Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

4 Ways To Preserve Youth Work Memories

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Youth work memories
Don’t forget all these special times

I was sitting at my desk wondering what to write about this week.

As I looked around I saw all the notes, pictures and memories from just one year of youth work on my office walls. I have over 20 drawings, notes, fan mail papers and photos and I began to wonder what I’d do with them all at the end of the summer when I’ll need new space for the next year’s youth work memories.

This may seem like a crazy post. Maybe you’re not as sentimental as me. Maybe your youth don’t write you notes, draw you pictures or make Doritos bags into butterflies. But mine do. And I’m sure that some of you have a file, folder or box(es) full of youth work memories from your years in the profession.

For those of you that do save your youth work memories, here are four options for you:

Create scrapbooks and / or photo albums

Using paper, photo-safe glue and some other crafty bits (like beads, string and shapes), you can create a really nice scrapbook (or you can go to the scrapbook store and spend a lot of $$).

Otherwise, you can take photos of the items and create a photo album alongside other photos you took from the group’s activities.

Create a photo book

You can use an online store to upload your years of digital photos from youth work and create a book of memories from your groups. Maybe you were with one group for a long time or are moving agencies and you want to remember a lot of great years with the youth in your care.

If you have printed photos from the land that time forgot – or shall we say the land and time of the 35mm film – you can get them scanned. That way you have digital copies that can be uploaded for photo books as well.

Create a book of artwork

There are a lot of great online companies offering a service to have your artwork turned into books. This does have a cost associated with it, but you might find it worth it for youth work memories you just can’t part with.

Create other items with artwork, poems and much more

You can create magnets, calendars, postcards and greeting cards with the artwork from your youth work years.

Questions: Do you save your youth work memories? How do you preserve them? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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What Do You Mean You’re Not My Friend?!

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Youth work boundaries
Image courtesy of ank0ku, Flickr

I had the opportunity yesterday to crush the hearts of a group of ten year olds. As awkward as it was, it had to be done.

It went like this:

Me: In your relationships with each other (to a group of boys who were having some ‘relational issues’)…

Boys: *Giggle*

Me: Not like a boyfriend/boyfriend relationship – all people are in relationships whether they are friendships, love or family. For example, you and I are in a relationship.

Youth: Yeah, you’re our friend. Why can’t you just call it a ‘friendship’ – relationship sounds so weird.

Me: No. I’m not your friend.

Youth:  o_O  *insert cricket sounds here*

Me: I am friendly towards you, that’s not the same. We are in a professional relationship. I am your youth worker. I am friendly towards you like a friend, I teach you like a teacher, I might offer advice like a parent, I might offer advice like a counselor. And we can talk and trust each other with things. But we are not friends. I have my friends, who are nearer my age – who I tell things to that I don’t tell you. And you have friends who are your age – who you tell things to that you don’t tell me… am I right?

Youth: *Grumbles/Giggles* and variations on ‘well, yeah, I guess so….’

Youth Worker vs Friend

Do your youth know you’re not their friend?

If not, why? Do you see yourself as their friend… are they yours?

If you aren’t 100% sure about the answers to those questions consider this one: How do you define youth work?

Through my training and experience I believe youth work to be an important relationship in the life of a youth. But it is a blend. And it’s all about getting that blend right.

You need to be friendly without being their friend. You can call them up for a chat on how their week is going (consider phone boundaries and social media boundaries though), but it shouldn’t be reciprocal. They shouldn’t know all about how your week is going by the end. They don’t need to know all your ups and downs. Do I share when I’m tired or have a lot going on? Yes. Do I go into all the sordid gory details? No.

Youth Worker vs Teacher

You need to teach without being a formal teacher. You have so much wisdom to impart. That’s one of the reasons you’re in this role. Whether it’s about matters of faith, life, parents, love, sex, feelings or just how to use the post office, you have life skills and information that needs to be taught.

That doesn’t mean that you need to operate like a teacher. Sit down. Be quiet. Raise your hand. Sit up straight. Hood off. I know what’s right and I’m here to make sure you leave with it memorized.

Youth worker relationships are less formal. You can have a dialogue; in fact, I encourage it. Help your youth develop the skills they need to think for themselves. Don’t just teach at them, engage with them. Be honest about your own questions, struggles and issues (within reason) and help youth muddle through the sticky and complicated journey we call life.

Youth Worker vs Parent

You need to advise without being a parent. You are not their parents. They have those (usually). You don’t need to toe the party line with their parents if there’s something you disagree with, but you should encourage them to voice their disagreements respectfully.

Help them learn how to engage with adults in reasoned conversation (see point #2) and how to figure out their own views. Whether you’re coming from a faith perspective or not, it behooves them to act honorably and respectfully with their parents, even through disagreements.

You also don’t need to nag them like a parent sometimes can. And keep their trust. Unless there are clear expectations laid out that you will share things with their parents, you are not a spouse to their parent. You don’t need to share their personal issues just because mom or dad ask. Encourage parents and youth to talk to each other and offer to help with mediation. But remember your role.

Youth Worker vs Therapist

You need to listen without being a therapist. You are a mentor in their life – a role model. They’re going to ask your advice from time to time (or every time they see you because, lets face it, they trust you and you’re probably cool), but you need to know when to give advice and when to help them get further help.

Unless you’re a trained counselor, don’t go beyond your training, expertise or scope. Some issues need further help and support – especially in areas of abuse. It’s great that youth feel safe enough to disclose to you, but make sure you’re ready to hand that part of their care on to another professional, while still being there for them in all the other ways that you always have been.

Youth work is a great profession which can often have a complex professional relationship between worker and youth. Know who you are. Know what you do. Know why you do it. And make sure those expectations and boundaries are clear to your youth.

Question: How do you define youth work? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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How I Dealt With Youth Behavior Issues

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Youth Behavior Issues
Success! Here’s the solution to the problem we had last week

Last week I posed my own question that I needed an answer to:

Q: What do you do when you feel like you’ve tried everything with a group but the youth still have behavior issues? What suggestions do you have for my specific situation?

Thank you to everyone who offered advice and suggestions. They were all useful and valid suggestions and I appreciate you taking the time to interact and join in the discussion. I’d like to share the suggestions so that other youth workers in a similar situation can get more ideas from other experienced youth workers on the topic – because I know I’m not the only one with this problem sometimes.

Suggestion 1

A guest commenter who’s the wife of a youth pastor, a volunteer youth worker at her church and a social worker by education and experience suggested spending time with the leader of the group, maybe through tutoring or mentoring. The relational capital that’s developed through that one-to-one time can be key in the youth later being a leader and resulting in positive behaviors instead of negative ones.

Suggestion 2

Another suggestion came from a Twitter Follower who’s a writer, missionary and teacher with a passion for youth work overseas. He suggested that the group may need more ownership, something that we feel really strongly about here at Youth Workin’ It, but can also sometimes be challenging depending on the climate you’re working in. We agree with the commenter and it’s our assertion that as much ownership as you can provide to the youth should be given and it will inevitably improve youth behavior.

Suggestion 3

A few final suggestions came from Sam (The Teenage Whisperer), a youth justice worker whose work we love and respect immensely. She also regularly makes our youth work blog posts of the week list because she has a lot of great suggestions for working with youth. (Check out her site and subscribe to her blog – seriously, she’s great!)

Sam really emphasized the importance of individual work like our first commenter to help set the tone and work through possible emotional issues in a private setting. She also advised to be careful when trying so many approaches simply because you need something to work. It can cause youth, particularly vulnerable / at-risk youth to feel uncomfortable and / or unsafe emotionally.

Update

These were all excellent suggestions which is why I’ve included them here, so I don’t want any misunderstanding that I don’t think all of these ideas were fantastic simply because I didn’t use them, or have feedback regarding their use with this particular group.

It’s always so hard when you’re trying to describe what’s happening in a group, and I’ll be honest, I usually like to work things out on my own. I’m definitely very independent when it comes to my youth work practice and even offering it out for advice was a huge step in my professional development.

I’ve suggested individual work and meetings with the school since the beginning of our professional relationship, but unfortunately it’s just not possible at this time. There are definitely some home issues, race issues, ethnicity issues, authority issues and much more that I can see in the group and I’d love more time to work with the youth individually.

I would also love to give the youth more ownership and already give them as much as is possible within the group. However, the evidence-based curriculum I’m tasked with working through, as well as the school environment, are not conducive to the kind of youth participation I’d ideally like to see happening. I will say as well that the curriculum we’re using is great – I’ve suggested some of the approaches to other youth workers and it was very successful.

Finally, I definitely agree with the point about changing tactics. While I do try a lot of different things, I don’t believe that it has been unnerving to the group, but I will definitely keep monitoring it in case it is having a bigger impact than expected.

So… what did I do? My initial instinct with every group is team building, but because of the tight schedule and the curriculum, I didn’t do any on the first day as I usually do. Therefore I thought, it’s definitely time for some team building activities – particularly ones that cause them to work towards a common goal like the mat turn, barnyard animals and sharks in custard.

Challenge

Here’s the challenge with that – they’re mean to each other all the time. Even in P.E. when they’re on the same team, they hate on each other. How could I introduce an activity that was 100% guaranteed to cause strife, anger, tears, comments, bullying, etc.?

I’ve been working this whole time on trying to get them to self-regulate, self- problem solve and self-reflect. So what could I try that would help them self regulate AND mean that we could have some positive success at team building games?

The Answer!

The answer is the humble clothes pin.

I gave each young person three clothes pins – I also gave myself three. We pinned them on ourselves where ever we wanted. I explained that we would be playing some team building games and that in order to play, they had to keep at least one clothes pin. If they lost all of their clothes pins, they would have to sit out for the remainder of the session to do work.

The ways they could lose their clothes pins included verbal or non verbal communication that was blaming, threatening, name calling or exaggerating (the road blocks to bridge building that they’ve been learning about in the sessions.)

There was also a way to earn a clothes pin back through extraordinary examples of kindness and team work.

I was very strict. At first, several students lost a clothes pin. Even the youth who don’t ‘normally’ get in trouble (yeah, we had to avoid a few tears with those ones) lost a clothes pin or two. One youth who really struggles with his behavior, and more specifically his facial expressions, lost two of his three clothes pins in the first 10 minutes…

However… they all started to self-regulate their comments and provide positive encouragement. I praised and praised even the smallest examples of team work and patience.

They were all able to participate the whole time (which worked out well since the mat turn took 40 minutes!). They were rewarded with a communication and team building game that involves candy.

Result

Everyone had a great time – including me! We reflected as a group at the end and everyone agreed that the session was a huge success. I was careful to draw the connection between their improved communication and relationships, rather than just that it was a ‘fun game day.’

Several youth commented on how much they enjoyed having the clothes pins to help remind them about their actions and words. One even suggested that we cut back on the clothes pins next week down to two and then the final week to one so that everyone had to work harder and the entire group agreed! I will be providing extra clothes pins to those that will still need them though – everyone isn’t at the same place or learns at the same pace as we know.

As I was leaving, I encouraged them to keep using their strategies for solving conflicts and to pretend they still had their clothes pins on; to think through what they want to say and then think about whether or not Ms. Shae would take a clothes pin for such a comment.

I’ll see the group this week and am hoping that it’s been a positive week as they begin to learn how to work together as a team. Thanks again for your advice!

Question: Do you have any youth work questions or problems that you need answers or advice for? Let us know in the comments below or contact us here.

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It’s Not Me, It’s You – Tips For Successful Youth Work Partnerships

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Youth work partnershipsApparently it’s time for my annual partnership post… I wrote about coalition partnerships in 2011 and about partnerships in youth ministry in 2012.

Forming partnerships are an important and essential part of any youth work. There are going to be things you can’t or won’t do for your youth. There are services you can’t provide, venues you can’t afford and opportunities you will miss.

You need others in your area, and they need you. If nothing else, most funders are looking for local partnerships now as part of their expectation for grants. (Come on, at the very least you’ll probably want to keep your money! Right?!)

Who’s Number 1?

But here’s the thing… real partnerships aren’t built on just looking out for #1.

They’re built through mutual communication and support; it can’t just be a one-sided endeavor. There’s nothing worse than a partnership where one person or organization feels like they’re doing all the work.

Tips

Here are four tips on how to make sure you’re not the ‘bad’ partner in a working relationship:

  • Meetings – Set partner meetings, attend them, be on time and come prepared. Here are some tips for a productive meeting.
  • Communicate – Keep the lines of communication open through emails, phone calls and regular meetings. The meeting shouldn’t always be about what you need the other person to do for you, but how you can support them as well.
  • Timing – Be timely in your requests. Any good partner is willing to step in when you’re in a pinch, but make it the exception and not the rule.
  • Share – Spread the love or, at the very least, the ideas, grant opportunities and training you know about and great venues / activities that other youth workers might want to join.

Steps

Maybe you’re reading the previous posts and this one and realizing you don’t have any partnerships in your local area. If that’s the case, here are five steps to starting a partnership:

  • Research – Research local organizations and / or coalitions doing similar work to yours or work that you think might be complimentary. Start with your local social services, Rotary Club, civic leagues, youth pastors or YMCAs.
  • Contact – Pick up the phone and set up meetings to find out more about the services being offered – people are usually really excited to talk about their own work. Remember: you’re on a fact finding mission, so just listen – you’ll get a chance to share what you do as well.
  • Offer – Prepare for partner working by making sure you have a bit of time and, if possible, money to put into partnerships. It doesn’t have to be a lot – even going to the dollar store and buying thank you cards to send after an event to partners is a great way to put some energy into other local organizations and will be greatly appreciated. Or maybe bring the snacks to the partner meeting twice a year.
  • Network – I know it’s not everyone’s favorite thing, but getting your name out there – especially as a good partner – is a great way to attract other good partners. If this is something you’re really uncomfortable with, maybe get a volunteer, young person or board member to do it.
  • Don’t be a doormat – You don’t have to set up a partnership with everyone. When you get a reputation as a good partner, you’ll get people coming to you who are only looking out for #1. You’ll know them because they’ll do the opposite of all the tips above. Be kind and professional, but know when you’re doing all the work in a partnership and be ready to say ‘no’ sometimes. You want your youth work to have a solid reputation, so don’t partner with those who have a dodgy rep.

Question: What are you looking for in youth work partnerships? How do you know if you’re in a good partnership or not? Why are partnerships important to you? Let us know in the comments below.

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The Danger Of “Clear” Biblical Absolutes And Principles

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Clear Biblical Absolutes Principles
Is everything the Bible says black and white, or are there shades of gray?

The last couple of days, I was involved in a discussion on Facebook that got on to the subject of Biblical absolutes and principles.

A couple of people said that there are clear stances that the Bible takes on issues that are eternal and unchanging, which is the reason they vote and campaign the way that they do.

That the best way to deal with these unbiblical things is to make them illegal. That these things are non-negotiable and that as a Christian, there should be no other way of approaching this subject matter.

That Used To Be Me

I understand this. I like having clear answers. In years past, I was an absolutist – I knew what the Bible said and it was obvious what was right and what was wrong.

As time’s gone on though, I’m becoming less sure about all these “clear” Biblical absolutes and principles. Ironically, the Bible’s the reason for this.

Huh?

Look back at when Jesus came to Earth. Everyone was absolutely sure what was involved when it came to following the law. In fact, there were Teachers of the Law who were experts in this – people who clearly knew what scripture said and how God wanted everyone to act.

Except Jesus showed them how wrong their understanding was. That those absolutes are actually a bit more nuanced. That there are other things to consider rather than just the strict letter of the law. This then continued as the early church spread after the Resurrection.

There were many things that everyone knew to be absolutes, but which turned out to be not quite so absolute after all:

  • Circumcision was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Not working on the Sabbath was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Not eating pork or shellfish was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Not eating rare steak was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Women wearing head coverings was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Not associating with Gentiles was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Not touching lepers was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • Stoning a woman to death who was caught having an affair was an absolute…until it wasn’t
  • An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was an absolute…until it wasn’t

The Most Important Principles

Ultimately, Jesus said the most important principles are to love God and to love others – everything else needs to be seen in that light.

The religious people of His day were convinced they had everything right, except they didn’t. I’ve not seen anything in my 32 years to think that we’ve solved the problem of knowing with absolute certainty what’s right and what’s not.

The Danger

Something else that’s interesting to note is how nearly all the “clear” Biblical absolutes and principles relate to what God’s against, rather than what He’s for. The Gospel’s meant to be Good News, yet we often make it Bad News.

This can prove to be a danger in youth ministry. As Ben Kerns has been pointing out on his blog recently, youth today have no time for the absolutes that are currently being preached. It’s not Good News to them and goes against their experiences and beliefs.

I’m not saying we should just teach that everything’s OK and anything goes. But how about we approach Biblical absolutes from a positive stance and the good that we can do, rather than simply the avoidance of all the actions and behaviors that the current Christian culture frowns upon.

Positive Opportunities

So why not explore some of these positive absolutes and principles that will engage and connect with your young people – topics that will lead to interesting and profound discussions and provide an opportunity for genuine positive change in the lives of your youth:

  • We should allow foreigners to live in our land without oppressing them. Not only that, but we should also help provide food for them – even food that we’ve worked hard to grow ourselves. What does this say about our immigration laws? (Exodus 23:9 / Leviticus 23:22)
  • Jesus said that if we’re physically attacked, we shouldn’t retaliate. How can this influence our behavior at school? What does this say about how we should react when there’s a terrorist attack? (Matthew 5:39)
  • God created man to be vegetarian, so even though meat is allowed, we shouldn’t eat it. (Genesis 1:29) (n.b. I’m not vegetarian myself – I’m just making the point that this was how God intended humans to live.)
  • We should take care of the poor. What are some ways we can do this? How does this affect the way that we look at people on welfare? (Matthew 25: 34-36 and too many more to list here!)
  • Given that Jesus and the disciples healed people for no charge, what does this say about healthcare availability? Given that we’re commanded to take care of the poor, what does this mean for them having access to healthcare (and not just emergency treatment)? (Mark 5: 26-34, Acts 5: 15-16 and many more)
  • God put man in charge of looking after the world, so we need to take care of the environment. How does this affect whether we recycle, the fuel efficiency of our cars, leaving the TV on if we’re not watching it, etc. (Genesis 1: 26-30, Genesis 2:15, Proverbs 12:10)

Tricky Questions

Biblical absolutes also raise some tricky questions:

  • Abraham, David, Gideon, Solomon and many more men in the Bible had sex with concubines – i.e. women who weren’t their wives. This was regarded as a normal and positive thing. Does that mean it’s not sinful to do that?
  • Similarly, polygamy was an accepted practice in the Bible. Does that mean it’s not sinful?
  • Jesus said it’s pretty much impossible for rich people to enter the kingdom of heaven. Does this mean that a billionaire who keeps his money isn’t going to get into heaven, even if he confesses Jesus as Lord and Savior?

Now, I’d just like to point out that I’m not saying it’s fine to sleep with hundreds of women if you’re married (I don’t think Shae would like that one!). Nor am I saying that I think men should be able to have many wives. And I’m also not saying that there’s no way a billionaire can be a Christian.

My point is that it could be argued that the three statements above are Biblical absolutes, but I’m sure most of us are uneasy about believing that’s the case.

We therefore need to be careful about what we label as “clear” Biblical teaching, as experience has shown that it’s not always so black and white.

Question: What do you think? Is the Bible always 100% clear about what’s right and wrong, or is there more nuance in so-called absolutes? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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