I’m a Slut…No one will love me!!!

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 […]
Behavioural observation is the key to best practice youth work.

A few weeks ago we stated that we would look at how to develop a behavioural lensto inform how you work with young people and colleagues. A lens that will help you understand peoples strengths and weaknesses, how to speak to them in a way that will help you develop your relationship with them and […]
Self care 101: There is no work life balance

Work life balance I have just finished reading an article in the latest Journal of the Australian Association of Social Work. The article addresses that enigma that we all struggle to solve eventually in life, ‘how do I find a work life balance’? The article shows the results of a survey of 439 qualified social workers […]
Self Care 101: Have a plan

Why is self care so important??? In a couple of words self care is important because of ‘Vicarious Trauma’. Within the work we do as youth workers we hear astonishing stories of things going wrong in our young peoples lives. We hear the stories of physical abuse at the hands of parent, sexual abuse at […]