Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

I’ve Seen The Future – And It’s Wearing Boxers

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The future of university educationUniversity is changing

In the old days, you’d go to university for 3 or 4 years. You’d live on ramen noodles (or Pot Noodles if you were at a British uni). You’d take all your washing home every few months for your Mom to take care of. And you’d come out the other side with a lot of debt and hopefully a degree to show for it. You’d then get a job that in many cases is only vaguely related to the subject you earned your degree in.

Times are changing.

University is changing.

Jobs are changing.

The business of university is worth billions. Tuition fees. Funding for research. Textbooks. And where there’s a lot of money at stake, you can guarantee that people will innovate to get a slice of it.

And innovate they are. The Minerva Project is looking to offer an Ivy League education – online. At the moment, online education often has a reputation for providing Mickey Mouse degrees. If two people applied for a job and they both had the same degree – one from Harvard and one from ITT Tech, who would get picked? The Minerva Project is looking to shake that up and become an enviable source of learning.

With the advent of ebooks, the market for college textbooks looks like it’s going to get shaken up as well. Apple’s getting in on the act. No doubt Amazon will with the Kindle, along with many other companies.

It’s not always about the money though. Stanford are running some of their courses online for free. Codecademy is teaching anyone who wants to learn how to code for free. And Khan Academy has thousands of free videos teaching you anything from CA Algebra 1: Slope and Y-Intercept to multiplying binomials with radicals. And going back to textbooks, Boundless Learning is looking to provide free textbook replacements.

So what does this mean for our young people and their education in the future?

A lot of learning will move online. When you can get an excellent education from the comfort of your own home (and sitting in your boxers), why move to go to a university?

Consider how much money would be saved. Students (or their parents) wouldn’t have to pay for separate accommodation. For separate utilities. For such expensive textbooks. Over the course of 3-4 years, this amounts to a huge saving. Even if online courses charged expensive tuition fees, this could still easily be lower than the overall cost of university education as it stands.

The job market is changing as well. More and more jobs can be conducted remotely – I’m speaking from first hand experience. In the last two years, we’ve moved 5 times in the US and Thailand – all the while, I’ve worked for an insurance company that’s based in the UK.

The requirements for getting a job are starting to change as well. Although a good education is a pre-requisite for many jobs, experience is becoming a bigger part of a recruiter’s mindset. It’s all very well knowing something, but can you do it? There are start-ups that are going into larger companies and setting up testing scenarios for job applicants to show that they can actually do the job they’re being recruited for.

But is all this change a good thing?

Absolutely. Why? Because it’s opening up so many more opportunities for youth where there weren’t any before. Youth unemployment is a big problem all around the world, so we need innovative thinking to help solve the issue. There are many young people who can’t afford to go to university – the possibilities that online education opens up could transform their lives.

There will be many other young people that have natural ability and incredible technical skills learned from initiatives like Codecademy. In the past, they wouldn’t have been able to get their foot in the door at a company unless they had a piece of paper saying what they know. With more companies looking for the ability of job applicants though, rather than just a piece of paper, they stand more of a chance.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s still a future for traditional universities. Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, etc will continue to have a certain cachet. Many students will still want to attend a university for the experience (*cough* partying *cough*). And there will be many who are dubious about anything learned on the internet.

But, I’ve seen the future of higher education……..and it’s wearing boxers.

Question: What future do you see for the education of our young people? Have a discussion in the comments below.

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Previous Experience Required… But Not Desired

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Youth work experience
Acting like you work here doesn’t go over well in most youth work settings

We’ve all seen it on a job description: ‘Those with Previous Youth Work Experience Preferred’ or ‘Previous Experience with Youth Required.’

Experience is becoming much more valuable to youth work employers, even for faith-based youth workers. Unless you’re planning to start at the bottom – with volunteering, an internship, part-time position or an entry level position without very good pay – you’ll need some kind of previous youth work experience.

But is all previous experience good? Is every type of youth work the same as every other? Is ‘working with youth’ all that’s really required while the rest is teachable? My answer to all three is ‘No’ and here is why:

No, I don’t think that all previous experience is good

As a reflective practitioner, you’ll want to reflect and determine if your experience was good for the youth and best for your professional development. There are a lot of youth programs out there, including faith-based, that:

  • Hire poor, inexperienced and/or unqualified staff
  • Don’t have important procedures in place
  • Have unsupportive management
  • Have poor youth to adult ratios
  • Don’t have child protection policies
  • Don’t do background checks
  • And much more

The reasons for this are varied and too much to cover right now, but they can range from cost-cutting measures to lack of organizational structure.

If your experience included any of the issues above or others, take the time to identify what changes you would make in your own practice going forward, finding out best practice in those areas and unlearning bad habits. 

No, I don’t think every type of youth work is not the same as every other.

Taking 5 minutes one day, I identified over 45 different types of youth work that I know about or have worked with; that’s not even taking into account hybrid programs that merge two or more types of youth work together.

These could include programs that focus on ‘Sexual Health of Youth,’ ‘Homeless Youth’ and ‘Sexual Health of Homeless Youth’. Just about the only thing they all have in common is that they work with youth. So while some previous experience of working with homeless youth may be beneficial in building relationships with youth in a sexual health youth program, you may find it difficult to transfer a lot of your skills, education and experience to the new role. Don’t try to ‘fake it ’til you make it’, as you’ll do the youth in your programs a disservice.

Additionally, the previous experience from one type of youth work can be really challenging to ‘unlearn’ when entering a new type, especially if you’ve done it for a long time.

For example, I once knew a worker who had done ten years working as a detention center guard. He then moved to the more ‘warm and fuzzy’ role of staff at a family-style foster care program, where all interactions were supposed to be natural, like in a loving family. His years of previous experience kicked in whenever there was conflict and he often ran the home like a detention facility with strict schedules, cleanliness regimes and zero-tolerance rules.

His experiences were great when it came to finding youth who stole things or were lying, but many times the youth felt attacked and ‘guarded.’ He had the best intentions but was unable to overcome so much of his previous experience. It’s possible that a better fit, for his experience, would have been in a more regulated residential foster care program or as a youth offending officer.

Youth work is as diverse as the youth within the programs, therefore you can’t say that all experience you gain within each of them is the same. Take the time to identify your transferable skills and those where you need further professional development.

No, I don’t think that all you need is experience working with youth and that everything else is teachable.

There are some things that are teachable in youth work; using our example above, sexual health statistics can be taught, homeless issues and their solutions, methods for scripture memorization in faith-based programs – all those can be taught. But you need to recognize what can’t be taught. Some types of youth work are better suited to certain youth workers than others and no amount of previous experience with youth will change that.

I have a lot of experience with youth, but I wouldn’t apply for a role teaching youth outdoor activities. Yes, I could learn all the safety information in the world and maybe even be ‘passable’ in the role, but it wouldn’t be best for the youth in those programs.

Why? Because it’s not my passion, nor is outdoor education something I care very much about. When we do things that we don’t care about, things get sloppy and mistakes are made.

I wouldn’t want to have any of those mistakes happen at an outdoor center or in the middle of a lake with a group of youth – would you? I’d want a youth worker whose experience and passion match up in the perfect role for them which, in turn, will make the program outstanding through knowledgeable, safe and experienced staff  for the youth participating.

Your strengths and what you’re passionate about will provide a natural fit for your natural abilities in relating to youth and the skills you learn through education and best practice.

Remember these three things when you see ‘previous youth work experience required’:

  1. Reflect on areas of best practice and room for improvement in your previous experiences
  2. Remind yourself that all youth work is different and decide if you have the appropriate skills and experience for the job. If you don’t, try your desired role out as a volunteer and gain some insight and new experience in that area of youth work.
  3. Identify your strengths and passions. Learn what can be learned, trust your natural skills and choose a path based on what you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about something, it’s much more likely to positively affect more youth in your program. 

Questions: Do you agree or disagree about my thoughts regarding previous experience in youth work? Why or why not? What are some things you consider when applying for a new youth work position? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Mock Interview – Youth Work Session Plan Idea

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Mock interview youth work unemployment
Practice makes perfect

So, you’ve helped your youth prepare their answers for a job interview and practiced dressing for success. Now, it’s time to put it into practice by giving your youth the opportunity to have mock job interviews with real managers and executives.

Contact local businesses in advance and ask whether they’d be willing to be part of your efforts to reduce youth unemployment. If possible, try to line up interviewers in fields your young people are interested in working in. It’ll be far more useful for young people interested in, say, landscape gardening, to have a mock interview with somebody in that field rather than at a software engineering company. They might even end up impressing the interviewer so much that they’re offered a job!

Give the youth a time and place to attend the interview – maybe it’s at your youth center, a local coffee shop or at a centrally located office. This will also depend on where the interviewers are able to make it to.

Ask the managers to determine whether or not they would hire a youth based on their performance in the mock interview. Ask them to provide constructive feedback for the youth – whether they would have hired them or not – so that they can work on areas they need to improve for real job interviews.

You can use the managers that you work with, but I’ve found it works best when the interviewer is someone that the youth don’t know at all, much like the situation in most interviews.

You could also hold individual and panel mock interviews to give your youth both experiences.

If you’ve found this helpful, you might like our other youth work session plan ideas.

Question: Have you held mock interviews with your youth? How did it go?

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Job Interview Attire – Youth Work Session Plan Ideas

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Youth job interview attireWe’ve recently provided some session plan ideas about preparing youth for the real world.  We even shared one idea on how to teach youth to be concise in an interview.

Job skills during the interview are important. But so is making the right first impression, which is why it’s important for youth to consider their job interview attire.

As you know, the first impression starts from when you approach the building and doesn’t finish until you’re back outside afterwards, during your first point of contact. This may be picking up an application or dropping off a resume, although often these days it’s during the interview.

Depending on your budget, time and number of young people, you may want to try one of these ideas for helping youth understand the importance of job interview attire, as well as how they can look nice on a budget.

1) Working wardrobe collage

Have the youth (boys and girls! – so many people think dressing for an interview is a ‘girl topic’ – it’s just not true) cut out pictures from magazines and make a collage of an appropriate work wardrobe and job interview attire based on different career choices.

2) Working wardrobe scavenger hunt

Have the youth do a photo scavenger hunt to find pictures of people (with their permission) or shop windows and then show the pictures off and critique their findings. Maybe even find definitely for-work and definitely not-for-work outfits. (n.b. consider these points when planning a youth outing)

3) Working wardrobe fashion show

Have some or all of your youth bring $5-$10 (or find room in your budget if your youth aren’t able to come up with the cash) and plan an outing to the thrift store or charity shop. Have them put together a job interview outfit that falls within the budget and type of job they are applying for. Then head back to your center and show off the outfits in a fashion show.

Remember to preface all of these ideas with a youth work session on proper work and job interview attire. It could be part of the same session or hold several work related sessions and end with one of the ideas above.

Question: What’s one activity you would suggest to teach youth about appropriate job interview attire? Let us know in the comments below.

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Job Interview Techniques – Youth Work Session Plan Idea

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Youth work session - job interview techniques
Are your youth all a-twitter about their interview?

When preparing youth for the ‘real world’, one type of skill that cannot be overlooked is job-readiness. Not only resumés, CVs or on-the-job training, but job interview techniques and skills. How to dress, what questions might be asked and ideas to help youth stand out against many others competing for the same role.

One important skill to master for job interviews is saying just the right amount of information. It’s important to educate youth about being concise, teaching them how to find the balance between sharing too little and over-sharing.

Today’s youth work session plan is a fun and challenging activity using the idea of 140 characters from the social media site, Twitter. This resource is designed to help youth answer common interview questions in 140 characters – the amount of characters allowed in each ‘Tweet’. It helps them distill their experience, talents and passions into a few brief sentences.

While it’s unlikely that they’ll only need 140 characters worth of information in a job interview, it’s a good tool to help youth focus on the most important qualities to share about with each question.

You can download the “Retweetable Interview Resource” to use for your own youth work session – let us know how it goes!

Question: How do you help youth improve their job interview skills?  We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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