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Foreword Anybody who is familiar with the world of the social street worker is likely to ask himself if a guidebook of this type is really needed by him. Indeed, if one takes into account the numerous characteristics of the social groups aimed at regarding the daily activities of the street worker, the eclectic nature pertaining to the wide fields of knowledge and action in which he operates, the diversity of the strategic partners he is currently in need of in his social environment, the street worker – who is making a career and not just doing “a job” – is, in principle and by necessity, a committed, versatile and experienced professional. For he cannot obtain satisfactory and constant results from his work, - i.e. the successful reinsertion on regular periods of a satisfactory number of children and youngsters forced through social exclusion to live in more or less permanent dependence of the street –if he does not possess and constantly invest his experience, although often empirical, in his daily work. It cannot be otherwise because the vital needs of the excluded children and youngsters are more numerous, and the ways to deal with them are more complex as compared with the needs of “normal children”. Let’s take as example one of the fundamental needs, i.e. education and tuition which are the only ones capable of turning a “small biped and thinking animal” into a human being. If it needs only one teacher to educate about thirty “normal” children” in a class room, at least three times more and a lot more time are necessary to first prepare and then teach efficiently the same number of children in the street within a structure of accommodation and social rehabilitation which should normally provide more ramifications in order to be functional. In this unequal importance of the needs, the same goes for all the means and methods of action demanded by the profession of street worker, including of course the financial resources. By
professional necessity, the street worker who takes his work to heart
and seriously, borrows know-how, at more or less high levels, from the
professions of health agent, of nutritionist, of psychologist, of sociologist,
of legal expert, of barrister, of criminologist, of politician, of manager
of a humanitarian association, of mobilizing agent in human, material
and especially financial resources. He borrows from the profession of
writer, organizer of various meetings for the exchange of experience and
professional information, etc. And here we are, forced to borrow from
the profession of communicator for, one of the realities from which he
suffers most of all in his human environment is the indifference due to
the others’ ignorance of what he is and what he does. Now, apart
from a few century old and proven specialised institutions but linked
to a small number of religious congregations, no great number of old institutions,
comparable to public schools and specially conceived to train future street
workers in their profession exist to date in the world. But then, if the definitely committed and in principle professionally versatile street worker is widely experienced, he is also most often overburdened with work. He seldom has the time to do other things than looking after the children and youngsters he is taking care of and, in any case, he has to avoid to disappoint them regarding the fulfilment of his responsibilities towards them since, to have them paying attention, he has promised them they would soon have access to a better future. Under the constraints and urgencies generated by the necessity to satisfy the multiple needs of the children and the youngsters whose sufferings he shares, the street worker defies his own physical and nervous exhaustion. He ranks the urgencies according to their nature, he acts night and day. He hurries where time is short and where the situation is most serious. He carries out in priority what seems to him immediately and directly useful for the child in social distress. In these exceptional work conditions, the result is that, without wanting to, the street worker leaves out of his priorities certain fields of activity, yet even important and useful than the others for his targets. It is the case concerning the media which singularity and complexity as profession are briefly, but very clearly laid out in the present guide book, to the attention of those who would wish to learn about them or find new avenues to exploit in order to improve their professional quality. What
we wish to enhance here is that social street work, is neither ordinary
nor easy. This is not a profession one can undertake because one finds
nothing else to do or because one is not capable of doing something else.
It is a real and important profession that relieves the States, the communes
and the families from serious consequences owing to dysfunctions in human
societies. Street children, children exploited in all kinds of labour,
are nowadays worldwide reaching a figure of over five million. The majority
of these children and youngsters only find shelter, comfort and relief
for their sufferings in company of the street worker. If social street
work is dedicated to lift up those who have been trampled down by society,
it is in no way lowness. It is a noble profession in the real sense of
the word. It deserves to be recognised as such in public opinions throughout
the world. Alphonse
Tay
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