Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

An Interview With Shae Pepper – A Prevention Training Specialist

By Leave a Comment

Shae Pepper - Prevention ServicesTo kick off our series on different types of youth work, we have an interview with a Prevention Services youth worker – me!

1. What type of youth work do you do?

I have a full-time position as a substance abuse and mental health Prevention Training Specialist with the local government.

2. What do you do in an average week?

I work in small group and large group settings, delivering evidence-based social and emotional education programs that have a focus on preventing access to, use and misuse of medications, illicit substances, gateway drugs and other potentially illegal and harmful substances.

I also support and chair a local coalition of community and agency partners that focus on helping the youth in our city to stay away from drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

3. How long have you been doing prevention services?

Officially, I have been doing this specific role for seven months, although I’ve been doing what would be considered prevention services and social inclusion services for over eight years.

4. What other types of youth work have you done previously?

School-inclusion programs, youth participation programs, social-inclusion/social-enterprise programs, faith-based youth ministry, youth re-entry program design, Girl Scout troop leadership and project-based education programs.

5. What age range do you work with?

I work with children and youth who are between the ages of 4 and 17., although my preference is 11-14’s.

6. What’s unique about your particular type of youth work?

We focus solely on helping prevent the use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco although recently it has begun to include bullying, suicide and obesity prevention.

7. What are some of the good things about prevention services?

Using evidence-based curriculum that is pre-designed and packaged with all its supplies, meaning it’s much easier to do many groups with less preparation time.

8. What are some of the challenges of it?

It’s hard to prove something that never exists. Theoretically, yearly lower drug use numbers among young people proves that prevention works, but with many factors – both protective and risk – it’s hard to prove a direct link to funders and potential partners.

It can also be challenging filling up a work day from 9-5 if you are unable to deliver programs in the schools, because it restricts the amount of face-to-face youth work you can do.

9. Why are you passionate about this type of youth work?

I’ll be honest, this isn’t the work I’m most passionate about, but I’ve found things I appreciate about this type of work. It starts from a positive position and helps with social and emotional skills such as goal setting and decision making, not just ‘don’t do drugs.’

10. What would you recommend for someone wanting to get into this type of youth work?

It’s great if you enjoy working with children and youth. A lot of the young people I work with are in elementary and middle school, so we can help them avoid drugs altogether before they reach the temptations of high school.

Talk to your local Community Service Board or Behavioral Healthcare Service in your city or county if you live in the US, as that is where the prevention department is often based from.

11. Is there any special training or qualifications required?

You can be a Prevention Training Specialist without any special training or qualifications, although your employer may want you to pursue a Certified Prevention Specialist qualification. In my state, this requires 100 hours of prevention-related training and 2000 hours of prevention services delivered to qualify.

12. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Prevention work can be really rewarding, especially when what you’ve taught is remembered by the children and youth. It’s worth noting that the face of prevention is starting to change, with more focus on environmental strategies rather than programs and events.

This is because they’re more cost effective and provide ongoing ‘sticks and carrots’ for people to help them avoid substance use/abuse, such as non-smoking areas in public places and work places or a push for tighter underage drinking laws in a locality.

Shae Pepper has been a Professional Youth Worker for seven years and a Volunteer Youth Worker for eight years. She has a Master’s in Youth Work and Community Development from DeMontfort University in Leicester, England. Shae has provided training for youth workers in England, the USA and Rwanda and has worked with young people aged 8-21 in England, Rwanda, the USA and Thailand.

Please feel free to use the comments below if you have any questions about Prevention Services. If you’re also a youth worker in Prevention Services, we’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments too.

If you’re a youth worker and would like to take part in this series, please contact us.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

 

Expect The Unexpected – And The Embarrassing

By 2 Comments

I was sat in the bar at the hotel, watching myself on TV. And then it happened.

They left it in?! It wasn’t edited out????

A couple of months before, I’d been a contestant on The Weakest Link. They filmed two or three episodes a day, with them being broadcast a few months later.

I was away on business the day my episode was shown, so I was sat with a colleague in the hotel bar watching expectantly. In case you’re not familiar with the show, the presenter Anne Robinson gives every contestant a hard time, trying to push their buttons to either make them embarrassed or mad.

I went in prepared – or so I thought. Shae and I met on the P.O.D. message boards back in 2003, so I was expecting Anne to grill me about meeting my wife online, as it was before sites like Match.com had taken off. I was all prepared for questions like, “So, did she turn out to be a bow-legged, cross-eyed, sweaty 500 lb man instead of the 23 year old beauty in the photos?” I should be so lucky to get a question like that.

What did she ask me – and what actually got broadcast at 6pm on BBC2 to millions of people in the UK?

“How would you rate the first time with your wife out of 10?”

Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that either!

When working with youth, we have to expect the unexpected – and the embarrassing. Youth – like Anne Robinson – have an uncanny ability to ask questions that can leave you flustered if you’ve not given any thought on how to answer them.

OK, so if they ask you to rate your first time with your husband or wife, it’s obviously fine to explain that it’s not appropriate to discuss that kind of thing with them – it’s important for youth workers to have boundaries. Other questions aren’t so easy to deflect though:

  • Have you ever smoked?
  • Have you ever got drunk?
  • Have you ever done drugs?
  • Did you have sex before marriage?
  • Have you ever watched porn?
  • Have you ever stolen anything?
  • Have you ever been in a fight?

These are all questions that could easily crop up, so it’s important to consider now how you’d answer them. Young people aren’t dumb – if they ask you a question like these and you reply “Erm…..er…….did you see X Factor last night?”, they’ll know the answer is yes.

Be honest

Youth are more likely to respect what you have to say if you’re real and honest with them. If they ask whether you’ve done drugs and you have, tell them so. You don’t have to glamorize it – the fact that you’ve had this experience can help you guide them away from taking drugs. As you’ve had first-hand experience of taking drugs, you can explain the negative effects with far more authority than others would be able to.

Make it personal

It might feel uncomfortable, but make your experiences personal. Instead of just saying that you stole from your parents, explain the impact and what natural and logical consequences this had – how it took ages to gain back their trust, the punishment you received.

Young people – and adults – often do things without thinking through the consequences. Having these spelled out can help crystallize the reality of what their actions may lead to.

Don’t judge

If a young person asks you a tricky question like those listed above, I can almost guarantee they’ve either done it themselves or are seriously thinking about doing it – that’s why they’re asking. If your answers to the above questions are no, try not to appear judgmental when answering their question.

If they want to know if you had sex before marriage and you reply, “Of course not”, chances are the young person will clam up. You don’t necessarily know what they’ve been through – what happens if they’d been sexually abused and they’d been about to open up about it? Your answer would probably mean they wouldn’t feel safe disclosing the abuse to you, in case you judged them.

So make like a Scout and Be Prepared! Think back through your past to anything that would make you flustered if asked. Work out an honest answer to give if youth ever ask about the situation and how you can use your experience to guide them into making positive choices.

Question: Have you ever had an embarrassing situation like this? How did you deal with it? Let us know in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

p.s. I’m sure you’re wondering what my reply was to Anne Robinson. I think it was something along the lines of “Um…..er……du……em…….I…..um……..y……..well…….erm…..th………”