Why are you a youth worker?

Posted on April 2, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

This week sees the launch of National Youth Week here in Australia. It is about this time every year that I spend some time reflecting on why I am a youth worker. Seeing young people reach their full potential, many against great odds always makes me excited to see youth work at its best.

When I was younger it was only the support and guidance of a couple of great youth workers that stopped my path towards Jail or death. I saw the worst and best of myself unfold due to their gentle ministering and was given a picture of what life could be like on the other side of my pain and strife. I saw that the life I was surrounded by was not necessarily the life that I had to live for the rest of my days.

It is this sense, that there is more to life than meets the eye, that I hope to impart upon the young people I work with. To help them see past the next five minutes of their existence to a future that glows and excites. This is why I am a youth worker. Why are you?

Leave us a comment below.

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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Being principled may get you into trouble

Posted on March 11, 2014September 7, 2016 by Aaron Garth

Over the years more people than I can count have told me that my personality and behavioural styles can irk others and cause trouble. For those who know me well it comes as no surprise that on the Myers Briggs I come out as an ESTJ. Put another way I am a high D and a high I in the DISC behavioural style. I can be forceful, single minded and I do not suffer fools. I can also be the life of the party, an over communicator and start projects with gusto. I struggle to finish tasks, I live life in the clouds and absolutely hate to be down in the weeds with the detail. You see I know myself really well. I have spent a lifetime dealing with my demons and looking right into the good, bad and ugly of my innermost being. I am not afraid to face myself in all my glory and point at the flaws… and the positives.

However, over the years I have met more people than I can count who do not know themselves and struggle with people who know themselves. These people struggle to understand why you will stand your ground when they see a way to cut corners. They struggle to see why you insist on going the extra mile when they want a quick fix. Most of all they struggle when people point out that they are not up to scratch.

When I begin my lectures with new youth work students I ask them for 100%. I tell them they must know themselves and know their content to the highest standard. I tell them that if they do not want to do this they can leave my sector now. I do not want people who play a half assed game doing a number on the vulnerable young people I care about. As you could imagine this gets under the skin of a number of my students.

I believe that youth work is an amazing profession. I believe that most of our colleagues are there for the best and to be the best. I believe we make a difference. But all of this is due to a focus on becoming better than we are right now and a clear understanding that only the best will do. These are the youth workers I want in my sector. These are the youth workers I expect in the sector. If you don’t meet the standard (and your not trying to become better) I will tell you… and I expect that if I was missing the mark you would tell me.

Don’t be precious about where you are at. Remember no one person is the Ultimate Youth Worker it is a journey. We all have more to learn and more to become. When someone says that something won’t work and that the way you are doing it ain’t up to scratch cop it on the chin and fix it. Personalities and behaviour types should be the last thing that comes into the equation not the first. In the end get used to people saying you are a trouble maker. Standing up for your principles makes people who are not there yet uneasy.

What do you think??? Leave us a comment below.

Aaron Garth

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Ultimate youth workers will always try one more time.

Posted on February 3, 2014May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Thomas A. Edison
It is a fact in the daily work of a youth worker that there is disappointments and setbacks. We are regularly lied to, see the worst in people and we get limited if any support to do it. It is in these times that it is really easy to give up. To focus on the negatives. To move on to the next young person.

The hard thing is to push on through. To try, try, try again. It is in the hard times when we show our young people that no matter what is going on we will stand by them that we often see the greatest successes.

Remember when all seems lost try just one more time.

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Aaron Garth

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A small group of thoughtful, concerned youth workers changing the world.

Posted on June 24, 2013May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

A little over twelve months ago I was part of a small group of youth workers at their wits end with how the youth sector was progressing. We were concerned about the current curriculum for youth workers. We were concerned about the lack of good ongoing professional development for the sector. We were really concerned that there was a lack of mentors and solid professional supervision in youth work organisations. In short we were worried that youth work was becoming a lazy profession.

We discussed these issues many times and eventually we challenged each other to do something about it. most of us on that fateful night decided to stop whinging and to do something about the issues we saw. Some of us became youth work teachers in university, TAFE and private registered training organisations. Some of us began internal change in our own organisations. Some of us embarked on the development of the Ultimate Youth Worker organisation.

As I have embarked on the journey that has been the Ultimate Youth Worker I have found that there are a number of thoughtful, concerned youth workers changing the world. We are all coming at the issues in the youth sector from slightly different perspectives and using different ways of communicating but we all want to see youth work become more professional, more caring of our young people and more supportive of staff.

There are a number of canny outlaws in the youth work sector at the moment who we have been supported by and who we have great respect for. We have been phenomenally supported by Shae and Stephen Pepper of www.youthworkinit.com in the USA, they have promoted our blog and allowed us the honour of posting on theirs. But in their own right they promote best practice through knowledge sharing and support the sector through resource development. We have also been supported by an awesome youth minister from South Africa in Neels Redelinghuys. Neels runs a youth ministry in Bloemfontein, South Africa and a great blog and twitter account and has promoted pretty much everything we have said for the last six months (we wonder if he isn’t angling for a job).

These are just a small group of thoughtful, concerned youth workers changing the world, and as once was said:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead

Aaron Garth

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What is youth work without innovation and risk?

Posted on June 17, 2013May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

As a youth worker in the current neo-liberal regime we are told to play it safe, cover your arse and don’t do anything that could get you in trouble. We are living in a world of risk aversion! We see our young people as always at risk. We are at risk of losing our job. Our organisation is at risk of losing funding. There are risks everywhere and it is our job to minimise these risks.

When I began as a youth worker camps and daytrips were a staple of almost every youth service. A bit of a wrestle at a Friday night youth group wasn’t unheard of. Leaving a male youth worker alone with a group of young people was seen as ok. I remember going on a snow camp where the campsite we were staying at unexpectedly ended up with a mud pit after a torrential downpour. That mud pit ended up as our very own wrestling ring and young people and leaders alike wrestled to their hearts content and washed it off with a dip in the local dam.

In our current risk averse way of doing things we are at-risk of doing nothing to support our young people lest we end up getting in trouble. Its a vicious cycle. Youth work was innovative and ahead of the curve. Today it seems sterile and unimpressive. Aside from a few canny outlaws the whole service sector is becoming bland.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

– Mark Twain

Youth workers are innovators! We improvise, adapt and overcome. We have big ideas and some of them require risk. Calculated risks can bring great rewards. I don’t want any youth worker I work with to get twenty years into their career only to look back and believe they haven’t achieved. I want explorers. I want dreamers and I want discoveries. We are in one of the most exciting times known to the human race and if our work is bland we have no one but ourselves to blame. Make your work exciting!

Aaron Garth

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Why do youth worker’s struggle to work together???

Posted on May 22, 2013May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Over the last few months we have been working with a number of organisations to help them develop in one way or another. For some it is providing supervision, for others it is developing policies and procedures and others it is a top down organisational overhaul. In almost all of these organisations we have noticed that youth workers are really good at throwing each other under the bus! We are even better than our clients!

The amount of cat fights and general mistrust that we have witnessed is truly astonishing. Colleagues who would turn against each other over trivial issues and games of oneupmanship that would put most two year olds to shame. I must say it made me sick to think that I belonged to such a profession. It has led me to ask the question “Why do youth worker’s struggle to work together???“

Here are my current thoughts:

Youth work has become a competitive industry and this permeates through to staff.
Vicarious trauma which is not dealt with properly has to come out eventually, usually in burnout.
When people work in close proximity in tough situations it can lead to some personality clashes.
Managers provide minimal accountability and do not squash issues within the team quickly enough.
Some people are just not cut out for youth work!!!

What do you think??? Leave us a comment below or post a comment on facebook and twitter.

Aaron Garth

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What gets youth worker’s through stressful times???

Posted on May 20, 2013May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

In our work the staff at Ultimate Youth Worker meet with a number of downtrodden, stressed out youth workers who are just trying to keep it together. Why these fine examples of the social services sector have begun to erode is anyone’s guess. Overworked, under payed, vicarious trauma, limiting government policies and organisations that don’t care are all excuses we hear for burnout and workplace stress. But you know what we all face that, so why do so many fade away???

Youth work isn’t always fun!

The one thing that we see over and again that separates those who can push through stress and those who get squashed under the pressure is purpose. When the youth worker’s who are close to the edge are asked why they got into youth work it invariably is for a nothing reason. “I wanted to become a teacher and I though this would help“. “I just felt like these kids need help“. “People just need to give something back“. The worst offenders are those with altruistic motives.

“A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose – a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.”- John Maxwell

Unless you have the courage of your convictions youth work will chew you up and spit you out. Youth work is a purpose that you need conviction to follow. A reason to wake up in the morning. A cause to pursue. A goal to achieve. Youth work is more than a stepping stone to your next career. Youth work is not something you do to warm the cockles of your heart. Youth work is a profession that needs professionals with the right reason for being there… A real purpose.

What gets you out of bed in the morning???? Is your purpose to support young people to become the best they can possibly be? Or perhaps you are in it for the inordinately large pay check! If your own values and purpose aren’t clear then you are on a fast track to burnout.

Aaron Garth

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Sucess for the Ultimate Youth Worker

Posted on May 13, 2013May 26, 2020 by Aaron Garth

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. – Sir Winston Churchill

Starting a new business comes with many risks and hopefully a number of rewards. Over the past twelve months we have definitely felt this at Ultimate Youth Worker. All of our staff got on board because we saw the need for more support in the youth sector. We have helped dozens of youth workers and their organisations to develop a more supportive environment in this time. But it was not all success!

We failed more times than we care to admit. We lost clients because of a lack of frameworks. We spent more time learning about business management than doing our business. We left, lost or were encouraged to leave well paying jobs to get Ultimate Youth Worker off the ground. Our first six months we made a total profit of $80. But we were always enthusiastic.

So often we work with young people who have failed more times than they can even remember. They are downtrodden and feel about two feet tall and one more failure might just tip them over the edge. Our job as youth workers is keep them enthused. In their enthusiasm their wildest success will finally come.