Monthly Archives: March 2013

Young people in a group

sometimes even seasoned youth worker’s need to re-learn a lesson.

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Today I was forced to re-learn a lesson I had learnt as a young youth worker. I was cocky. I thought I had it all in the bag. I forgot the cardinal rule of running a group… Deliver what you say you will. I could say it wasn’t my fault. I could pass the buck to my staff. If I really wanted to I could blame the partner organisations for not being clear about to goals and objectives. In the end though, as the coordinator of my program I was responsible. I had gone from unconciously competent to consciously incompetent in a heartbeat.
 
Recently, my council was approached by neighbouring councils to run a music program. The program was for two days and was designed to help young people to write their own song and have it recorded. It was being facilitated by renowned music teachers and support people. All we had to do was get 30 young people to go. My team and I set about recruiting potential participants from every nook an cranny we could think of. We asked other youth organisations to help and even re-composed the flyer that we were given to make it more appealing.
 
 
Today, on the first day of the program over half of the young people did not show up for the bus. Within an hour of arriving there was a swell of discontent amongst the 13 young people who attended. Apparently whilst we were advertising the program we had not mentioned that there would be dancing involved and that we would be doing a pop song. For a bunch of hardened metal heads this was just too much. For one young man it was a deal breaker. It took all of my youth work savvy to keep him from hitching a ride back with the first trucker he saw.
 
Much of my day was spent putting out spot fires and making sure my little brood didn’t mutiny. Needless to say, this also put a strain on our relationship with the program facilitators as well. It wasn’t the program at fault… at first I thought that it was their lack of facilitation skills. That wasn’t the case, they were great facilitators. Even I came to conclude that actually we had just marketed the program as something it wasn’t.
 
 
As a seasoned youth worker it is hard to admit that you still sometimes make rookie mistakes. It takes away some of the mystique that you hold as a miracle worker. But I made one! If you are not crystal clear about the intent of the program you are running you can not expect buy-in from your young people. Sometimes a stumble reminds you of your humanity. This was a little mistake in the grand scheme of things. But it is one I won’t soon forget.
 
Don’t get so comfortable that you forget the lessons you have learnt… it is painful re-learning them.

Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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Mental State Exam for youth workers: Appearance.

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You have heard the saying don’t judge a book by its cover. Well that’s exactly what I am going to ask you to do. In the first part of a Mental State Exam we look at a persons appearance and make some judgements on where they are at because of this. Now the politically correct crowd will say that we shouldn’t judge people. That we should make informed decisions or be understanding of their context. Bollocks! We all make judgements and that is OK! If your Judgement is informed by theory and experience then it is an informed judgement. Do not get all mushy about it. It will not help your clients.
 
We all notice the appearance of others. What they are wearing, are they groomed, their age, weight or perhaps an odour!!! We make observations about this through the lens of our knowledge of the person, society and our experience. Is that young person with their pants hanging down, hair unkempt and malodorous (my favourite clinical word) just part of the teenage stinky boys club or is there something more to it. What if they usually dress very neatly and wear deodorant?
 
Appearance is possibly the easiest of the Mental State Exam areas to observe. Has your young person recently gained weight…or lost it? Are they smelly or well groomed? Do they stare at the floor or are they making good eye contact? Can you smell alcohol or perhaps their teeth are bad, could they be abusing drugs? Have they stopped wearing clothes that show off their figure and now wear really baggy clothing? Is it a change in fashion or are they self harming???
 
There are no easy answers when observing a young persons appearance. I have over reached and missed signs throughout my career. Sometimes it is a gut feeling. For the most part it is time, time, time that will be your guide. Meeting people once gives you some data to crunch, but what if they are just having an off day? The more you observe the better your analysis. Take into account cultural issues and the current context for the young person and you should be fine.
 
This is only one clue in the Mental State Exam. It is however one of the easiest to practice. Look around when next meeting with a young person and ask yourself about their appearance in every way. Ask yourself why they look the way they do and if this is a positive social step or a negative one. Ask yourself if they appear to have them self together or if there seems to be signs that they are letting themselves go. If there are, it doesn’t necessarily mean panic. It does mean be more observant.
 
See you next week for part two, Behaviour.

Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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Get out of youth work: how to know when its time to move on.

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Over the years I have had the privilege of working with a number of amazing youth worker’s who epitomise the values of Ultimate Youth Worker’s everywhere. Conversely, I have met a number of youth worker’s that should never have begun the process of working with young people. I have met a number that if it were up to me would have been fired immediately after I met them, and a number who are so damaged that they should be black banned from ever working with an adolescent. Whilst most people who become youth workers do it because they want to help, there are also a number who for all their knowledge or passion just cannot help anymore.

I have seen to many youth worker’s walk the line of burnout or self destruction and not being supported by their orginisations they fall and fail their young people. Orginisations have a responsibility to watch their staff health and wellbeing for their staffs wellbeing as well as the clients. However, good youth worker’s also have a responsibility to know when to call it quits.
 
When I worked in family services I came across a number of situations which slowly ate away at me. Families who fought about everything, young people who had to take care of their families as their parents were unable or unwilling and more abuse than I care to remember. About six months into my stint I began to see my clients as merely client numbers rather than people. There were a number of reasons that I began to disassociate however the worrying thing to me in hindsight is that neither my supervisor or my colleagues noticed.
 
About nine months into it my wife noticed something was up. I was working a particularly ugly sexual abuse case that was pushing me to breaking point. my wife confronted me and I had to make a choice… Stay or Go. I spoke to my supervisor and was removed from the case. Less than three months later I had left the orginisation. Partly due to my being on the edge of burnout, partly due to my orginisations lack of empathy.
 
What I learnt from that debacleI share with you:
 
  1. If you stop seeing your clients as human its time to go. Wether it is a particular case or the orginisation or the entire career path will be determined by how jaded you have become. You will only do damage to your clients and in turn to yourself. It is a self fullfilling prophecy and it only ends bad.
  2. If your orginisation will not support or is unable to support you, jump ship. Better to take your chances finding another job than being fried. Your health and wellbeing is more important than making quota or your CEO feel better. Needless to say, an  orginisation that does not support its staff is not really supporting its young clients either.
  3. Having significant people outside of your career is crucial to providing clear insight into you and your level of strain. I mentioned my wife, who was an amazing support during this time, however I had friends, family and mentors who also provided much needed respite and assurance.
  4. It can only end bad if you keep gutting it out. The more you invest the more likely you will fall. If you are not getting good supervision and support gutting it out is like playing russian roulette. The question is not if you will get shot , but when.
 
If you notice the symptoms, get out now. I took five months off and reflected on my calling. I found a great job and was well supported. I am still getting past the jadedness that comes with an unsupportive orginisation…but who’s perfect?
 
Do yourself and your young people a favour, If it is starting to go pear shaped get some support…and if necesary abandon ship.

Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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one in four young people will have a diagnosed mental illness: do you know the signs?

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One in four young people will have a diagnosed mental illness in their lifetime. That means one in four young people you come across probably has symptoms of the troubles brewing right before your eyes. As youth workers our training in mental health is limited at best. If oour training is limited then we are severely limited in our ability to support them. Over the coming weeks we will look at a great tool for identifying issues early in a young person… and we all know that early detection leads to the best outcomes for our young people.
 
One of the best tools I have come across over the years is a Mental State Exam. As a your worker I was initially weary of using another form that put my young people in a “clinical” box. However, as I have used this tool and become more familiar with it I have found that I am able to see minute change in my young people which help me identify potential mental health issues. If you can see the changes early it helps you to support them to get the help they will need.
 

The Mental State Exam covers eight areas of the person for us to keep an eye on:

 
Over the coming weeks we will show you how to complete a Mental State Exam, What to look out for and when to refer on to the proper treatment. They are a tool, and like any tool it takes practice to master. That is why we will look at one area per week until we have a good understanding. When we have a good understanding then we can put it in the toolbox and use it when the need arises.
 

In the meantime here is a short video to whet your whistle.

 

Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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Celebrate

5 ways to develop youth work practice post-conference.

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2013 is shaping up to be the year of the youth work conference! Here in Australia we are having our largest secular and sacred youth work conferences within two months of each other. There are a number of mini conferences and more youth work seminars than you can poke a stick at. Even though it puts a kybosh on some of the plans I made for this year, I hope to attend many of these conferences. I love the highs, the opportunity to hear from seasoned veterans and mingle with colleagues. In short I love the context of conferences. But more than that, I love the questions that I am left with after leaving these conferences.
 
In youth work we never reach the pinnacle of our practice. Like those long hikes up mountains where we think we will reach the top just over the next rise and BAM…. There is the next hill. We just learn everything there is to know about youth participation and BAM… the next youth work journal says there is more. We just reach the top of our understanding of drug and alcohol and BAM… we need to understand mental health now as well. We become the best group worker ever and BAM… now we need to run groups online. Every day brings a new challenge and a new skill we need. When I go to conferences I am often left wondering what the next hill is that I need to climb.
 
 
One of the hills that always stands in the way of youth workers is that of ongoing development. Conferences are great for motivating and encouraging and can even give us new ways to practice… but they rarely DEVELOP practice. To develop practice takes time, opportunity and effort. So after the conferences here are 5 ways to develop your youth work practice.
 
  1. Reflective practice really does work. While you are at the conference you probably wrote copious notes. Set aside time to read them again and journal about your experiences. How might what you have just learnt fit into your current practice? Use your colleagues to bounce ideas off or use a group supervision session to flesh out your thoughts.
  2. Read a book! or two, or more. Read about what you have learnt. Don’t take a hour seminar at face value. Don’t take the week or couple of days or webinar for granted… question everything! Read wide and read deep. See if what you have been told stacks up.
  3. Get some accountability. A conference high is an amazing thing. You feel bullet proof on top of the mountain. on the trip back down it is easy to forget what you learnt or why you went in the first place. Having a mentor or someone who will hold you accountable to your learnings from the conference will help you develop for the long run.
  4. Take time for yourself. A conference takes it out of you. You’re learning, networking and generally trying to keep up. It often runs across multiple days and you are on the go the whole time. Within the following month take some time to just recharge… the sooner the better. Your self care is really important to developing your practice post-conference
  5. Sow into others. Some say the best way to learn is to teach. Take the time to pass on some of the knowledge you have picked up on the way. Pass it on at team meetings, to younger staff members to other service providers who weren’t at the conference. Passing on your new knowledge to others will help you wrestle with how to impliment it and will develop a wide net of practice.
 
Developing youth work practice is challenging and we must take every opportunity that presents itself to gain encouragment and motivation for the journey. Conferences are a great mountaintop experience but they are just a jump… its the journey thereafter which is most important.
 
We hope these five tips will help you plan for your post-conference practice development.
 

If you need support to put your post-conference learnings in order, speak to us about how we can provide supervision and coaching to help you reflect on your new insights.

 

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Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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Post conference slump

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If you follow us on facebook or twitter you will know that some of the Ultimate Youth Worker team were at the Victorian Christian Youth Convention (VCYC) providing support and MC duties. The convention was amazing! over 300 young people and their youth leaders across the weekend all there to grow. There was amazing bands, great speakers and phenomenal fellowship. As the MC’s we had the privilage of leading the convention seeing and hearing all the highs that came throughout the weekend. But as with most highs eventually there comes a low.

Aaron Garth and Cat Argiriou at VCYC 2013

For me it was being tired and sore. I had a full on week at work before heading to the convention, and instead of having some time to relax into it I was stuck at work under the pump to put out a report on a very sticky situation. Having no lead in time I started to feel a little more tired than usual by Saturday night. By Sunday and home time I was wrecked. Heading to work on monday I was a zombie. I was sore all over, tired beyond belief and unable to focus. Needless to say the high I had experienced over the weekend was gone by Monday afternoon.
 
Recently we had the pleasure of reading a great post by Ben, from Average Youth Ministry. Ben contends that camp highs are a vital part of youth ministry and youth work. I have to say after the weekend away I am not so sure! Ben states a number of really great reasons why a mountaintop experience like going on a camp is good, not the least of which is that with all the crap in the world it is an opportunity to get up above it all and visit the mountaintop. For our young people having a camp high is great. For us as youth workers… I’m still not sure.
 
 
Is a camp high a good thing for our young people? Most definately. But is the high experience by our young people worth the pain, lack of sleep and post conference slump for the youth workers? Can’t we just get someone else to do it for us?
 
I am still sore and have a cracking headache. I spent a weekend away from my family. To top it all off the last two days I have been close to useless at work and home. Was it worth it? Definately. The relationship that I and many other youth workers built with their young people was deeper than before. The mountaintop experience for young people is also a high for us too. We remember that through the hard times there is also a great time ahead. I will get past the post conference slump. The payoff from a weekend away will last most of the year.
 
 
If you get a chance though, have some prep time and recovery time… Particularly once you pass the big 30. 
 

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Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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