Specialized prevention

General standard

In France, the specialized prevention is an action aiming has to make it possible young people in the process of marginalisation to break with insulation and to restore the social link. This action is placed under the authority of the departments (general advice) within the framework of the policies that those develop to come to assistance of childhood. This help with the childhood made by the departments names the Social security with Childhood. That one names a.S.E.

The specialized prevention and the teachers (- trices) of this branch of industry, although generally working for associations, thus exert their work within the framework " of a mission of service public". Concretely, the teachers of prevention, generally of the specialized educators, go to the meeting of the young people in their meeting places mainly " Rue". They, so are regularly called “Teachers of Street”.

From the qualification level required today, the " qualifications" and " the expérience" members of the teams of preventions is increasingly high and this for equivalent wages has other sectors. The welfare workers of this sector are thus in general " militants" and of the " professionals aguéris" . One does not improvise educational a street has Sarcelles (95), has Saint Denis (93), or in the 19th Parisian one near the young people of the popular quarters and one has interest has to reflect has why one goes there has title personal and what that brings has oneself before engaging towards the young people. A professional path strapping man, Formations university and a work on oneself supplement today often a diploma for the occupation of teacher specialized (or his equivalent) in these teacher (- trice) of this sector.

This type of policy of assistance to youth, with this type of personnel, is the last recourse vis-a-vis the failure of the other institutional educational steps, it aims at supporting the rebuilding of the social links, a better integration of the young people in rupture, the fight against exclusion in all its forms.

It is characterized by:

the personal not-mandate
free adhesion
the respect of anonymity

This type of public policy, of assistance to youth, is framed by laws. As private individuals by the law of Décentralisation of January 6th 1986 and are registered in the Code of the social action and the families which for example defines that the prevention is a service of the Social security to Childhood.

Characteristics and orders of the specialized prevention

The action often rests on an answer to a request of the young people. The activities represent sometimes a relational support with the mission of prevention specialized, which is to meet, in going towards the young people where they are, without necessarily undertaking an activity, of often speaking on subjects very deep pain-killers but sometimes, being the adult who says hello, to tighten a hand, to pass a little time and to be recognized like a “person resource”, who, at the proper time will be able to bring listening and assistance in the event of crisis, of momentary or durable difficulty.

The CNLAPS (National committee of Connection of Associations of Specialized Prevention) defines the action of the prevention specialized in its national charter of objectives in July 1992. Let us summarize as follows: the specialized preventive action was born from the distress of part of youth. Year after year, the reasons and the forms for this distress evolved/moved. Taken in a family history difficult, often living in socially disadvantaged districts, much from Child S, adolescent S and young adults does not escape the processes of Précarité, exclusion or Marginalisation, sources of discomfort, acts of Délinquance and Violence.

Twenty years after the signature of the interministerial decree of the July 4th 1972 which officialized the mission of the clubs and teams of specialized prevention, a better legibility of its action in the middle of multiple stakes and a repositioning of its intervention prove to be necessary. In the increasingly complex concert of the industrial relations policies decentralized as well as preventive measures and insertion initiated by the State. The specialized prevention has as an ambition to reaffirm its particular place near the young people left for account.

The five axes which govern the implementation of the specialized preventive action

The specialized prevention is framed by intangible methodological principles which found its specificity. They are of many five. It is important to present them here, in order to better apprehend the framework of this sector.

the absence of personal mandate, basic principle from which the others rise. It expresses the need for being elected by no decision of assumption of responsibility emanating from an administrative authority or legal. This principle implies to collect the adhesion of the person before planning to work together.
the free adhesion of the public, a freely selected relation (only principle explicitly registered in the decree of July 4th, 1972). Each one is free to adhere, be unaware of or refuse the educational relation suggested by the teacher. This principle expresses the step “to go towards” while respecting the time necessary to the establishment of a relation.
the respect of the anonymity (an action which requires discretion and confidentiality) ensures the public that there is no personalized representation, such as a file, in their connection. This principle rises directly from both others: the user having the control of the maintenance or not of the relation, anonymity offers an additional guarantee to him.
It not institutionalization of the practices, a necessary grid of the institutions. The specialized prevention can have to create non-existent answers in the district where she exerts. It must thus be able to adapt to the evolutions of the difficulties of a district and consequently to avoid the fixity and the rigidity of an established institutional framework. If the action appears relevant and owes perdurer because it proves that she met the beforehand noted needs, a passage of relay with other institutions, other partners of district will be to establish.
multi-field team work and the partnership. This principle lies within the scope of the missions of the specialized prevention insofar as it is not possible for the teachers to only act. They must work in network and complementarity with other social speakers, other professionals.

Finalities of the specialized preventive action

It is about an educational and social intervention , at the same time individual and collective within human communities, the such districts, groups of buildings, groups of young people, near people whose social situation and lifestyle are likely puts them to put or them indeed in margin economic channels, social, cultural in which they take part little, and whose they use the possibilities with difficulty. It is an action professional and militant, its finality first is to act on the phenomena of social maladjustment and the states of suffering:

By taking educational actions aiming at helping the young people to deal with itself in the field of their personal life, their Work and their Leisure S.

While contributing to the maintenance or the re-establishment of the rules of social life within the population of a district, a City.

While taking part in the development of the social life and cultural of the districts.

By promoting the existing capacities ou/et potential inhabitants.

By registering its step in time as for any educational action, the individual or structural transformations can be carried out only in the duration.

By developing the networks specific to the populations in difficulty, and helping them to become aware and to carry out their real potentialities.

Features of the intervention in specialized prevention

It is a specific form of promotional social action and educational work near the sociocultural and socio-economic action, of the educational action specialized, popular education, social development and Community. It is named “specialized” compared to the general prevention, because she addresses herself to specific categories of population, social groups particularly threatened and not to the unit of the inhabitants of a given geographical area. They are not its general objectives (socialization, promotion, autonomy of the people and the groups, reinforcement of the individual and cultural identities, the integration social and professional broadest possible) which distinguish its action from the whole of the interventions of the social sector and educational, but rather its step and its method of intervention based on a practice of ground, generally called “work of street”, starting point of the educational accompaniments and projects of adapted actions.

The specialized prevention implies:

an approach of the young people based on the mutual acceptance of the relation suggested to help them to carry out their lifestyle choice. It is the principle of “free adhesion”.

That the people who are the subject of the action are not designated by name. There is neither mandate after administrative description , nor mandate after decision legal. It is the principle of the “not mandate”.

a requirement for discretion of the welfare worker with regard to the powers to control guarantor of the effectiveness, the credibility of a social work based on confidence. It involves a total financing which excludes, at the same time as elected individual an assumption of responsibility, any diffusion outside files and of files. It is the principle of the “respect of the Anonymat”.

Public concerned with the specialized prevention

It is more difficult to identify today than it was it in the years of its foundation. At the time, it was especially about a public of disturbing teenagers, often organized in bands. Today, the teams are in the presence of a degradation of the social relations at the same time more diffuse and greater width which concern the children, the young people and the adults. The public of the specialized prevention is characterized by weak future prospects, or sometimes even by an complete absence, difficulties of adapting his history and his experiments. The reports/ratios at time, space, reality are often disturbed. The young person saw in the immediate future, cannot conceive a project with more or less long run.

The specialized prevention is a public service mission

It is based on the associative fact . Its mission tries to be based on the car-organization of the lifeblood of the city which wants to bring answers to social exclusion and on the will of the elected officials to organize in the places where risks of social maladjustment appear, preventive actions specialized near the young people and in the families in difficulty or rupture with their medium.

Key concepts of the specialized prevention:

Reference books:

Jean-Marie Petitclerc, This prevention known as specialized , 1999
Jean-Marie Petitclerc, violence and the young people , 2000
Lionel LEROI, Of the boys and the circuses, Juvenile delinquents in Reinforced Educational Center (CER), 2007, Editions of the Sextant.

BOUHOUIA, Tahar , (2007), “the téci”, CEDREA - books of study of dynamic social and the research-action, consulted the 9/18/2007 with 22:58: 26 UTC+2 (summer-time, France), starting from http://www.cedrea.net/La-teci