers requires a clearer description of role, tasks and responsibilities of youth workers in primary education and for primary schools as an active partner in contributing towards a social pedagogical perspective. Further research is recommended on how the role of youth workers can contribute to the welfare of children in Dutch primary education from a social pedagogical perspective.
Note
- The Dutch Youth Care system consists of residential and ambulatory care (which can be divided into parenting help and help for children and adolescents with behavioural and emotional problems), youth protection and youth probation and is aimed at children between 0 and 18 years old and their parents. ⮭
Funding
This research was funded through a ZonMw grant (10190022010006).
Declarations and conflicts of interest
Research ethics statement
The authors declare that research ethics approval for this article was provided by the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences’s ethics board.
Consent for publication statement
The authors declare that research participants’ informed consent (oral and written) to publication of findings – including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information – was secured prior to publication.
Conflicts of interest statement
The authors declare no conflicts of interest with this work. All efforts to sufficiently anonymise the authors during peer review of this article have been made. The authors declare no further conflicts with this article.
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