Best Practice

This was a very interesting discussion for everyone to gather their ideas on best practice

We discussed what we thought would be best practice for youth workers dealing with violence and crime involving the young people in their organisations 

Following this we come up with some of the most important factors to deliver best practice:

• The ability to relate to the young people and be a positive role model within their community

• Being able to promote empowerment 

• Having consistency in order to gain trust and respect

• The ability to maintain boundaries

• Being able to communicate effectively in ways that the young people understand

Encouraging creative expression is a major tool I practice as it allows young people to have an outlet in a way that they feel most comfortable and acts as a form of counselling 

I believe the main role of a youth worker is to be an advocate of the young people they work with

We are the role models, if we show that we aren't afraid to challenge problems within society then it will encourage our young people to follow in our foot steps

It will be interesting to see in Holland the differences between youth work management and youth work practice, hopefully we will also be able to evaluate if best practice is being delivered in the organisations we visit