Family violence and youth work

Posted on May 26, 2015March 12, 2019 by Aaron Garth

Family Violence is rampant in Australia

There is not a youth worker amongst us that has not had to deal with the scourge of family violence. Whether directly through work with or referrals to child protection or indirectly from the aftermath of the abuse we often deal with young people in the midst of their most troubling times. When family violence is part of the picture it adds a very troubling level of complexity to our case work. One that has increased significantly thought my career.

When I started as a youth worker it seemed like every other case had a level of family violence associated with it. Every Genogram I created showed the discord within families. Flash forward thirteen years and it is almost unheard of to have a case that is family violence free. From verbal abuse to physical violence the spectrum of family violence is wide and varied. We as youth workers need to have a solid understanding of family violence and the trauma it causes our young people.

Youth workers need to understand family violence

On Sunday, 22 February 2015, the Governor of Victoria appointed a Chair and two Deputy Commissioners to the Royal Commission into Family Violence. The Commission will inquire into and provide practical recommendations on how Victoria’s response to family violence can be improved. One area that sorely needs to be addressed is support post violence.

Programs such as youth refuges, mental health services and long term youth housing are but a few areas which young people experiencing family violence come up short in Victoria. We also need to look at the education of front line staff such as youth workers. Currently certificate and diploma youth work courses do not require a family violence component to be undertaken.

What should we do?

If we are to provide excellent service to our young people we have to understand family violence in the same way we understand drug use, mental health or trauma and attachment. The Royal Commission into Family Violence is a great first step. However, unless it turns into preventative measures, better services, more training and early intervention it is a waste of time and money.

Aside from the Royal Commission into Family Violence we as youth workers must do more. Get some more training, continue to stand in the gap for your young people getting appropriate service and keep advocating.

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.

Corruption in education is hurting young people listeningVersion

Posted on May 20, 2015May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

There is currently an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) investigating corrupt spending within the Victorian department of education. It appears that there has been significant funds misappropriated from head office to the principals in schools. many of these people on $100, 000+ salaries already but they take from funds which could be used for support services.

Recently, the department has changed the classification of roles of support staff such as psychologists and social workers to pay them less. They also gave schools the opportunity to use the funds for these services in any way they wanted. Young people miss out again. The education system is not designed for supporting young people and then you have people who rort the system and hurt them even further. The commission has heard many stories of schools hiding invoices and being invoiced for work never supplied. More money being siphoned from where it needs to go.

Courtesy of www.theage.com.au

It has been our observation that the more power people have the more likely they are to abuse it. With the education department spreading their power to the principals we are seeing many more issues with this power abuse. With this power came no accountability, and with no accountability we see abuse and corruption. These schools cry poor for funds to help their students but then…

This isn’t a new story by any stretch of the imagination. It is one that comes up time and time again. Every time it does we hear nothing of the services that are lost or the young people that have been hurt by these corrupt individuals. The education department needs to focus more on their internal accountability and good service provision and much less on penny pinching. Governments need to step in and have the guts to make a clean sweep and start again. These individuals are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to corruption and poor service delivery.

In the words of the human headline; Shame, Shame, Shame.

For more on this see: this article.

Aaron Garth

Is it time to take a holiday?

Posted on May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 by Aaron Garth

I am wrecked! It has been a long semester so far. Dozens of youth work students pushing hard to finish their qualifications and dozens more just beginning. Mixed in with this a number of our clients have been defunded by the federal government and many are considering closure and mergers. Our individual supervision clients are struggling with the insecurity of the youth sector and wondering what the future will hold. Amongst all of this our staff are looking at having an extended holiday.

When the world is falling apart around you sometimes the best thing to do is get away. Vicarious trauma affects us all differently. For me I slowly get less excited about waking up in the morning until I can’t think of anything but the negatives. For others it is the sense that their job and clients are just crap. Whatever your go to downfall when push comes to shove we all come crashing down. Thats why our employers give us holidays!

One of the biggest issues we find when working with youth workers is that they don’t use their holidays. Many of our clients have at least a years holidays accrued if not more and when asked have no intention of using them in the next three months. The main excuse I hear is that our clients need us. The fact that 100% of them were doing life fine before we got involved in their lives never enters the picture. It is like, if we weren’t there all our young people would die or end up in prison. So we run ourselves into the ground and give them sub standard service along the way.

Your given the holidays so that you can rest and rejuvenate. If you do not use them in the year you are given them you are asking for trouble. rest and reflection are keys to longevity in a career that so easily could sap you of your care.