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 […]
What will youth work look like in 2013???
Today it is my pleasure to kick off a series that will take us to mid January 2013. In this series we will hear from some of the leading minds in youth work from throughout the world as they answer the question, “What will youth work look like in 2013???” Today’s Guest Post is written […]
How to encourage young people as a youth worker
One of the most enjoyable parts of being a youth worker is providing a measure of encouragement to our young people. Often the world sucks! Through broken people, the media and even their “friends” young people are attacked from all sides by people telling them how bad they are, that they are delinquent and even […]
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 […]
Setting boundaries in youth work:How much do I share about me?
Over the past two weeks I have spoken to a number of youth workers and all of these conversations have turned at one stage or another to the topic of how much they should share about themselves with their young people. Some of the comments that I have heard were, “if I was asked I would tell them that it […]
Observe the D in DISC for youth worker’s
Last Thursday we began a Series looking at the DISC behavioural profiling system and discussed how DISC can help us to develop a behavioural lens to inform how we work with young people, our colleagues and other networks. Using the lens of DISC will help you understand peoples strengths and weaknesses, how to speak to […]
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 […]