Youth relationships with land and place in the Nechako watershed

Scholars have been calling for the integration of the natural environment within social work for over thirty years. However, the literature provides little insight into youth perspectives on their relationships with land and place, particularly in rural and remote communities. In fall 2022, I interviewed twelve students ages 14-17 at Fort St James Secondary School in BC’s Nechako Lakes District (School District 91) about their experiences spending time outdoors. By student choice, half of these interviews took place inside their school and half took place in outdoor settings nearby the school. Through reflexive thematic analysis, I developed five themes from our interviews, including (1) Specificity in relationships: Where we are (and who we are) matters; (2) Pathways to negotiating relationships with land and place; (3) Intersections of community, land, and youth resilience; (4) People are connected through place and time; and (5) Youth have agency and responsibility. My discussion links youth relationships with land and place to social work practice and highlights connections between the resilience of youth, their communities, and the land and water they rely on. This research contributes to a growing body of literature on social work and the environment and identifies future avenues for the integration of land and place within research.