ISSN 1053-1890

An International Issue?

We have all been made aware through the media, through the constant pronouncements of governmental officials, and through informal observation in our daily lives — shopping, entertainment, on the internet, etc. — that we are increasingly living in an international era. Yet it has been hard for many of us in child and youth care work to perceive that this reality has deep implications for our professional lives. Our clientele is local, our workplaces are predominantly local, most of our colleagues come from backgrounds similar to our own, and the international arena usually seems to impact our work only occasionally and indirectly.

In the course of putting this issue together, however, your editor was struck by the extent to which our field has been affected by international considerations beyond the international conferences of increasing frequency, emerging international journals, growing interest in international professional organizations, the ILEX program that brings European youthworkers to the United States to share their practice skills and approaches with their American counterparts, and such internet-based international networks as those provided by CYC-Net (Canada and South Africa) and YARN (Australia). The number of international immigrant clients we serve is growing, and some programs have even sought to enhance their effectiveness by providing international experiences for teenagers in their care. These thoughts were stimulated as I noticed the broad international representation of authors in this issue.

We have published international issues in the past, but this is the first time that we have done so by happenstance rather than by design, and I think that speaks directly to the emergence of an international professional identity in our field as has developed in so many other domains of our lives. The breadth of this issue as a case in point also illustrates the breadth of the phenomenon. An article by Dutch authors on the marginalization of immigrant youth — an international phenomenon in itself — is responded to by an Israeli. An article from Canada analyzes the phenomenon of burnout. And a discussion of street children by an Israeli who has spent the last five years working in Africa following two in Hong Kong draws response from a youthwork colleague in Brazil. International perspectives and concerns are no longer unusual or remarkable in the field; they are becoming routine.

This is not a simple phenomenon, and it has significant but to date somewhat unclear implications for all of us. What does seem clear is that, as an international enterprise, we are beginning to transcend the provincial perspectives that have traditionally consigned us to a single-agency-based occupational identity that has left us in a state of professional limbo. We have international colleagues, international standards — such as the International Convention on the Rights of the Child — and growing international communication. The wise use of international resources can enhance our practice in ways that are only now beginning to become clear. How wisely and how well we build our cross-national linkages in the years ahead will do much to determine the future development of the field.

Jerome Beker