About us
About Ultimate Youth Worker
Professionalising youth work since 2012, so young people get better outcomes.
Ultimate Youth Worker exists to strengthen the people who strengthen young people. We provide supervision, training and consulting for youth and community services across Australia, built on one belief: when workers are well supported, young people do better.
Twenty-plus years in youth work
Frontline beginnings
Aaron starts in youth work, alongside young people facing homelessness, mental health challenges and complex lives.
Supervision
He begins providing professional supervision to youth workers.
Ultimate Youth Worker is founded
Built to tackle high turnover, patchy supervision and training that rarely matched the work.
The podcast
The Ultimate Youth Worker Podcast launches, bringing practice conversations to workers across Australia.
Into Queensland
We expand into Queensland, working with residential care services in the North, on the Sunshine Coast and in Central Queensland.
The Capability Framework
A self-assessment tool that helps youth workers map their skills and plan their development.
Founded by a youth worker
Aaron Garth began his career working directly with young people facing complex challenges including homelessness, mental health and incarceration. That frontline work taught him what good youth work looks like: relational, ethical, skilled and grounded in the real world.
As he moved into leadership and teaching, he saw the same problems across the sector: high turnover, little access to quality supervision, and training that rarely matched the work. Committed workers were burning out without the structures to hold them. He founded Ultimate Youth Worker in 2012 to change that.
Aaron is a youth worker, social worker and AASW Supervision Trainer, and a PhD Candidate at RMIT. He has taught at multiple VET and Higher Education providers including RMIT, Chisholm Institute and Eastern College Australia, and he still supervises practitioners himself.
Principled, passionate, professional
Great youth work sits in the balance of three things. It’s what we build in every worker we support.
Principled
Acting with integrity and ethics, and doing what is right even when it’s hard.
Passionate
Bringing energy, care and real commitment to young people and the work.
Professional
Applying skill, knowledge and discipline, so practice is consistent and high quality.
Practitioners who have done the work
Every Ultimate Youth Worker practitioner:
- holds a degree in youth work, and many hold Masters or PhDs
- has at least 10 years’ frontline youth work experience
- is trained in supervision practice and group facilitation
- has regular supervision and professional development themselves
Mental health and traumaAlcohol and other drugsHigh-risk client workEthical practiceTeam leadershipBurnout preventionChild safetySuicide and self-harmNeurodiversityDisability and NDISResidential and out-of-home care
Organisations we work with
Sectors we work in
Residential and out-of-home care
Supervision and training that keep residential teams steady, reflective and safe in high-intensity work.
Disability and NDIS
Practice support for support workers and coordinators working alongside young people with disability.
Schools and education
Professional learning for wellbeing teams and the youth workers based in schools.
Community youth programs
Training and supervision for the staff and volunteers who run programs in their communities.
Child safety and family services
Strengthening child safe practice and supporting the workers who keep children and families safe.
Faith-based youth work
Professional standards and reflective practice for youth ministries and faith-based organisations.
Work with us
Whether you need supervision for one worker or training for a whole service, we’d love to hear from you.