Reimagining Intervention in Young Lives - Work, Social Assistance, and Marginalization (Paperback)

Poverty and unemployment are on the rise among Canadian youth.Clearly something needs to change, but current social-assistance modelsare based on harmful assumptions about the value of interventionistapproaches with "high-risk" young people.

"Reimagining Intervention in Young Lives" explores thedifficulties many young people encounter with the "supportsystem" available to them. Drawn from interviews with forty-fiveyouth, this important work resituates the nexus of the problem from thepresumption of incorrigible youth to the recognition that the existingsocial-aid structures make it almost impossible for poor and homelessyouths, no matter how hard they try, to surmount adversity.

Intervention is indeed necessary, but more to challenge theprevailing structures that incorrectly presume how youth themselvesinterpret risk, poverty, and, most important of all, their ownpotential.

Karen R. Foster is Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow inthe Management Department of the Sobey School of Business at SaintMary's University, Halifax. Dale C. Spencer is anassistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University ofManitoba..