Working with Cyberspace in the Life-Space

In this article we explore how child and youth care practitioner’s can work with the infusion of technology, known as cyberspace, into our daily lives. Drawing on new thinking about the nature of life-space and life-space intervention, this article explores how cyberspace can be considered as an extension of the life-space of young people and families and as such requires a new set of tools be incorporated into the strategies used in life-space intervention. Research on cyber counselling is reviewed to demonstrate one such tool and the implications of this research are extended to work with cyberspace in the life-space. The ecological model is re-conceptualized to incorporate an explicit consideration of cyberspace requiring a critical re-consideration of ethical dilemmas and ethical codes for practice, an approach which keeps the cybersystem in the purview at all times and forces a re-thinking of the concept of presence as an aspect of relational work with young people and their families.