Background

Child and Youth Care is a challenging field characterized by intensive daily involvement with youth at risk. It belongs to the wider area of helping professions but has its distinct attributes related to clients’ characteristics and working environment.

Objective

This study explores how Child and Youth Care workers in Israel experience their work with youth, its goals, the challenges involved in it, and how they cope with them.

Method

The study employed a qualitative phenomenological approach. The data was gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 34 Child and Youth Care workers and analyzed in accordance with the phenomenological data analysis approach.

Results

The interview analysis yielded four themes related to participants’ perceptions of their work: Child and Youth Care workers’ job definition, the personal meaning they ascribe to their work, factors that challenge their satisfaction with their work, and factors that help them cope with these challenges.

Conclusions

The workers see their job as an important part of their lives and as a source of satisfaction and meaning. This experience involves several youth-related, workplace-related and personal difficulties and benefits, conceptualized in terms of risk and resilience factors. The balanced interplay between these factors enables the workers to cope with the high physical and psychological demands of their job and facilitates an enhanced sense of meaningfulness.

中文翻译：

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“我今天做了很多好事”：儿童和青少年护理工作者对他们工作的看法

背景

儿童和青少年护理是一个具有挑战性的领域，其特点是每天密切关注处于危险中的青少年。它属于更广泛的帮助职业领域，但与客户的特点和工作环境有关，具有其独特的属性。

客观的

本研究探讨了以色列的儿童和青少年护理工作者如何体验他们与青少年的工作、其目标、其中所涉及的挑战以及他们如何应对这些挑战。

方法

该研究采用了定性的现象学方法。数据是通过对 34 名儿童和青少年护理工作者的半结构化深度访谈收集的，并根据现象学数据分析方法进行分析。

结果

访谈分析得出了与参与者对其工作的看法相关的四个主题：儿童和青少年护理工作者的工作定义、他们赋予工作的个人意义、挑战他们对工作满意度的因素以及帮助他们应对这些问题的因素挑战。

结论

工人们将他们的工作视为他们生活的重要组成部分，是满足感和意义的源泉。这种经历涉及若干与青年相关、与工作场所相关和个人的困难和好处，并根据风险和复原力因素进行概念化。这些因素之间的平衡相互作用使工人能够应对工作中对身体和心理的高要求，并有助于增强意义感。