2023-07-15 12:00:01
A tag in the Petit Nanterre district, in Nanterre, on July 13, 2023. PHILÉMON BARBIER / HORS FORMAT FOR “THE WORLD”
It was necessary to let the first days of anger pass before being able to resume a more peaceful dialogue with the young people. Since the revolts in popular neighborhoods after the death of Nahel M. on June 27, killed by a police officer, specialized prevention educators, more commonly known as “street educators”, have been on the front line to manage the crisis.
“Every day, our teams discuss with young people, to make them think about their actions and their responsibilities, without being in a frontal and moralizing speech either because we don’t want to break this link we have with them”, testifies Damien Henique, former street educator and now head of service at the association Les 4 Chemins in Nanterre, in the heart of the Pablo-Picasso district. A balancing act for a still relatively unknown shadow profession that has suffered for several years from a major crisis of attractiveness.
Responding to a child protection mission piloted and financed by the departments, the specialized prevention structures operate mainly in the priority neighborhoods of the city’s policy to support young people between 11 and 25 years old. “on the way to marginalization” and who may engage in risky behavior (fighting, alcohol or drug consumption, prostitution). According to the National Liaison Committee of Specialized Prevention Actors (CNLAPS), the profession’s national network, there are less than 4,000 street educators in France today.
However, the profession meets the very definition of “going towards”, in these territories where the public service has gradually disappeared and where mistrust of institutions has worsened. Always in pairs, the specialized educators hang out in the neighborhoods, the stairs, the halls of buildings, the apartments of the families or in front of the schools to ” hang “ young people seconded from all institutions. “There is a loss of trust in adults in these territories. We try to be this new symbolic figure on which the young person can rely.confides François Souret, deputy general manager of the Addap13 group, the only specialized prevention association in the Bouches-du-Rhône with 140 educators.
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” Drive belt “
However, all the structures insist on the free adhesion of the young person to collaborate, the possibility for him to remain anonymous, the professional secrecy of the supervisors and above all the importance of working in partnership with other structures. “We are not specialists in employment, health or education. We’re just link specialists. We are not intended to replace what exists. We act as a transmission belt between the young people we pick up on the street and the other social systems.continues François Souret, also an educator for twenty years.
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