Is it time to take a holiday?
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 […]
Youth work in the court system: its extremely important
Today I took a bunch of youth work students on a tour of the Melbourne Children’s Court. The Children’s Court of Victoria is a specialist court with two divisions dealing with cases involving children and young people. The Family Division hears applications relating to the protection and care of children and young persons at risk, and applications for intervention orders. The Criminal Division hears matters relating to criminal offending by […]
Who are young people?
Who are young people? This might seem like a simple question at face value. It is after all our core business. Young people! However, this is one of the big questions currently pulling our sector apart at the seam. Across the world there are discussions trying to work out this simple question. From academia to […]
Theory and practice: skills and knowledge of youth work
I had a discussion with a couple of students the other day which is a regular occurrence in my experience. The students ask some variation of “what is more important for gaining employment, experience or qualifications?” It is always a question on new graduate minds as they lack experience. But it is one of the […]
Why does government struggle with young people?
The Federal Australian government is currently on the warpath. In their sights: cost cutting. The latest casualty: welfare payments. One of the biggest losers in the proposed changes put forward are young people. This isn’t the first time a government in Australia has targeted young people and welfare payments however it is the first time […]
How can youth participation happen when communities don’t ‘like’ young people.
Youth participation in community is a long way off I have just spent the last hour refuting stupidity on my local community Facebook page. A couple of young people tagged a guys fence and he was ranting about catching them and doing them physical violence. The comments grew from there to other members advocating eye […]
What is within you?
All to often we are judged by our pasts. Most often by the decisions we have made which went awry. We look behind us at those decisions and we are gripped with regrets. We wonder what we were thinking! We look at our friends, our families, our education, our …. we wonder if they were […]
Motivational Monday: Greatness.
Greatness in something small. In youth work we are going through our own adolescent storm and stress. We are pushing to have the prestige that comes with the title ‘profession‘. We are storming against other professions, within our own industry and with our colleagues. We are all aware of how great the step towards professionalising is, […]
Motivational Monday: Walk away!
My career as a youth worker has always pushed the boundaries. Whether it was pushing social workers in family services work to listen to the voice of the young people in the clientele or getting local government youth services to use more social media I have always pushed for the next evolution in working with young people. […]
Welcome to 2015 and a few of our goals
Welcome to 2015! Woo Hoo. Well 2014 throughout Australia and indeed the world saw youth work under the pump. In Australia we saw funding and service provision cuts to deplorable standards making many youth workers question if they are in the right industry. In the UK we saw the Early Day Motion 488 and the […]