2. A guide book for social street workers

 

A training guide…

Training policies have spread themselves in nearly all the professional fields. And a majority of organisations have adequate programmes at their disposal. And yet, social street work, owing to its precariousness, still has very little means to develop training methods adapted to its practice.

This guidebook has as purpose to give street workers a maximum of practical tips in order to improve their communication towards the media. In fact, a self-training guide which will hopefully entice the urge to take a step further.

… to communication

The dictionary states that "to communicate" means : to be in contact with somebody, make something known to somebody, transmit, supply, reveal, exchange, correspond.

Here we shall focus our words on the following aspects :

- strategies of communication

- relational assets, one needs to know one’s target and to be in close connection with it in order to communicate better

- techniques, relating to the transmission of information.

Any communication demands:

A transmitter: some one who is at the origin of the communication.

A receiver: some one who is the target of the communication.

A message: what the transmitter wishes to say to the receiver.

A channel: the means to reach the receiver (a paper, television, radio, telephone, direct contact, et.)

More complex schemes are often proposed. They include elements of context, of sound, of signal, of code, of perception, etc. Those interested can refer amongst others to the Shannon-Weaver, Harold D. Lasswell or Roman Jakobson models. On Internet, via Google for instance, type their name and you will find everything you want to know.

… towards the media and public opinion

It is generally admitted that street workers suffer from a lack of recognition. Public opinion is not sufficiently informed. But how is it possible to move public opinion ? It can certainly be reached at district or commune level. For instance : through exhibitions, meetings, posters, happenings, festivities, etc. But to move this opinion at a wider level than the immediate environment is very difficult. In that case it is necessary to resort to intermediaries, multipliers who will act as loudspeakers, as relays, with a large number of persons. This is the traditional part played by the media.

This is why present guidebook will mainly stick to the media’s part in a communication strategy.

… for street workers

One does not communicate in the same manner if one talks about a football club, a brand of fizzy water or what social street work is about.

As the street worker often lacks preparation to communicate in public, it appeared to us useful to conceive this guide as help to go about it in a professional manner, but also in a manner that is coherent with the specificity of his work.

Of course, the idea is not to propose a speech ready for use by every street worker wishing to express himself via the media.

Each context, each reality, each situation demands an appropriate language, the exercise would therefore be as vain as useless, if not dangerous.

It is therefore necessary for each street worker to adapt his speech to the reality and to the reality of the media present in his country and to remain conscious of the educational part he has to hold.

For there lays the essence of the message or messages to be communicated "Will the information contribute to a better knowledge of the reality, is it truthful ?" So many questions, which cannot permit touting, canvassing or simplistic speeches.

Which leads to the finding that both the press and the public at large recurrently have very strange ways of broaching certain subjects concerning social street work. Labels such as "delinquents", "brawlers", "junkies" are often used. A street worker will instead prefer to talk about behaviour — symptom — indicating a difficult situation needing to be improved in order to get rid of the symptom. Delinquency or drug addictions are never identities.

The street worker will often have a tendency to describe the situation positively and will prefer to base his arguments on the potential and interesting aspects present, rather than fall into the pervading pessimism.

Street children: a showy topic. The media (newspapers, radio and television), when they speak about the problems street children face, present the situation as one which never ceases to worsen, which makes people think that there is a continuous increase in drug consumption, violence, prostitution and child pornography. Most media, when they take on these issues, do it in a showy way. We really lack newspapers providing faithful information and news stories likely to inform accurately and raise awareness among the public. Humberto Duran Campoamor, Coordinador del Proyecto Niños de la Calle y Farmacodependencia, Facultad de Psicología UAEM. Cuernavaca, México. Objective: convincing the government first It is essential to have a communication strategy so that the government should provide budget for social work at all levels (from local to central). Vietnam is a developing country, so experiences and lessons drawn from developed countries may not be put into practice in Vietnam. Workshop from Vietnam.