They still pick me up when I fall: the role of caring in youth development and community life / Diana Mendley Rauner

Rauner demonstrates a direct connection between caring in face-to-face interactions and caring organizations and a caring society, arguing that such a connection is central to our teaching of and expectations for youth. She also posits caring as a way to conceptualize social justice and recognize the connection between public and private morality. Each chapter opens with an overview of a youth-serving organization and includes at least one case study. This book is a call to action to parents, youth workers, policymakers—anyone who works for and worries about the next generation—to recognize and promote the values of caring in public and private life. It is about teenagers—those who no longer need the care given to babies and children but who still need support and guidance. Diana Mendley Rauner offers a rare focus on youth development as a process of experiencing care and learning social responsibility. Much public discussion of youth focuses on individual achievement and a limited set of markers of success, on the one hand, and increasingly punitive responses to failure on the other. Missing from these discussions is an appreciation for the importance of caring and social responsibility both in the environments we create for young people and in our expectations of how they should act and what they should become. __"They Still Pick Me Up When I Fall"__ develops ideals for caring interaction, articulating specific behaviors and habits for practitioners as well as policies and practices that characterize caring organizations and caring societies. Each chapter begins with a profile of a youth-serving organization, drawn from the fields of education, youth work, and counseling. Throughout, an intellectual framework for care is interwoven with the voices and experiences of the youth workers and young people involved in the struggle to create a caring society.

This book is a call to action to parents, youth workers, policymakers — anyone who works for and worries about the next generation — to recognize and promote the values of caring in public and private life. It is about teenagers — those who no longer need the care given to babies and children but who still need support and guidance. Diana Mendley Rauner offers a rare focus on youth development as a process of experiencing care and learning social responsibility.

Much public discussion of youth focuses on individual achievement and a limited set of markers of success, on the one hand, and increasingly punitive responses to failure on the other. Missing from these discussions is an appreciation for the importance of caring and social responsibility both in the environments we create for young people and in our expectations of how they should act and what they should become.

"They Still Pick Me Up When I Fall" develops ideals for caring interaction, articulating specific behaviors and habits for practitioners as well as policies and practices that characterize caring organizations and caring societies. Each chapter begins with a profile of a youth-serving organization, drawn from the fields of education, youth work, and counseling. Throughout, an intellectual framework for care is interwoven with the voices and experiences of the youth workers and young people involved in the struggle to create a caring society.

This book serves as a call to action to anyone who works with young people. It discusses what it means to care for young people at all levels of social interaction: as individuals; in a professional capacity; within an organization; and as a society. It attempts to integrate theories and concepts of those who work with youth. It is intended to mobilize the energy into intentional actions that make sense both in individual contexts and in the context of broad social terms. Following an introduction, Chapter 2 sets forth a definition of caring in practice. Chapter 3 discusses some questions about care in practice and the role of both parties in the caring relationship. Chapter 4 develops a framework by which to consider the development of caring in individuals. It reviews the research on the impact of youth community service in developing skills. Chapter 5 looks at how caring can have an impact and how that impact can be demonstrated. Chapter 6 moves care from an individual level to caring schools and other organizations. The last chapter attempts to bring what is said about caring to an examination of society as a whole. (Contains 39 references.) (JDM)

Rauner demonstrates a direct connection between caring in face-to-face interactions and caring organizations and a caring society, arguing that such a connection is central to our teaching of and expectations for youth. She also posits caring as a way to conceptualize social justice and recognize the connection between public and private morality. Each chapter opens with an overview of a youth-serving organization and includes at least one case study.

Mark D. Regnerus

The author's message throughout and her contextually-sensitive discussion about care is a valuable one. Social scientists buried under statistics (like me would do well to integrate the term care into our research, attempt its measurement, and study its influence, not to mention practice and advocate it.