Young people in a group

sometimes even seasoned youth worker’s need to re-learn a lesson.

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Today I was forced to re-learn a lesson I had learnt as a young youth worker. I was cocky. I thought I had it all in the bag. I forgot the cardinal rule of running a group… Deliver what you say you will. I could say it wasn’t my fault. I could pass the buck to my staff. If I really wanted to I could blame the partner organisations for not being clear about to goals and objectives. In the end though, as the coordinator of my program I was responsible. I had gone from unconciously competent to consciously incompetent in a heartbeat.
 
Recently, my council was approached by neighbouring councils to run a music program. The program was for two days and was designed to help young people to write their own song and have it recorded. It was being facilitated by renowned music teachers and support people. All we had to do was get 30 young people to go. My team and I set about recruiting potential participants from every nook an cranny we could think of. We asked other youth organisations to help and even re-composed the flyer that we were given to make it more appealing.
 
 
Today, on the first day of the program over half of the young people did not show up for the bus. Within an hour of arriving there was a swell of discontent amongst the 13 young people who attended. Apparently whilst we were advertising the program we had not mentioned that there would be dancing involved and that we would be doing a pop song. For a bunch of hardened metal heads this was just too much. For one young man it was a deal breaker. It took all of my youth work savvy to keep him from hitching a ride back with the first trucker he saw.
 
Much of my day was spent putting out spot fires and making sure my little brood didn’t mutiny. Needless to say, this also put a strain on our relationship with the program facilitators as well. It wasn’t the program at fault… at first I thought that it was their lack of facilitation skills. That wasn’t the case, they were great facilitators. Even I came to conclude that actually we had just marketed the program as something it wasn’t.
 
 
As a seasoned youth worker it is hard to admit that you still sometimes make rookie mistakes. It takes away some of the mystique that you hold as a miracle worker. But I made one! If you are not crystal clear about the intent of the program you are running you can not expect buy-in from your young people. Sometimes a stumble reminds you of your humanity. This was a little mistake in the grand scheme of things. But it is one I won’t soon forget.
 
Don’t get so comfortable that you forget the lessons you have learnt… it is painful re-learning them.

Mental State Exam for youth workers: Appearance.

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You have heard the saying don’t judge a book by its cover. Well that’s exactly what I am going to ask you to do. In the first part of a Mental State Exam we look at a persons appearance and make some judgements on where they are at because of this. Now the politically correct crowd will say that we shouldn’t judge people. That we should make informed decisions or be understanding of their context. Bollocks! We all make judgements and that is OK! If your Judgement is informed by theory and experience then it is an informed judgement. Do not get all mushy about it. It will not help your clients.
 
We all notice the appearance of others. What they are wearing, are they groomed, their age, weight or perhaps an odour!!! We make observations about this through the lens of our knowledge of the person, society and our experience. Is that young person with their pants hanging down, hair unkempt and malodorous (my favourite clinical word) just part of the teenage stinky boys club or is there something more to it. What if they usually dress very neatly and wear deodorant?
 
Appearance is possibly the easiest of the Mental State Exam areas to observe. Has your young person recently gained weight…or lost it? Are they smelly or well groomed? Do they stare at the floor or are they making good eye contact? Can you smell alcohol or perhaps their teeth are bad, could they be abusing drugs? Have they stopped wearing clothes that show off their figure and now wear really baggy clothing? Is it a change in fashion or are they self harming???
 
There are no easy answers when observing a young persons appearance. I have over reached and missed signs throughout my career. Sometimes it is a gut feeling. For the most part it is time, time, time that will be your guide. Meeting people once gives you some data to crunch, but what if they are just having an off day? The more you observe the better your analysis. Take into account cultural issues and the current context for the young person and you should be fine.
 
This is only one clue in the Mental State Exam. It is however one of the easiest to practice. Look around when next meeting with a young person and ask yourself about their appearance in every way. Ask yourself why they look the way they do and if this is a positive social step or a negative one. Ask yourself if they appear to have them self together or if there seems to be signs that they are letting themselves go. If there are, it doesn’t necessarily mean panic. It does mean be more observant.
 
See you next week for part two, Behaviour.

Get out of youth work: how to know when its time to move on.

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Over the years I have had the privilege of working with a number of amazing youth worker’s who epitomise the values of Ultimate Youth Worker’s everywhere. Conversely, I have met a number of youth worker’s that should never have begun the process of working with young people. I have met a number that if it were up to me would have been fired immediately after I met them, and a number who are so damaged that they should be black banned from ever working with an adolescent. Whilst most people who become youth workers do it because they want to help, there are also a number who for all their knowledge or passion just cannot help anymore.

I have seen to many youth worker’s walk the line of burnout or self destruction and not being supported by their orginisations they fall and fail their young people. Orginisations have a responsibility to watch their staff health and wellbeing for their staffs wellbeing as well as the clients. However, good youth worker’s also have a responsibility to know when to call it quits.
 
When I worked in family services I came across a number of situations which slowly ate away at me. Families who fought about everything, young people who had to take care of their families as their parents were unable or unwilling and more abuse than I care to remember. About six months into my stint I began to see my clients as merely client numbers rather than people. There were a number of reasons that I began to disassociate however the worrying thing to me in hindsight is that neither my supervisor or my colleagues noticed.
 
About nine months into it my wife noticed something was up. I was working a particularly ugly sexual abuse case that was pushing me to breaking point. my wife confronted me and I had to make a choice… Stay or Go. I spoke to my supervisor and was removed from the case. Less than three months later I had left the orginisation. Partly due to my being on the edge of burnout, partly due to my orginisations lack of empathy.
 
What I learnt from that debacleI share with you:
 
  1. If you stop seeing your clients as human its time to go. Wether it is a particular case or the orginisation or the entire career path will be determined by how jaded you have become. You will only do damage to your clients and in turn to yourself. It is a self fullfilling prophecy and it only ends bad.
  2. If your orginisation will not support or is unable to support you, jump ship. Better to take your chances finding another job than being fried. Your health and wellbeing is more important than making quota or your CEO feel better. Needless to say, an  orginisation that does not support its staff is not really supporting its young clients either.
  3. Having significant people outside of your career is crucial to providing clear insight into you and your level of strain. I mentioned my wife, who was an amazing support during this time, however I had friends, family and mentors who also provided much needed respite and assurance.
  4. It can only end bad if you keep gutting it out. The more you invest the more likely you will fall. If you are not getting good supervision and support gutting it out is like playing russian roulette. The question is not if you will get shot , but when.
 
If you notice the symptoms, get out now. I took five months off and reflected on my calling. I found a great job and was well supported. I am still getting past the jadedness that comes with an unsupportive orginisation…but who’s perfect?
 
Do yourself and your young people a favour, If it is starting to go pear shaped get some support…and if necesary abandon ship.

one in four young people will have a diagnosed mental illness: do you know the signs?

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One in four young people will have a diagnosed mental illness in their lifetime. That means one in four young people you come across probably has symptoms of the troubles brewing right before your eyes. As youth workers our training in mental health is limited at best. If oour training is limited then we are severely limited in our ability to support them. Over the coming weeks we will look at a great tool for identifying issues early in a young person… and we all know that early detection leads to the best outcomes for our young people.
 
One of the best tools I have come across over the years is a Mental State Exam. As a your worker I was initially weary of using another form that put my young people in a “clinical” box. However, as I have used this tool and become more familiar with it I have found that I am able to see minute change in my young people which help me identify potential mental health issues. If you can see the changes early it helps you to support them to get the help they will need.
 

The Mental State Exam covers eight areas of the person for us to keep an eye on:

 
Over the coming weeks we will show you how to complete a Mental State Exam, What to look out for and when to refer on to the proper treatment. They are a tool, and like any tool it takes practice to master. That is why we will look at one area per week until we have a good understanding. When we have a good understanding then we can put it in the toolbox and use it when the need arises.
 

In the meantime here is a short video to whet your whistle.

 
Celebrate

5 ways to develop youth work practice post-conference.

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2013 is shaping up to be the year of the youth work conference! Here in Australia we are having our largest secular and sacred youth work conferences within two months of each other. There are a number of mini conferences and more youth work seminars than you can poke a stick at. Even though it puts a kybosh on some of the plans I made for this year, I hope to attend many of these conferences. I love the highs, the opportunity to hear from seasoned veterans and mingle with colleagues. In short I love the context of conferences. But more than that, I love the questions that I am left with after leaving these conferences.
 
In youth work we never reach the pinnacle of our practice. Like those long hikes up mountains where we think we will reach the top just over the next rise and BAM…. There is the next hill. We just learn everything there is to know about youth participation and BAM… the next youth work journal says there is more. We just reach the top of our understanding of drug and alcohol and BAM… we need to understand mental health now as well. We become the best group worker ever and BAM… now we need to run groups online. Every day brings a new challenge and a new skill we need. When I go to conferences I am often left wondering what the next hill is that I need to climb.
 
 
One of the hills that always stands in the way of youth workers is that of ongoing development. Conferences are great for motivating and encouraging and can even give us new ways to practice… but they rarely DEVELOP practice. To develop practice takes time, opportunity and effort. So after the conferences here are 5 ways to develop your youth work practice.
 
  1. Reflective practice really does work. While you are at the conference you probably wrote copious notes. Set aside time to read them again and journal about your experiences. How might what you have just learnt fit into your current practice? Use your colleagues to bounce ideas off or use a group supervision session to flesh out your thoughts.
  2. Read a book! or two, or more. Read about what you have learnt. Don’t take a hour seminar at face value. Don’t take the week or couple of days or webinar for granted… question everything! Read wide and read deep. See if what you have been told stacks up.
  3. Get some accountability. A conference high is an amazing thing. You feel bullet proof on top of the mountain. on the trip back down it is easy to forget what you learnt or why you went in the first place. Having a mentor or someone who will hold you accountable to your learnings from the conference will help you develop for the long run.
  4. Take time for yourself. A conference takes it out of you. You’re learning, networking and generally trying to keep up. It often runs across multiple days and you are on the go the whole time. Within the following month take some time to just recharge… the sooner the better. Your self care is really important to developing your practice post-conference
  5. Sow into others. Some say the best way to learn is to teach. Take the time to pass on some of the knowledge you have picked up on the way. Pass it on at team meetings, to younger staff members to other service providers who weren’t at the conference. Passing on your new knowledge to others will help you wrestle with how to impliment it and will develop a wide net of practice.
 
Developing youth work practice is challenging and we must take every opportunity that presents itself to gain encouragment and motivation for the journey. Conferences are a great mountaintop experience but they are just a jump… its the journey thereafter which is most important.
 
We hope these five tips will help you plan for your post-conference practice development.
 

If you need support to put your post-conference learnings in order, speak to us about how we can provide supervision and coaching to help you reflect on your new insights.

 

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Post conference slump

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If you follow us on facebook or twitter you will know that some of the Ultimate Youth Worker team were at the Victorian Christian Youth Convention (VCYC) providing support and MC duties. The convention was amazing! over 300 young people and their youth leaders across the weekend all there to grow. There was amazing bands, great speakers and phenomenal fellowship. As the MC’s we had the privilage of leading the convention seeing and hearing all the highs that came throughout the weekend. But as with most highs eventually there comes a low.

Aaron Garth and Cat Argiriou at VCYC 2013

For me it was being tired and sore. I had a full on week at work before heading to the convention, and instead of having some time to relax into it I was stuck at work under the pump to put out a report on a very sticky situation. Having no lead in time I started to feel a little more tired than usual by Saturday night. By Sunday and home time I was wrecked. Heading to work on monday I was a zombie. I was sore all over, tired beyond belief and unable to focus. Needless to say the high I had experienced over the weekend was gone by Monday afternoon.
 
Recently we had the pleasure of reading a great post by Ben, from Average Youth Ministry. Ben contends that camp highs are a vital part of youth ministry and youth work. I have to say after the weekend away I am not so sure! Ben states a number of really great reasons why a mountaintop experience like going on a camp is good, not the least of which is that with all the crap in the world it is an opportunity to get up above it all and visit the mountaintop. For our young people having a camp high is great. For us as youth workers… I’m still not sure.
 
 
Is a camp high a good thing for our young people? Most definately. But is the high experience by our young people worth the pain, lack of sleep and post conference slump for the youth workers? Can’t we just get someone else to do it for us?
 
I am still sore and have a cracking headache. I spent a weekend away from my family. To top it all off the last two days I have been close to useless at work and home. Was it worth it? Definately. The relationship that I and many other youth workers built with their young people was deeper than before. The mountaintop experience for young people is also a high for us too. We remember that through the hard times there is also a great time ahead. I will get past the post conference slump. The payoff from a weekend away will last most of the year.
 
 
If you get a chance though, have some prep time and recovery time… Particularly once you pass the big 30. 
 

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I’m a Slut…No one will love me!!!

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Hard conversations are bread and butter for the average youth worker. I always love walking into a new youth work environment and seeing what the young people will try to shock me with. I remeber taking a volunteer into a residential care facility for her first meeting with a young person. On the driveway we meet a twelve year old boy who with a blank stare and an unwaivering voice asked if my volunteer was a lesbian, a paedophile or just a whore? My normal very assertive and chirpy volunteer turned white as Casper the friendly ghost and struggled to have a conversation for the next hour. I have often said to my volunteers, other youth workers and especially the young people that if they could tell me a story that would shock me I would be surprised. I often follow it up by saying that there is nothing they could ask me or share with me that would shock me enough to walk away…If there was I wouldn’t be in youth work!
 

My seeming inability to be shocked has grown through years of working with some of the most abused young people in Victoria. Whether young people in residential care, sexual abuse victims or children of prisoners I have heard stories that make my stomach churn. On the outside though I am calm and cool. It takes a lot of composure sometimes to stay calm when the stories are so in your face or you are being vilified by a twelve year old.
 
I remember speaking to a young woman earlier this year who had been through the wringer. Family issues, school issues, legal issues and to top it all off she was being pimped out by her uncle. After a conversation that lasted about half an hour she stated matter of factly “I’m a Slut…No one will love me!!!” My hard exterior almost broke. It took me a full minute to regain my composure. She continued to tell me how she had been her uncle’s ‘girl’ for almost two years and then how he had sold her to his friends. What really shook me was that she had just had her birthday.
 
Even the seemingly heartless stone cold dominant folk have a pulse. It may just be a little deeper than the rest. I was propper shook. I was able to hold it together enough to get back to my office then I was overcome by anger I couldn’t think straight, I was narky with everyone and I was ready to do some damage to someone. I knew I was in a bad way. Some days it just gets bad. I told my boss What had happened and that it was getting to me. My boss got me to call my external supervisor to tee up a time to catch up that week and then sent me home. I still wasnt great and when I got home I blew up at my wife over something trivial. It was not a good night for me.

 

My wife is a wonderful woman who is very intuitive and she quitely told me to get into my plan. I called one of my mentors, spent some time out for a walk and spent some time contemplating the future of my work with the young lady. Her words kept ringing in my ears “I’m a Slut…No one will love me!!!” How can we show love (genuine care and affection) to such broken young people??? How can we do it when all we want to do is take vengence for them?
 

Two things come to mind:

 
First, centre yourself. Spend some time regaining balance. Look to your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual; and get some balance in life. The first rule in any form of rescue work or first aid is look after yourself and do not become a casualty yourself. Whilst dwelling on the situation breeds more interesting ways to cause pain to those who have hurt our young people, it also tears us apart.
 
Second, plan your next engagement. You have likely heard the most intense barrage you are going to hear. Now it is time to prepare yourself for your next encounter. Get ready to ask the questions you need to, spend time practicing with a supervisor or colleague and have a list of the other people or agencies you might want to refer the young person to.
 
I have been called a lot of things in my life and career, but it is when young people have lost hope in themselves and the world that gets under my skin. It does take a lot for me to get angry when people aim at me, but when they take on a young person my protective righteous anger boils to the top. To be the best I can be for my young people I can not let my feelings get in the way of good practice. Our emotions are important, but our control over them is critical. If we get antsy about a term like slut, or the story of abuse then our work is compromised. We must be aware of the effects of trauma on us and how to best deal with it in our own way. Looking after our young people means we need to have a thick skin…for their sake as much as ours.

Celebrate

Become more than you are right now: A youth work specialist

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As a parent I want to see my children have more opportunities than I did as a child. I want to see them become more than I became. I want to see them reach their fullest potential. As a youth worker I want to see the young people I work with reach their fullest potential as well. Becoming more than the sum of their parts. As a youth worker though, there was a time I was happy just to have finished my degree and been in a job I enjoyed. I did not want to grow, be challenged or reach for anything. I just wanted to sit still and ponder on reaching the top.
 

 

What I realised rather quickly was that you can never reach the top. Government policies change the landscape of practice. Our own yearnings lead us in new and undiscovered directions. Jobs that were around 10 years ago for youth workers do not exist now. We can not stop to long to smell the roses because the world will pass us by.
 
I have heard over the last year or so a number of youth workers express their satisfaction with where they are in their career journey. I must confess it worries me. It worries me to see 40 year old veterans still on the front with no leadership or mentoring responsibilities. It worries me to see people content to be generalist youth workers in a world of complexities. It worries to see degree qualified youth workers thinking they have reached the Utopian heights of education. In short I am worried about our profession.
 
Recently, the Victorian state government has stated that it will require minimum qualifications for youth workers in child protection. I think the idea of qualifications is great. What I do not like is the idea of minimums. They set the bar so low. It is an epidemic in the youth sector. Government, organisations and youth workers seem to set the bar extremely low. As a profession we rarely use words like excellence, outstanding or superior to describe our outlook. Imagine if a job advertisement asked for outstanding behaviour or superior qualifications, wouldn’t you be interested in looking a bit further???
 
I was speaking to a really passionate youth worker recently who was explaining that her work with young people experiencing issues with mental health was so rewarding but that sometimes the issues they were facing seemed to go beyond her skills. I asked if she had considered doing some more study like a grad cert in young people’s mental health or a bachelor of social work to gain some new skills. She bluntly replied that she was a youth worker and those courses would not be of help. It was if I had asked her to stop being a youth worker and become a monster instead. I often hear of youth workers who are counselling young people say that it is beyond them. Many of the youth work course that I know of have but one subject around counselling if at all. Yet when I ask if they would be willing to do a course or attend a few training sessions they can’t find the time. I once even heard a youth worker say that they would not do supervision with a social worker because they would not understand his practice.

 

In a world that is blurring the boundaries more and more we need to be fresh and up to the job at hand. We need more than a generalist youth work degree to get through the issues we are faced with. If we work in a clinical environment learn about it. If you work in the community, develop your understanding of community development. Do you counsel young people? Read something on narrative therapy or do a short course. We must become specialists in this new world of youth work. It is all well and good to do basic training, but you need your specialist skill sets to make it through the battle. We should all be generalists. But we should never stay that way.
 
What is it that your situation needs right now??? Counselling skills, supervision skills or maybe even community building skills. What does your next career step need? Management skills, financial skills perhaps even people development skills. When you think about the next 3 years of your career do you see yourself moving forward or do you see yourself doing the same thing? If you answered the same thing perhaps you need to think about it harder. Because the job you are doing now will not be the same in 3 years.
 
We need to step up or step off. If we step up we will be future focused and developmentally minded. If not, we should do everyone a favour and move on. The time for generalist youth work being the glorified mountain top is over. We are at the dawning of the age of the specialist youth worker. What will you specialise in?   
 
 

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Roizen’s 4L’s helping young people begin to deal with substance misuse

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Roizen

Roizen’s 4L’s

We all know that substance abuse is on the rise in adolescents the world over. It is often in the top five biggest issues for young people in surveys and is on the agenda in almost every youth service I know. Many of the young people I have worked with have either misused substances themselves or know someone who does. Drugs and alcohol are one of the problems that young people face which youth workers need to have a good understanding about. In coming posts we will speak more about the AOD sector however in this post we will give you a tool to use when one of your young people has more than a passing relationship with substances.

Whether you are a believer in zero tolerance or a staunch observer of harm minimisation, working with young people who use drugs and alcohol excessively can be difficult. We can have many ideas on what to talk to them about or why they are using but if they do not see their use as problematic it is unlikely that they will do anything about it. What we need is a system to help young people see their behaviour as problematic in a way that will not strain our relationship too much.

Roizen's 4L'sEnter Ron Roizen

Ron Roizen, an American sociologist, created a useful shorthand system for the harms which may be experienced through a use of drugs. Support workers have been using this system for decades to help young people move from pre-contemplation to contemplation. The system is known as Roizens four L’s. Each word begins with the letter L – ‘Lover’, ‘Liver’, ‘Lifestyle’ and ‘Law’ – stands for a category of harm.

LoverLover

Lover helps us to discuss the problems which have arisen with relationships in a young persons life. These problems may show their head with family and/or friends, boyfriends, girlfriends or even their significant goat. Lover reminds us to probe how substance use has changed their relationships with those who are significant in their lives.

LiverLiver

Liver implies all the physical and psychological health problems caused by drug use, such as cirrhosis, depression, anxiety and psychosis. When speaking to young people we use the word LIVER to remind ourselves to use probing questions into the health implications of their substance use.

LifestyleLifestyle

Refers to problems of employment, problems with study, financial problems and other problems which have taken place due to their substance use and its change to their social behaviour. Did they formerly play sport on the weekend which now is left behind for a score? Perhaps it is that they are now night owls and miss work for sleep. Use the word LIFESTYLE to remind yourself to ask questions about how their substance use has changed their lifestyle.

LawLaw

LAW refers to all the legal problems which may result from drug use. Issues with the fuzz, the plod, the cops or judge dread. How has their behaviour brought them into the realm over the law. How much are you carrying of what? What is the sentence for that? I see you were placed in custody last night! LAW reminds us of the legal implications of a young persons substance use.

 

Using your skills in basic human interaction and relationship building spend time fleshing these out. Ask questions. Probe answers. The purpose of this exercise is not to get the young person to stop using drugs but to recognise that their use has had negative effects on them and their lifestyle. Remember with people slow is fast. If you push too hard too fast you will alienate them and lose your relational trump cards.

Use Roizen’s 4L’s to get them thinking. We will deal with what to do next…next week.

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