Being principled may get you into trouble
Over the years more people than I can count have told me that my personality and behavioural styles can irk others and cause trouble. For those who know me well it comes as no surprise that on the Myers Briggs I come out as an ESTJ. Put another way I am a high D and […]
A sense of entitlement: youth work education in the 21st century.
Over the past few months I have spoken with over a dozen youth work educators from throughout the world about the calibre of youth work students coming through there courses. These course range from one year to three years and have people from all walks of life coming in droves to study. But one thing seems to […]
Bring a pen and paper!!!
A short one today! Over the last couple of weeks I have been working with a number of student youth workers helping them with their field placements. One of the most frustrating things tat I have seen in these new recruits to the sector is something which has become more prevalent over the last decade. They […]
Police records and public perception: Youth work with conviction
Over the years I have had the pleasure of working with a number of young people who have had run ins with the justice system. Many of these young people have had people look down on them because of their infringements. A number of them have since become youth workers. Over the last couple […]
Mental state exam for youth workers: Cognition
Second last post this week for our series on Mental State Exams. Over the past few weeks we have been building an understanding of the core components of a mental state exam so that we can support our young people as best we can. This week I was speaking with a youth worker in one of […]
Why do youth worker’s struggle to work together???
Over the last few months we have been working with a number of organisations to help them develop in one way or another. For some it is providing supervision, for others it is developing policies and procedures and others it is a top down organisational overhaul. In almost all of these organisations we have noticed […]
Mental state exam for youth workers: Mood and Affect.
So far in this series we have been developing an understanding of the core components of a mental state exam. So far we have discussed how a young persons appearance, behaviour, speech and language can provide indicators as to their mental state. Today we discuss how a young persons mood and affect can provide insight into their current […]
Mental State Exam for youth workers: Behaviour.
“Oh Behave!” Austin Powers knew all to well that we toe a fine line as humans when it comes to ‘normal’ human behaviour. When we are doing a mental state exam we are observing the fine line between what our clinical brothers and sisters would call ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. Behaviour is an interesting phenomenon for youth […]