Subscribe Feed (RSS)What makes a good Paid Youth Worker?
August 9th, 2007 by mas | Filed under Courses & Events, Participation & Citizenship.
If you’ve read the other blogs you’ll probably have picked up that Kirsty had a bad experience recently with a couple of Youth Workers who were (supposed to be) supporting a group of young men on a course. Its extremely frustrating for us when we come across poor Youth Workers - we can do the best training in the world but if you see that the young people won’t be supported when they get back home it makes everything a bit pointless - imagine how frustrating that is if you’re a volunteer thats worked your socks off delivering training…… and the paid workers supporting the young people can’t be bothered!!!
Anyway to redress the balance I thought I’d write something on what makes a good Youth Worker (or any other similar role!). We’ve worked with quite a few - some that are outstanding and we cover the adult role in some detail on our training courses for adults - the adult role is the most crucial aspect of just about every group we work with - they can literally break groups - of course they can also help make them.
To get things started I did a bit of digging around and came across some interesting research by the Foellinger Foundation in USA - they did some research into the skills that young people feel are important for Youth Workers. Their findings were:
- Caring
- Fun
- Helpful
- Patient
- Respectful
- Smart
- Trustworthy, and
- Open-minded
The words “easy,” “soft,” “casual,” and “lenient” didn’t show up anywhere. Nor
did we find a single reference to physical appearance
So a good honest, caring personality but not a pushover. And theres no need to change your hairstyle, staple your face with studs or try to squeeze yourself into skinny jeans (unless you want to of course but its not a requirement!).
What about ‘hard’ skills? What do you need to actually have or be capable of in order to work effectively with young people? Well over the last 8 years we’ve worked with in the region of 2,000 adults - these include volunteers and specialist practitioners but largely they’ve been youth workers. So having seen a fair few youth workers in action with young people heres my thoughts on what makes the good ones stand out:
- Personal skills, talents or interest
- A shared long term vision
- The ability not to clock watch
- Flexibility and a willingness to give things a go
- To want to be more than just a ‘best friend’
- To know when to lead and when not to (and to be capable of leading)
- Not to be afraid to discipline
Personal skills, talents or interest
I think this is hugely overlooked as a requirement to work with young people. In some services its almost as if the people with particular skills like music or sports are sectioned off as ’specialists’ from ‘normal youth workers’. I think all youth workers should have a particular skill, talent or interest - if you haven’t found yours how do you hope to help young people find theirs?! I don’t mean that you have to do whatever your skill is with young people - of course thats useful if they’re interested in it too - but its much more about having something of interest about you and most importantly being able to help young people understand what it takes to follow a dream or to develop a skill/career etc. etc.
A shared long term vision
Theres a clear difference between people that have a clear vision of what they want to achieve with young people to those who just turn up and do the job. Theres much more to this than I can fit here but it is worth making a note that whatever that vision is it needs to be shared. On courses we call it ’sharing the same agenda’ and by and large adults and young people do not share the same agenda and this is where community activities and projects fall down. Its normal for example for the adult agenda to be related to things like ‘providing a residential experience’ or ‘a target of involving more BME* young people’. You need to discuss what you’re aiming to achieve and what everyone else is aiming to achieve so that you can see how it will fit together - if it doesn’t fit then you’re either working with the wrong people or you’re working towards the wrong things.
*BME: Black Minority Ethnic
The ability not to clock watch
This doesn’t mean working unreasonable hours. It relates to ‘having a vision’ - if you have that then you’ll want to work towards it no matter what. Again theres a clear difference between workers who recognise when they’re doing something important that’s in the best interests of young people, and those who are just doing the job and are busy thinking about lieu hours - don’t you think young people recognise this? And one thing I have to get in here is NEVER EVER claim that young people don’t appreciate what you do for them and how hard you work - in case you forgot they’re there voluntarily - you’re not!
Flexibility and a willingness to give things a go
So youth work is about introducing new experiences, stretching boundaries, setting challenges………. so why do so many youth workers refuse to take part in the same activities they expect young people to? You’re never more conscious of yourself than as a teenager so its all the more unreasonable to opt out of things but expect young people to do them. This isn’t just about activities either - its about an approach - it can be tempting to immediately write off some ideas because you’ve ’seen it all before’ or its been tried before and failed. Maybe though some things that failed before can work this time so its important to at least consider ideas. Think about barriers - are you the sort of person that throws barriers in the way of ideas or are you the person that looks for ways round them? If you’ve ever said “we can’t do that because of insurance” you’re the former!
To want to be more than just a ‘best friend’
Building relationships with young people is an essential skill for youth workers - if young people feel they can confide in you, trust you and rely on you thats all good stuff - but you’re not their ‘friend’ - if you are their ‘friend’ doesn’t this make you the person thats paid to be their ‘friend’?! Not a good basis for a friendship really!
Of course the term ‘friend’ is a bit loose and its not unreasonable that over long periods of time feelings of friendship develop. The real point is to always remember your role is to be more than a friend - it’s to provide support, guidance and particularly to challenge - all of this should be done from the perspective of a ‘professional’ rather than a ‘friend’. Your relationship with young people should be to use your own skills to help them develop theirs - not simply to be the nice person they can chat to and gossip with - anyone can do that.
Not to be afraid to discipline
Disciplines a bit of a dirty word nowadays - it throws up images of detentions and corporal punishment! Whats actually meant by this is not to be afraid to have rules and boundaries in place and to take action against those that break them. Many people are afraid of enforcing this because they feel it will spoil their friendship (see above you’re not their friend!). My experience is that being clear about expectations, being strict (but reasonable) and being consistent is much more effective than being a pushover. This doesn’t mean constantly shouting at young people either and it definitely doesn’t mean talking to them like you’re their parent - it means agreeing reasonable expectations but then holding people accountable to them - this does of course include you!
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