Become more educated: Youth work longevity requires it!
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.
Why should a youth worker have supervision?
In the AYAC National Youth Work Snapshot 2013 a survey of youth workers showed that 8.4% of surveyed youth workers had never had a supervision session and around 51.7% receive it less than once every three months. As an industry that claims professional status this is appalling. It is no wonder that the sector in Australia […]
The youth work supervision environment: importance of neutrality
The supervision environment is important to staff uptake All to often I hear from youth workers that they don’t want to do supervision sessions. The concerns range from the classic ‘it would breach confidentiality‘ to the obscure, ‘it doesn’t fit well with my existential philosophy‘. The main reason we hear is that staff don’t feel […]
Seven things a manager needs to know about internal supervision?
You should be doing internal supervision As a youth worker who managed staff one of the areas I spent a lot of my time doing was internal supervision sessions. I saw that my staff needed the opportunity to discuss cases in depth, gain professional skills and a framework for organisational administrative procedural work. These staff […]
Chaplains in schools: A youth workers thoughts
Chaplains in schools One of the most contentious issues in youth work today is funding. We don’t have enough money and we don’t have enough positions. So when the Australian federal government released their budget last month an a number of youth work programs were defunded the sector cried out. One area that was at […]
Just try… your doomed if you don’t!
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 […]
Youth workers need to be in the online space.
Over the past few weeks I have had dozens of conversations around why youth workers and their services need to be using social media. Over the course of my career I have worked in organisations who at best dabbled in using social media and at worst kept it a good arms length away from core […]
Youth work needs to rid itself of its inferiority complex.
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 […]
What are you struggling with at the moment?
Every so often I like to take the pulse of the people I serve. I want to know what is going well. What is happening in their organisations. Most of all I want to know what they are struggling with at the moment!We are here to support youth workers and the organisations they work for. Your struggles […]
How economic rationalism is changing Australia for young people.
Economic rationalism is hurting our young people Working with young people is a job drought with concern and trepidation. Young people are looking for hope and opportunity and when they feel there is no hope then with trepidation they strike forth or shrink away. Whether with words or fists we see young people seek to […]