Thinking about Interventions in Child & Youth Care

The term ‘intervention’ is a contested term in our field. For some, it reflects the whole point of having a field in the first place. If we don’t intervene in young peoples’ sometimes problematic behaviours, or more generally their lives, what is th point of us being there? Intervention is simply the term we use to describe how we bring about, or at least promote, change for the better. Sometimes it may refer to the actions we take to prevent terrible things from happening, including suicide, self harm, abuse, injury, and so on. At other times, it refers to aspects of behaviour management, or more generally the way in which we intervene in conflict between peers, or between a young person and an adult. In all of these cases, we use the term ‘intervention’ to indicate that we are doing something intentional with a specific goal or outcome in mind.