Learning to Improve Program Systems While Navigating Program and Institutional Constraints

Authors

  • Erica Jeanne Van Steenis University of California, Irvine

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2021.1106

Keywords:

youth workers, professional development

Abstract

Many youth worker professional development (PD) efforts tend to focus on individualized skill development, rather than learning as a contextualized phenomenon that impacts youth workers’ everyday experiences in the field. Youth worker learning is fundamentally embedded in a broader ecosystem of programs, institutions, and systems that influence how they make sense of and implement their learnings. Examining institutionalized experiences and how they shape youth workers’ response to PD requires attention to the larger ecology of the contexts in which they work. In this paper, I analyze a PD initiative facilitated by a school district in the Rocky Mountain West. Data collected during the PD show that participating youth workers made changes to their program systems. At the same time, participants reported a range of institutional constraints that did not cohere with the PD. I bridge sensemaking theory to research on youth worker self-efficacy to unpack youth workers’ reaction to and implementation of the PD, and I discuss implications for youth worker PD. I propose that PD efforts could more closely attend to youth workers’ institutional contexts.

Author Biography

Erica Jeanne Van Steenis, University of California, Irvine


Erica Van Steenis is a postdoctoral scholar working with Associate Professor June Ahn and OCEAN (Orange County Educational Advancement Network). She received her Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and Human Development from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She holds a Master of Science in Community Development from the University of California, Davis and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of California, Berkeley.

Erica’s research approach includes community based and co-design processes. Motivated by 15 years of experience as a youth worker, her dissertation explored youth practitioners at different stages of the profession across three contexts of inquiry. Erica has extensive teaching experience with undergraduates and teacher candidates.

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Published

2021-12-14

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 5 (2021)

Section

Feature Articles

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