| Summary: | 碩士 === 實踐大學 === 社會工作學系碩士班 === 107 === Research motivation of this paper originated from the researcher’s work experience in Teenager Service Center. Curiosity and ideation came from many years of outreach service to get along with street youth. This study intends not to focus on the problem itself but aim to explore the relationship between street life, internal need and family image of street youth, and expecting them to give meaning of their own life stories by presenting their experiences.
To present the subjective experience of research objects for researcher’s further portrayal of the situation and context of their life experiences, this study adopted the research method of narrative inquiry in qualitative research to interview seven teenager served by Taipei City West District Teenager Service Center before (this case close at the moment they participated in this research and they are adult), and analyzed interview data from six teenager after collecting data.
According to the study, based on individual kid’s experience in the family, the following three major causes show teenager’s core of life is transferred from home to the street: 1. Doubt of family identification is generated from the influence of conversion of primary caregivers or important family events; 2. Diversity of family members and oppressed space in the family; 3. Bad family relationships cause the failure of identification and psychological satisfaction in the family; escape from oppressive circumstances is the solution. Based on socio-cultural perspective, the families of these teenagers are always affected by some conventional value, including: man must be responsible for the family; prefer boys to girls; sex identification; higher education identification; women need to be taken care of and protected. What does teenager do on the street?
There are two major focuses for the discussion of the research topic. 1. Street life may occur when imbalance state is found in the interaction between teenager’s personal system and family system. The family system cannot meet individual needs and the current condition in which an individual is dissatisfied with or avoids oppression or injury to the family, causing that the teenager selects to physically leave the family and locate their own new spaces. Such conduct is an adventure process which they want to construct a new self in new experiences, that is, street life is not equal to delinquent behavior; 2. Leaving home is to find a home. They swing back and forth between home and street, trying to show the existence of home in their hearts through dialectics in street life. In fact, street life is a process for teenagers’ pursuit of home, self-construction and further construction of the relationship between them and their families. Family image of street youth is a dynamic dialectic process and the action of finding a home will keep going forward.
The study concludes with two major aspects and proposes to teenager outreach service: Home is a person’s root. There is so much that a person cannot tell about his life experience. If a person working for teenager outreach service can accompany street youths with an idea of “Finding home with them” and concern about such kind relationship of quasi family member, more comprehensive empathy will be given deeply to accompany an individual in the direction to construct their self-identification and relationship with home. A proposal to school system is that creating a friendlier environment will allow the teenager to have more possibilities of positive interpersonal network, whether the connections between teachers or peers, rather than focusing on behavior management and performance evaluation. If so, it could become one of important resources to support the teenager and reduce higher risks they might face on the street.
Keywords: Street youth; Family imageYouth social work; Youth outreach servic
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