In todays episode of the Ultimate Youth Worker Podcast, “Thinking Critically About Youth Work: Part Two”, Aaron continues to speak with Dr. Brian Belton about the need for youth workers to be critically reflective about who we are as professionals.
Taking our conversation up to the next level we speak about the need for supervision to help youth workers become more critically reflective. We talk about why we need this for the benefit of the profession and for the young people we support.
Thinking Critically About Youth Work: Part 2
Brian Belton (FB: @Dr. Brian Belton LI: @Brian Belton) is an international consultant and academic specialising in youth work, supervision and identity studies. Previously he was the Director of International Education, Research and Training at the YMCA George Williams College, London.
Coming from an East London/Gypsy family, Brian played a leading role in the youth gang life of that area in the late 1960s/early 1970s. While attending Burke Secondary Modern School, Plaistow, he had his brushes with the law (at times more of a large broom). However, with the guidance of Jesus (and a couple of tough but fair coppers) he entered youth work as a volunteer and part-time practitioner in the docklands of the late 1970s.
While working in youth work related situations around the world, including Israel, the Falkland Islands, Germany, the USA, Thailand, Hong Kong, Zambia, South Africa, China and Canada, Brian’s interest in identity and ethnicity flourished and today he is an internationally recognised authority on Gypsy Ethnicity, and the rights of Roma in Europe, having written widely on that subject, delivering papers most recently in the USA, Austria, Greece, Sweden and Slovenia as well as around the UK. In has recently concluded a three year research programme focusing on the social exclusion of Roma with partners in Spain, Germany and Turkey.
Gaining his professional qualification from the YMCA College and went on to became a Senior Youth Worker in Bethnal Green, employed by the ILEA before achieving a BSc at City University. Returning to the ILEA he took charge of a major community project in Islington. Spending some time as an area youth officer, Brian successfully completed Masters studies at the University of Essex.
On joining the staff of the George Williams College he started his doctoral work, and gained a PhD in 2000
Currently Brian is developing a growing, worldwide network of practitioners and academics concerned with the exploration of youth work and is starting a project looking to develop a profile of youth work across European Commonwealth Countries, in association with the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Please enjoy this podcast!
What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Commonwealth Secretariat
- YMCA George Williams College
- University of Malta
- Brian’s Facebook Group – Global Youth Work Network
- Group Post from Julian
- Ultimate Supervision Service
- The Munro Review of Child Protection
- Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses – Final Report Recommendations
SHOW NOTES
You’re listening to the Ultimate Youth Worker Podcast with your host, Aaron Garth [00:20]
Why youth workers need to think critically [00:30]
Asking questions is so important for critically reflective [02:30]
Two camps of youth worker supervisees [03:00]
Youth workers who look after other peoples children and can’t reflect on their practice and are perplexed and angry [03:30]
This is distressing and is not really talked about in ethics statements [04:45]
Supervision is core to ethical youth work practice [05:45]
The Munro Report [06:40]
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses – Final Report Recommendations [08:00]
Where is the accountability in ethics? [08:45]
The price of being a professional [10:00]
The struggle of supervision [12:00]
Yes, you should be checked up on, and supported [13:30]
We aren’t able to do everything and we shouldn’t [15:30]
If you are not taking supervision you are simply not professional [17:00]
Supervision is about being open, honest and kind [19:00]
Youth work doesn’t begin and end at the white cliffs of Dover [20:30]
Youth work is not dying but it is changing [23:00]
Youth works gift is walking benignly with young people [25:10]
We need to be true to ourselves to be the critically reflective profession we need to be [26:50]
Adventure, chances and the mountain top [30:00]
