The need to network: Collaboration for effective youthwork.
Its National Youth Week here in Australia and we are ramping things up at Ultimate Youth Worker. This week Our Director of Operations had the privilege of hosting a forum for The Youth Affairs Council of Victoria. The forum focused on how youth workers can best provide opportunities for engagement and participation for young people. […]
Become more than you are right now: A youth work specialist
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. […]
What will youth work look like in 2013? The finale.
Its been a month and a half in the making but we are finally there. The finale of our series looking at the next twelve months or more in youth work. We have had blogger’s and professor’s of youth work from one end of the globe to the other. We heard from Shae and Stephen from […]
Survival plan for the stressed youth worker.
Over the years I have become a keen survivalist. Not the crazy people with guns coming out their wazoo that you see on American YouTube videos, More like a less fit Bear Grylls. I can start fire by rubbing sticks together, get water to drink and build a place to live out of the materials around […]
Read a book.
Ongoing Professional Development is one of the foundation pillars which underpin the Ultimate Youth Worker. However, it can be hard to gain enough GOOD development opportunities for us to grow in our abilities and careers. This can be difficult when our orginisations have such small professional development budgets, there is a shortage of worthwhile training […]
Deep engagement in youth work
All too often in youth work we are forced to commit ourselves to shallow engagements with young people. Whether because of funding, policy or staffing constraints we are required to put aside relationship building to satisfy paperwork for bureaucrats. More and more young people are crying out for real support from youth workers, and more […]
Observe the C in DISC for youth worker’s
Over the last five weeks we have looked into the best tool we know of to help people build relationships with people the DISC behavioural profile. So far we have looked at three of the quadrents DOMINANCE, INFLUENCE and STEADINESS. This week in our ‘Thursday Think Tank’ we continue with the final quadrant in the […]
Accountability through ongoing learning
Throughout my career I have met hundreds if not thousands of youth workers with varying levels of expertise, varying knowledge bases and within differing organisations. Whether they are eighteen or eighty (yes I have met an eighty year old youth worker) they all brought their understanding and experiences to their practice. The ones who I […]
Observe the S in DISC for youth worker’s
Over the past few weeks we have been looking at the DISC behavioural profile and its use for youth worker’s in developing relationships and networks. So far we have discussed the EXTRAVERTS of the group and we continue on with the PEOPLE focused groups today. This week in our Thursday Think Tank we continue with […]
Why youth worker’s need to embrace technology for professional development
Are we falling behind??? Are we becoming as obsolete as the home phone, the floppy disk or the hand held calculator??? Are we able to keep up with the rapid expansion of technology? It used to be that if you needed your home stereo hooked up, your website developed or an email list for […]