Take a step on a new journey toward 2020

Posted on January 18, 2016January 10, 2016 by Aaron Garth

Journey towards 2020

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -Lao Tzu

As we journey toward 2020 there has been a lot of discussion about youth work as a dying vocation. Our numbers are dropping, we have less graduates and government funding is being slashed like never before. Lets be honest. We’ve had it pretty good over the last decade or so. But those glory days are over. We’ve been on a journey that has gotten really bumpy. Some have stumbled, others have fallen away, many are sweating it out hoping for green pastures again. The smart youth workers are taking a rest. We are checking the map. Looking at our supply situation. Reassessing our journey towards 2020.

[Tweet “The smart youth workers are taking a rest. We are checking the map. Looking at our supply situation. Reassessing our journey #towards2020.”]

Perhaps, the journey we were on has finished. Perhaps, our focus needs tweaking. We have focussed on education in the beginning, we moved to recreation in the 70’s, in the 90’s we moved towards local government hoping to find our home and now… it looks like our journey is coming to its end. When your journey looks like its coming to an end and your left out in the wilderness its time to make a brew and plan a new journey. This is what many are starting to do across the world.

What youth work will look like #towards2020 is still up for grabs. One thing is for sure we need to stop looking at the past is a vain hope that it will come back to us. We need a new pedagogy, a new praxis and a new… practice framework. As a profession we keep looking to other professions such as social work, psychology and nursing to guide our journey. But, they are all struggling too. We need to plan a new journey toward 2020.

What do you think the first step will look like?

Aaron Garth

Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.

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Become more educated: Youth work longevity requires it!

Posted on July 21, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Over the past few years I have had the privilege of educating youth workers in a number of educational facilities throughout Victoria. I see highly passionate people with a clear understanding of the sector that they want to work in. I also know over 50% of them will not be in the sector in two years! As a qualified teacher in the TAFE system I know what the training package says should be taught to youth workers completing a certificate four or diploma course. I also know how lacking the courses are. The average youth work course is not equipping future youth workers to work effectively with young people in the current climate.

One of the biggest issues facing the future of youth work in Australia and throughout the world is lack of education. In Australia over 50% of youth workers have a certificate four (a one year course) or less. There are a large number unqualified people in our sector. Qualifications are a key indicator of intention to stay in the sector and they are an indicator of the level of support a young person can expect.

I know many unqualified people who provide great service to young people and I know they would all be even more exceptional with some qualification. I know many youth workers who have qualified with a one, two or three year qualification who need to get more qualifications. I know PhD holders who need more education. Read a Book. 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.

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Aaron Garth

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Just try… your doomed if you don’t!

Posted on June 2, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Many of my clients over the years have been doomed by inaction. In many cases it has not been that they lack ability to continue education, stay out of jail, develop social relationships etc. It is that they lacked the self esteem to even try. They had heard for so long how useless they are that eventually they believed it. When you believe something so negative about yourself you don’t even try… especially if there is even the slightest chance of failure.

I have also seen this method at use by many youth workers. In their work they fear failure so much they don’t event try with some clients. With their clients they look at the initial referral and see the too hard basket. They see clients that no one else has made a difference to. They see the difficult path ahead and it is too much. The way to save time, effort and disappointment is to not try at all.

When it comes to career they don’t want to be disappointed there either. They have completed some level of qualification and struggled through and now are scared for life. Any more study seems like a recipe for failure. They don’t do professional development planning. They don’t look at the future with excitement but bitter disappointment. Failure seems like the only way forward so they don’t even try.

When we look to the future and see difficulties and troubles it is only natural to shy away. Fear is a natural state of mind. But, if we let that fear rule us and dominate our thinking it leads to inaction. If we do not act we are doomed to fail before we even start. Don’t let fear of failure hold you back. You will be disappointed if you do.

Aaron Garth

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Youth work needs to rid itself of its inferiority complex.

Posted on May 26, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Over the years no other issue in youth work has bugged me more than the discussions about how we need to become more like other professions. For the most part it is a discussion about what we are not as youth workers. It says what we do not do. It says we are inferior to other professions.

We hear it every day as youth workers. Our clients are referred to “professionals” because we aren’t trained enough, aren’t qualified enough or just plain don’t know enough. These professionals look upon us with the same condescension that people aim at well meaning children who are overly excited. They tell us how much we don’t know about young people from their perspective and why they are indispensable to our young people. And we look at them with wide doe eyes and a knowing glance that says they are right. We are inferior.

The academy has told us for years that youth work as it stands is inferior.

Our colleagues have told us how inferior our work is.

We have told ourselves how inferior we are.

For youth work as a profession to take the next step we first need to stop comparing ourselves to others. Comparison leads to inferiority. We are a stand alone profession with our own knowledge base and a rocking way of supporting young people that others can only dream about.

Inferiority only comes if we allow it… so lets stop it.

Aaron Garth

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Youth workers: write, do or do both.

Posted on May 5, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

The most well known youth workers world wide are often one of two types of people. They are either the academics who write something worth reading or they are the youth worker who does something spectacular that others write about.

The academics are trying to write something that the youth worker on the ground can use to improve practice or develop the sector as a whole. They bring research and practice together within the pages of journals and textbooks and ask the reader to implement their ideas. Academics write to keep their jobs. They write to expand their influence. They write to frame the work of the youth worker on the ground.

The youth worker on the other hand is developing new programs, working with those delinquent young people the news is always talking about and living out action research. They are learning through doing. They are building relationships. They are developing a set of practice skills that are fluid and framed. They are the ones the rest of us look up to because they just seem to do the job so well.

These people either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. However I propose another group. Those who write something worth reading and do something worth writing about. There is a growing number of youth workers taking to writing about the ins and outs of this profession called youth work. They are doing some amazing work and writing about it. They blog, podcast and video their thoughts. They write for the common youth worker and the academic. They speak from the heart and from the data.

Where do you fit on the spectrum? Leave us a comment below.

Aaron Garth

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We need older youth workers!

Posted on April 28, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Youth work is an interesting profession. The vast majority of staff are under the age of 35. The average youth worker has worked in the sector for five years or less and it is as rare as hens teeth to find youth workers into their 50’s. Many years ago I heard a long term youth minister speak about the importance of having an age diverse youth workforce. Tim Hawkins, is that youth minister and as someone who has been in the gig for thirty odd years I think he is on to something.

We need workers who have experience and longevity in the field. We need some older workers with a lot of life in their years to strengthen the sector. We need the wisdom of experience.

Aaron Garth

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We must change our thoughts in youth work.

Posted on April 21, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Perception. It is what causes many of the issues I see every day. It is also something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Whether it is our perception of our clients, others perceptions of us or our perception of ourselves; how we think about the world informs our actions within it.

In the therapeutic world this is something that has taken hold through therapies such as CBT and REBT which ask us to change our way of thinking about issues and situations. The paradigm of positive psychology echoes this also. How we look at our situation denotes how we will stand up to the issues we are facing.

Our world is hurting. It seems like every time I turn on the news some new atrocity has happened. People are being killed, raped, cheated and broken by their fellow man. When working with our young people we hear the stories of brokenness that encompass their lives. It would be easy to se the world as beyond hope.

For us to show the hope that the world needs we must first change how we think about it. May of those who know me best believe that I am an eternal optimist. When it looks like its at its worst I see hope. When I hear of people turning against each other I look to peace. When I see people hurting I look to restoration. This does not mean that I am blind to the current situation, on the contrary I am acutely aware. It meant that I am looking to the future and to hope.

I was not always like this however. When I was a teen myself I was a glass is half empty kind of guy. The world was against me and no one could tell me differently. I always saw the worst in a situation and in others and I suffered for it. We ask our young people to change their way of thinking every day. Perhaps for us as a profession to go to the next level we must change our thoughts as well. If we do we can change the world.

Aaron Garth

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Love what you do!

Posted on April 14, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

In our work we come across some of the most awesome youth workers in the service. They absolutely love their work. They get out of bed in the morning and they can’t wait to get to work. They have the greatest job on the face of the earth. The work they do is of the highest quality in fact they are often praised for their great work.

We also come across a number of youth workers who have been around the block too many times and should have gotten off the bus. The closest that these workers get to doing ‘Great Work’ is ordering a coffee at the local cafe. They hate their roles and are often more unhelpful to the young people they are meant to serve.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you do, embrace the love and expand it. If you don’t, its time to move on. If we as a sector embrace this idea then we will do even more exceptionally great work for our young clients.

Aaron Garth

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