Well its almost been twelve months! On the 26 June 2012 we started out on a journey to support youth workers and the organisations they work for and never looked back. It has been an interesting time. We have made many friends and a few enemies. We have asked you all to imagine a new youth work. We have asked you to be better than before. To become the most highly skilled workforce in youth work history. To become truly excellent in all we do.
Over the next few weeks we will look at what we have achieved in our first twelve months in business. Today we will look at our top five blog posts of the year.
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Build your network Sep 20, 2012. Having a strong network is key to a youth workers effectiveness. To support our young people we need to have a broad and deep pool of people that we can call on when the chips are down. This post tells you how to get started.
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AccountabilitySep 12, 2012. The second pillar to our “Model of Effective Youth Work Practice“, Accountability is more important to our best-practice than ever before. Accountability through mentors, good supervisors and reflective practice groups are all great ways to start.
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What will youth work look like in 2013? This series was an amazing opportunity for us to get some of the people we look up to in the sector to discuss what they saw as the next step in the youth services sector. Shae and Stephen, Professor Dana Fusco, Sam Ross, Professor Howard Sercombe and our Director Aaron Garth all spoke on this and it has been one of our most read group of posts.
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Reflective practice: Why we should journal. Aug 21, 2012. In our youth work courses they require us to do some journaling at some stage as a chance to reflect on our practice… so why do we stop when we enter the field as employees? This post asks us to get back in the habit.
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Setting boundaries in youth work: How much do I share about me? Oct 31, 2012. As a teacher in a youth work course this is one of the questions I always get asked when students go on placement. knowing how much to share about ourselves is one of the hardest questions to grapple with because there is no straight answer.
These posts were the top posts of our first year in the field. We have written dozens of others and had a lot of support from other contributors. We hope that next year brings you just as many if not more awesome posts.
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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