Knowing mental health: Anxiety
We kick off mental health week with the most prevalent of disorders, Anxiety. Anxiety robs people of their ability to cope with the turmoil of everyday situations. It robs them of the ability to reach their potential. Most of all it robs them of life. When we speak of anxiety as a brain disorder we […]
youth workers need to stop mental health stigma
In my class on mental health I often ask if we are beating back the stigma of mental illness. Students often say no… but after some thought and discussion they often change their mind. “We are beating back the stigma of anxiety, depression and body image” they would say. It is then that I ask […]
Mental health… Do you understand?
Mental Health is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the Western world. Unfortunately, most youth work education gives a youth worker a passing knowledge at best… and this is dangerous.
Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans.
Plans are important I was talking with a student of mine today about the need for youth workers to have plans. Career plans. Professional development plans. Self-care plans. Plans for working with clients. Plans for networking. Plans, plans, plans. It dawned on me as I said this that most youth workers I know don’t really […]
Peer support is key to youth work longevity.
Today, I had the pleasure of a lunch with a good friend and supporter of the work of Ultimate Youth Worker. A manager of a local government youth service and a canny outlaw I was enthralled in our conversation. We spoke about children, sociology, government policy, raising families and much much more. We spoke for […]
Become more educated: Youth work longevity requires it!
Do a short course. Get a lateral qualification. Educate yourself more! Read a youth work journal. Attend a conference or a webinar. Listen to a podcast. Educate yourself.
It costs money but ignorance will cost you more.
Why should a youth worker have supervision?
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 […]
The youth work supervision environment: importance of neutrality
The supervision environment is important to staff uptake All to often I hear from youth workers that they don’t want to do supervision sessions. The concerns range from the classic ‘it would breach confidentiality‘ to the obscure, ‘it doesn’t fit well with my existential philosophy‘. The main reason we hear is that staff don’t feel […]
Seven things a manager needs to know about internal supervision?
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 […]
Chaplains in schools: A youth workers thoughts
Chaplains in schools One of the most contentious issues in youth work today is funding. We don’t have enough money and we don’t have enough positions. So when the Australian federal government released their budget last month an a number of youth work programs were defunded the sector cried out. One area that was at […]