We are Ultimate Youth Worker Youth work is a tough gig. Its probably why you have joined with over 2000 youth workers from all over the world who visit us every month. We truly care about you and your career. We know that you want to be the best youth worker you can be. We […]
In the AYAC National Youth Work Snapshot 2013 a survey of youth workers showed that 8.4% of surveyed youth workers had never had a supervision session and around 51.7% receive it less than once every three months. As an industry that claims professional status this is appalling. It is no wonder that the sector in Australia […]
You should be doing internal supervision As a youth worker who managed staff one of the areas I spent a lot of my time doing was internal supervision sessions. I saw that my staff needed the opportunity to discuss cases in depth, gain professional skills and a framework for organisational administrative procedural work. These staff […]
Many of my clients over the years have been doomed by inaction. In many cases it has not been that they lack ability to continue education, stay out of jail, develop social relationships etc. It is that they lacked the self esteem to even try. They had heard for so long how useless they are […]
Over the years no other issue in youth work has bugged me more than the discussions about how we need to become more like other professions. For the most part it is a discussion about what we are not as youth workers. It says what we do not do. It says we are inferior to […]
One of the values of Ultimate Youth Worker is ‘excellence in all we do’. We expect that if people are paying for our services they deserve nothing but the most exceptional service. As I have been teaching the last year or so I have come across a scary value that has crept into our sector. […]
External supervision Two years ago when Ultimate Youth Worker began we started as a small external supervision service for youth workers. We started this because we saw the lack of supervision given to our friends and colleagues as well as the lack of qualified youth workers providing external supervision. We wanted to see youth workers […]
The most well known youth workers world wide are often one of two types of people. They are either the academics who write something worth reading or they are the youth worker who does something spectacular that others write about. The academics are trying to write something that the youth worker on the ground can […]
I have been in contact with a youth worker lately who is currently writing a book about relational youth work. In our correspondence and discussions I have realised again the immense privilege and responsibility of youth work. Ours is a profession of relationship. Without the trust and respect that comes with the sharing of life […]
Youth work is an interesting profession. The vast majority of staff are under the age of 35. The average youth worker has worked in the sector for five years or less and it is as rare as hens teeth to find youth workers into their 50’s. Many years ago I heard a long term youth […]