News

By Dr Robyn Broadbent

Recently the YACVIC Forum on Youth Work have posed the question around the need for a Youth Work Definition.  Some seemed to be unaware of the previous work and the work of others on this topic. If we lose our history we are destined to keep repeating the same work. When we look at where we have come from we can redefine, critique and grow from the foundations that have been established.

Currently, the Commonwealth Youth Worker Alliance has produced a Global Definitions document which includes the AYAC definition. It evidences the commonality we share with many with regards to defining Youth Work. This document found here includes both the AYAC definition and the Commonwealth Youth Program definition.

However, our starting point could be the body of knowledge that has been developed on defining Youth Work in Australia. This presentation that I delivered to the AYAC conference outlines that history including the research done by myself and Tim Corney in 2013.  Is it definitive, of course not, as we grow as a profession then we must evolve our parameters. That is a much stronger position to be in than starting at the beginning and effectively wiping away our rich history.  If you run the ppt show it will scroll through the national consultations, the opinions of Youth Workers from around Australia and in particular in Victoria on the key tenets of Youth Work.

Access PowerPoint Here

This year, YACVic will be holding a conference for young people and members of the youth sector focusing on the uncertainty, inequality and unprecedented challenges to Reshape our Future!

Reshape Our Future is a 1-day youth forum and 2-day youth sector conference, happening across five locations plus online, presented by YACVic from 31 May – 2 June.

Locations and Venues

• Melbourne CBD - Marvel Stadium, Stark Room – 740 Bourke St, Docklands 3000

• Lakes Entrance - Bellevue on the Lakes 201 Esplanade, Lakes Entrance 3909

• Mildura - The Benetook Room, 190 Deakin Avenue, Mildura 3500

• Wangaratta - Wangaratta Arts Centre, 33-37 Ford Street, Wangaratta 3677

• Warrnambool - Deakin University Warrnambool Campus, Princes Highway, Warrnambool 3280

• Online - using HopIn

This conference is endorsed by the YWA and will be attended by our board members, with Vice-Chairperson, Dr Tim Corney sitting on the panel for “Ethical Youth Work Towards Social Justice.”

So far, there are many speakers on the program, including a young person from each Conference location who will share insights about their region and the previous day’s Youth Forum. The conference will be valuable in many ways as we learn from local and international experts, including representatives from the leading international digital youth work organisation, Verke (Finland) and Dr Harry Shier!

This is a fantastic opportunity for members of the youth sector to come together again, learn and collaborate, working towards reshaping our future!

We hope to see you there!

Full Program

BUY TICKETS

Dr Naomi Thompson (Goldsmiths University) and Dr Lucie Shuker (Youthscape Centre for Research) will share the findings of their recent research, exploring the role of religion, faith and spirituality in youth work training on JNC recognised youth work courses in England.

The authors surveyed the leaders of 30 youth-work courses and analysed course descriptions available online, seeking to understand where religion, faith and spirituality are present and absent, and how they are perceived.

Join the authors and their guests, as they reflect on whether JNC-recognised programmes in English universities are equipping youth workers to work with diverse religious communities, and what the implications for future training might be.

Digital copies of the report will be available for free on the day of the event.

This research and event is supported by Youth and Policy and The Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work.

Wednesday May 19th at 10.30 PM AEDT (1.30 PM UK TIME)

CLICK HERE TO ATTEND

The YWA would like to take a moment to advise all our members and friends about the upcoming webinar from VicHealth. This would be a fantastic opportunity for youth workers to gain some insight into what it is like to be a young person throughout these ever-changing and unpredictable times. This session could be valuable to all that work in the sector and could be seen as an extra resource to inform youth workers adapting to the unique challenges current young people face.

See below for more details and to register.

Re-imagining Young People’s Futures: including young voices in policy solutions 

Wednesday 31 March 2021, from 10am to 11.30am.

 “In this webinar, young people from the ‘Reimagining Young People’s Futures’ Youth Steering Group will share their experiences and insights. The conversation will highlight to policymakers how a range of issues impact the lives of young people and their ability to be active members of society. You’ll also hear from Dr Megan Lim and Dr Stephen Carbone about the ‘Coping with COVID’ survey and what can be done to support young people as we build back better.

Through this event, attendees will have a better understanding of how COVID-19 has changed the lives of young people, particularly their social connections, living arrangements and education. We hope that policymakers will consider what is shared and use it to shape future decisions, legislation and guidelines.”

The YWA would like to share an upcoming global personal development retreat for youth workers.

ComMutiny – the Youth Collective and Pravah in partnership with Commonwealth Secretariat are pleased to announce they will be conducting a six-day online course over three retreats between April & June 2021 (Retreat 1 , 5-9 April 2021, 2.5 days; Retreat 2 – 28-30th April, 2021, 1.5 days; and Retreat 3, 25-28 May 2021, 2.0 days). On completion of the course, participants will receive a joint certification by Commonwealth Secretariat, ComMutiny the Youth Collective and Pravah.

We are now inviting youth work practitioners to participate in the ‘Ocean in a Drop – Developing Inside out youth Leadership, an Online Course for Youth Workers/ Youth Facilitators’.

The course will explore four core themes:

1. Youth Development;

2. Design and Facilitation;

3. Systems Thinking; and

4. Deep Self Awareness.

The participants will be expected to do pre-work and apply their learnings through projects to be undertaken between the sessions. The course will be in the form of three learning retreats as stated above spread across the three months. Since experiential learning in the real world is a crucial component of this course, participants will be practicing the learnings on-ground at their place of work, between and after the learning retreats.

The three pivots of the journey will include: - The voyager (participant); - The navigator (organization and in retreat buddy); and - The learning retreat facilitator.

During the course, the voyager (participant) will:

• Develop, lead, and implement strategies for deepening their intervention and your institutions’ (organisations/collectives/ associations) engagement with young people by processing real life challenges they are facing.

• Design and facilitate high impact interventions using creative methodologies including cross-border exposures, self-exploratory psychological tools and stimulating experiences.

• Enhance organizational effectiveness by applying systems thinking to their real-world challenge

• Delve into personal transformation.

• Be mentored by and learn with experienced facilitators and participants in the field of youth leadership. We are pleased to announce that following this online course, participants will be able to apply for a challenge pot at the end of the programme. This challenge pot is an opportunity for participants to apply their learnings from this course to follow up projects in their country. Further details of this will be shared during the selection process.

To confirm participation, candidates should register ASAP, registrations have been extended, so don’t wait to register!

Selection Criteria

Must be a youth worker, youth development professional or educator working on youth leadership programmes, with at least 3 years of experience working with young people.

 Be a representative of an institution that:

• Already work in a sustained manner with young people, with a well-established field presence and familiarity in community contexts.

• Explicitly commit to youth work and youth development work and have staff who have good youth engagement skills already.

• Have a solid good practice to demonstrate in relation to youth work practices.

• Rights-based values and can demonstrate that their approaches are rights-based Fluency in verbal and written English.

•  Experience of on the ground facilitation.

•  Openness to learning, celebrating, teamwork and keen interest in engaging with others and contributing to peer learning of co-voyagers and facilitators.

•  Ability to engage with basic online tools including excellent working knowledge of MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

•  Have access to reliable internet facilities.

•  Commitment to complete post-retreat learning processes and practices with their colleagues and co-workers on the ground.

•  Facilitators selected for the programme will need to commit to pre and post-retreat engagement.

 Selection will be based on a competency-based assessment of the candidates to engage fully in the journey. The selection process will include a form to be filled by the applicant and an online meeting with the retreat facilitators and CYP team.

APPLICATION FORM

If more information is required, your office may contact l.robinson@commonwealth.int.

This report nails the real challenges for the Pacifica Communities. Although it is based in Aotearoa it has lessons for us in Australia. These communities have strong culture and connection, they are aspirational for their children and want to succeed. However, generational poverty, low-income jobs, human rights abuses mean that they cannot breach the barriers that they face.

Until we own a much more interventionist approach to ensuring equity of outcomes for this and other communities we are going to continue to see the very despairing outcomes translating into higher juvenile justice presentations, poor educational outcomes and higher levels of family and other violence.

To read the report click here

By Jane Hickey - Victoria University

At the most basic level, communication requires a sender, a receiver and a message. Let’s consider this blog post. As the author, I am considered the sender of information regarding communication, as the blog readers you are the receivers, and hopefully the message will become clear- Communication tools become the vehicle for getting the message from the sender to the receiver and then back again! There are many different ways to communicate a message, from billboards, to podcasts, a protest rally or a handwritten letter to name a few. The sender may target one receiver, or there maybe thousands of receivers of the message. Communication is a means to build relationships, express emotions and feelings, have our needs met, make a contribution to the community and to be understood and validated. There are times when the message and meaning is clear, such as ‘Will you marry me?’ and other times where the message can be interpreted in several different ways, for example song lyrics!

Many of us rely on verbal communication and pragmatic language in our day to day life. Verbal interactions occur at work and school, in your family and personal life, and running everyday errands in your local community. Pragmatic language requires language to be used for different purposes, changing language according to the environment and context and following social rules regarding conversation.

So, what happens if the young person that you support has not acquired verbal speech?

Being referred to as ‘non-verbal’ is deficit focused and infers that verbal speech is the ‘norm’ or what ‘should’ be attained. A person who has not acquired speech can be a very effective communicator when they have access to tools that assist the communication process. Someone using Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) has a diversity of communication tools available for effective interactions between the sender and receiver. There are so many examples of AAC tools available- many at no cost or low cost, and also no tech and tech options. No tech options are vital for communities were internet and technological resources are not available or cost prohibitive.

Using an interdisciplinary team working together with a young person at the centre will have the best outcomes for the young person. Ensure that all practitioners working with the young person are empowering, directed by the young person and committed to effective communication (rather than solely focused on acquiring speech).

Check out the resource list and webinar here for further information about AAC tools…..

Jude McCulloch, JaneMaree Maher, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Marie Segrave, Kathryn Benier, Kate Burns, Jasmine McGowan, Naomi PfitznerThe Family Violence Information Sharing Guidelines were developed to ensure entitiesinternal policies and practices are consistent with the Family Violence InformationSharing Scheme.

The Guidelines state that information sharing entities must updatetheir privacy and other organisational policies accordingly. The Guidelines also clarifythat information sharing entities are obliged to follow privacy laws, which includecommunicating to clients how their information may be used or disclosed.

This report provides the 21 key recommendation made.

https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-08/apo-nid307649_0.pdf

Feel free to send us your comments or feedback at info@ywa.org.au

This report considers five key questions commonly asked about STEM education:

• What is STEM education?

• Why is it important?

• How do we include STEM in school education?

• What impact is STEM education likely to have on students?

• What will be the indicators of success?

STEM education?

It reviews some 200 international research papers to examine the main features of integrated STEM education, how it has been implemented in schools, and how an integrated STEM curriculum.

Feel free to send us your comments or feedback at info@ywa.org.au