Develop my approach

What is my approach to youth work?

Over the previous three Modules in this course, you have been developing a deeper understanding of what it means to work with young people here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and you have explored ways to integrate this understanding into your youth work practice.

You have explored youth work from various perspectives. These include the young people themselves – youth voices, and your professional obligations under the Code of Ethics for Youth Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. You have also covered the key legislative and strategic frameworks for professionals working with youth: New Zealand’s Youth Development Strategy, international agreements like the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), and New Zealand legislation like the Children’s Act 2014 and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

You have learned more about your day-to-day role in the lives of the young people you work with, their whānau or family, and the wider community through the spaces, programmes, networks, relationships and opportunities you are part of.

Learning more about our approach provides greater insights into individual and collective youth work practice and organisational requirements. But it may also, at times, be challenging or confronting. It may require us to question the priorities and conduct within our own practice or organisation.

Our approach to youth work in Aotearoa New Zealand is something we keep working on throughout our careers. Over time, we clarify our thinking around issues and situations, and come to appreciate them in new ways. We gain new insights and find different solutions to improve how we work with young people. At times, we may disagree with colleagues as we find things that do not work well in certain situations, or do not sit well with our experiences, values, or beliefs. This disagreement is also part of the process of how we develop our approach.

Task: Reflection questions

Take a few minutes to think about these questions or discuss them with a peer or colleague:

• What have you learned through reflecting on and observing your own practice?
• What happens when you apply new models, concepts, or strategies to your work?
• As you adapt and apply what you learn, how does this influence your approach?

Task: How we define youth development

In this task, you’ll review the Ministry of Youth Development’s approach¹ which is the basis for the Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa. You have looked at these before.

Think about these questions:

• Reread the section, What is youth development?¹ To what extent do you agree with the Ministry’s framing of youth development?
• How well do the Ministry’s six principles of youth development¹ align with your own thinking on what the foundation of youth work practice in Aotearoa New Zealand should be?

Task: Incorporating the Mana Taiohi framework

For this task, you’ll need to review the best practice principles of the Code of Ethics for Youth Work in Aotearoa New Zealand². Focus your reading on the following sections:

• Reread Core Values of Youth Work (p.15) and Definition of Youth Work (p.16)
• Reconnect with the principles of Mana Taiohi. See page 19 for an overview of the framework, and reread Code of Ethics: At a Glance (pp. 66, 67) for a key point summary of each clause in the Code of Ethics. You can also review the principles of Mana Taiohi³ on the Ara Taiohi website.

When you have finished reading, think about this question:

• Which aspects of the Mana Taiohi framework do you feel you have incorporated into your approach to working with young people?

Put it all into practice

This Module further explores integrating the development of your approach to working with young people in Aotearoa New Zealand with your day-to-day role as you mentor, support and facilitate young people to acquire the skills, understandings, attitudes, and behaviours that enable them to thrive and succeed now and as a foundation for their adult lives.

Throughout this Module you will reflect on the development of your approach as you:

• keep a regular journal (Assessment 4.2)
• design and carry out sessions with young people that provide them opportunities to develop personal, social, and work-ready life skills (Assessment 4.4, 4.5)
• mentor and facilitate a group of young people through a learning process in which they plan and implement an event or activity of their choosing (Assessment 4.1, 4.3).

Keeping a journal

As mentioned above, throughout this Module you’ll keep a journal in which you reflect on how you are integrating what you have learned about youth work in Aotearoa New Zealand into your day-to-day experience of working with young people. You will start the journal at the beginning of this Module and submit the journal for assessment at the end of the Module as Assessment 4.2.

This journal has three parts:

1. Journal entry: at regular intervals over the duration of this Module take some time to stop and reflect on how theory and information informs what you do with the young people in your practice. Write your reflections in your journal. At six points, you will reflect and write on specific aspects. Summaries or extracts from these six entries are submitted as part of Assessment 4.2. Total: minimum of six entries.
2. Discussion: you cannot develop your approach by yourself. It is important to find people around you who are willing and capable to help you on your journey. Identify an appropriate person and ask them if they can commit to having a minimum of three conversations with you about the approach you are developing over the approximately 15 weeks of this Module. The person you talk with agrees to two statements – commitment to the discussions and confirmation that they occurred. Neither you nor they are expected to say anything about the content of these discussions.

3. Final reflective summary: answer some questions for a final reflection on your approach and how it is developing and being implemented in your day-to-day work with young people.

Journal entries

You will submit a minimum of six journal entry extracts or summaries as part of Assessment 4.2. You will write the entries over the duration of this Module. You will be prompted to write an entry at the end of certain topics in the online course. For each entry, there will be:

• some prompt questions to help get you thinking
• a personal reflection that you write on in your journal
• a submission for assessment (approximately half a page) of either an extract from your journal or a summary of what you wrote in the entry.

Note: you submit all six entry submissions with Assessment 4.2 at the end of this Module along with the Final Reflective Summary.

What are the six journal entries?

• Journal Entry 1: for this online topic (Topic 1) – your thoughts on developing your approach at the start of this Module (see below for full details on this entry). At the end of this Module go back and read what you wrote to see if any of your thinking has changed.
• Journal Entry 2: (Topic 4) – your approach to best practice and helping young people develop life skills based on activities or sessions you design and run for Assessment 4.4, 4.5 and feedback you get from the young people who participate.
• Journal Entry 3: (Topic 6) – your approach to best practice in the context of cultural competencies and working with rangatahi Māori, Pacific youth, or youth from various cultural backgrounds to develop life skills. This is also based on the activities or sessions you design and run for Assessment 4.4, 4.5.
• Journal Entry 4: (Topic 7) – your approach to youth work relationships within the context of mentoring young people.
• Journal Entry 5 and Journal Entry 6: (Topic 11) – your approach to working with young people through the process of planning and implementing the Youth Development Project you carry out for Assessment 4.1, 4.3. This project is based on mentoring and/or facilitating a group of young people as they participate in or lead the creation and implementation of an activity or event of their choosing. Journal Entry 5 should occur in the project’s early stages as you and the young people decide what you are doing and start the initial planning phase. Journal Entry 6 should occur once the project planning is well underway and close to implementation.

For more details on each entry and what to submit for assessment please see Assessment 4.2.

Discussion

Developing an approach to youth work that is appropriate and effective in your context is difficult to do on your own. Being able to discuss your thoughts and challenges with someone who understands the context and its issues is invaluable for your own development.

Look around you and see if you can identity someone whose knowledge, experience, expertise, wisdom or insights you value. This person may be someone you already formally set aside time to talk with like your supervisor or mentor. Or, it may be someone you already do this with on an informal basis like a manager, a more experienced colleague or professional peer. Or, it may be someone in your workplace, community or network whose perspectives on your work you would appreciate learning from.

Ask this person if over the next 15 weeks they would be able to commit to meeting with you a minimum of three times to discuss the development of your approach to your youth work practice. How long these sessions are, what you talk about and where is something you can negotiate together.

This person also needs to be comfortable with you including their contact details in with the assessment you submit, and, if required, being contacted by your assessor. Make it clear to the person that they will not be asked about the content of your discussions or their opinion of your practice. The only thing they would be asked is to confirm that the three conversations took place.

There is a statement the person agrees to the beginning and one at the end. These statements are submitted with Assessment 4.2. Please see the Final Reflective Summary for sample statements for you to use, or similar.

What to do

This week:

• Identify someone you would like to meet with to discuss the development of your approach
• Ask this person if they would be interested, and if yes explain what you need from them
• Have them agree to the provided statement (or similar), obtain their contact details, complete the statement and file it with your first journal entry (ready to submit for assessment at the end of the Module)
• Decide when, where, how often (and for how long) you will meet up over the next 15 weeks; if you can book in some dates now, if it makes sense to do so

Over the 15 weeks of this Module:

• Meet up at least three times for a discussion.
• Before each meeting, spend a few minutes thinking about what you would like their perspective or support on and make some notes that you can refer to during the conversation. You do not have to use them if the conversation goes in a more useful or interesting direction but having pre-planned notes can help you to stay focused and not forget to bring up something important.
• Immediately after you meet (or during) make some notes while the insights or information is still in your short-term memory.
• At the last meeting, ask the person to agree to the second statement confirming the meetings took place.

For more information please see Assessment 4.2 – Journal Entry 1 and Final Reflective Summary.

Summary of requirements for Assessment 4.2

At the end of the Module, submit Assessment 4.2. This includes:

• the extracts or summaries of the six journal entries
• the two statements from the person you had the discussions with and
• the Final Reflective Summary: six questions for you to respond to.

Note: You may like to read over the six questions in the Final Reflective Summary now, so that you can keep notes on things you might like to include in your responses as you write your journal entries.

What is this project?

At approximately half-way through this Module, you will need to start work on a youth development project in which you facilitate and mentor a group of young people as they go through the process of planning and implementing a project, event or activity of their choosing.

At the end of this Module, you will submit evidence that you carried out this project. Please read through Assessment 4.1, 4.3 now, so you know what the requirements are. Although, it is still several weeks until you need to start the project, it is important that you know what is required so that you will be ready to start. For example, you may need to identity potential participants or obtain permissions or resources that may take time to acquire.

We have tried to keep the nature of the project as open as possible. Why? Because the goal is for you to integrate the theory and information you have been learning with the work you do in your role. There is a very wide range of contexts in which people work with different young people in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Primary aim

As much as you can, fit Assessment 4.1, 4.3 into your context and situation so that the project:

• includes work you are already doing in your current role
• meets the needs of the young people you regularly work with
• aligns with the requirements of your organisation and context.

What am I already doing?

As you read through Assessment 4.1, 4.3, try to think of ways that you could include it as part of work you are already doing. This may even mean that you need to modify the assessment tasks at some points. If you have any questions, please talk with your tutor.

The project’s outcome is intentionally open and is referred to as a project, event, or activity. What this is, its scope and size should be dictated by your participants and situation. Here are a few examples of projects that youth workers might help to facilitate:

• A group of young people in the youth justice system get together with youth workers as part of their Family Group Conference plans to ‘right the wrong’ they did. They plan to paint (or ‘bomb’) a mural at the local community centre.
• A group of young people who are living with learning disabilities plan to organise a shared lunch for their family and friends. Even though this is a relatively simple activity, it will be challenging for them in some important ways, as it requires planning and communication.
• A group of senior students at a high school who are on the student council decide to put on an end of year fun day for the whole school.

Ideally what you want to do is integrate this project with work you are already doing. For example, young people in a cultural or sports focused group might organise a fundraiser to help them enter a competition. They would decide what the fundraiser would be, plan and organise it and carry it out. Or, if a group of young people are already involved in doing volunteer or service work it might be that the project is for them to review their process and practice and implement improvements. They would have to decide what to review and plan out how to know if their improvements are meeting their goals. The outcome could even be something like students at a school organising a support study-buddy system for themselves to keep each other motivated, supported and accountable as they prepare for NCEA or other goal.

Who are the participants?

How much of a framework or direction you need to provide for the young participants will depend on how much structure they need. Ideally, you carry out the project with young people you typically work with.

It is a good idea to go back to Shier’s Pathway to Participation model and think about what level of participation and leadership is realistic for the participants to have. You want to provide a challenge but not one that is overwhelming. It is very important that the young participants can achieve and be successful. Even if they do not achieve the desired outcome, it should be for reasons outside their control, not because they had unrealistic expectations placed on them. However, do not underestimate what young people can accomplish with the right support and guidance. Also, use your professional judgement as to how much you can push these particular young people outside their comfort zone.

As much as you can, engage the young people in the decision making. However, the level at which you do this depends on who the young people are and what they can realistically be expected to handle. This will determine your role.

At one end you may need to be heavily involved with the decision-making. But even here you want to facilitate activities and discussions that encourage and respect input from the participants. Create small moments where they can plan, do or decide some things for themselves. For example, the participants are organising a sausage sizzle fundraiser, so you organise an opportunity for them to talk with an experienced person who has done this many times before and get his or her advice. Before-hand, you facilitate a session in which they brainstorm what they want to know and come up with a list of questions to ask. During the discussion the participants ask their questions. They then use this information to help plan what ingredients and equipment they need for the sausage sizzle. You want to make the process of decision making explicit even if you control it; so, for example, you show them how to make the budget for the sausage sizzle, but let them go to the supermarket to buy the ingredients.

At the other end you may have the participants heavily involved in decision-making and leadership. You may mentor the group or individuals in the group through regular sessions, but the hands-on activity and decisions are made by the participants. You may even be at the point where you have a peer mentoring system that you provide guidance for.

Obviously, your level of involvement in the detailed decisions and role in how you facilitate, mentor, support, guide or oversee the process depends on who the participants are and what is appropriate for them.

What about my organisation and context?

The project also needs to fit with the requirements, expectations and what is realistic for your organisation and context. You may adapt Assessment 4.1, 4.3 to keep within organisational parameters. Throughout the Module we provide templates for the project, however, if your organisation has their own paperwork or processes with similar requirements you may use these instead. If you have any questions, please speak with your tutor.

Project Checkpoints

Starting with Topic 8: Strength-based approach in the online course you will be provided with the first of five Project Checkpoints. These checkpoints are here to help you stay on track with the project. You should aim to check off each item in the checkpoint before you move on with the project.

While these Checkpoints should work for most projects, most of the time, there may be instances when they do not work. If there are aspects of the checkpoints that do not work for your project or timeline you may adjust the Checkpoints to suit your purposes. The purpose of the checkpoints is to provide you with guidance and keep you on track to meet the requirements for Assessment 4.1, 4.3.

If you follow the Project Checkpoints as you work through the project, the final submission of evidence should be straight forward.

Before you start, read through Assessment 4.1, 4.3 and the five Project Checkpoints. Remember, you may modify these to suit your purposes.

Task: Read Assessment 4.1, 4.3

To learn more about the requirements for Assessment 4.1, 4.3, open the assignment now and read the full set of instructions. When you have finished reading, use this list of questions and tasks to start planning your work:

• Do I understand what is required? Of me, of my organisation, of the young people?
• Make a mind map of potential ways you could include Assessment 4.1, 4.3 into the work you are already doing
• Can you narrow this down to the top two or three ideas?
• Identify who your likely participants are and think about the ideal level of participation and leadership for this group; and what role you should play
• Identify any requirements for Assessment 4.1, 4.3 that might be difficult to achieve, is there some planning you need to start now? Or any adjustments you may need to make to the assessment?

Reflect on the following questions, and discuss these with your kaiako if you need to:

One a scale of one to five, how ready do you feel to do this youth development project? What are the issues for you and what would help you to overcome those issues?

What, if anything, might you need to start doing now so you can be ready to start the project within a few weeks’ time?

My approach so far

The information in the sections that follow is repeated in Journal Entry 1 in Assessment 4.2.

You are now more than half-way through this course and the process of developing an approach to your youth work practice is well under way.

Now, think about and make some notes on what your approach to mentoring and supporting young people in your role is at this point.

Here are some questions to prompt your thinking before you start journaling:

• What does it mean for me to work with young people using a strength-based approach? What does that look like in my day-to-day practice?
• Who amongst my peers, colleagues, managers, mentor or supervisor do I really admire? Why?
• How am I feeling about the project (Assessment 4.1, 4.3) I have to do with our young people for this Module? What am I looking forward to? What do I think the challenges will be?
• What role does community and other relationships play in my practice? How do I define my youth work relationships?
• What is my role? Am I comfortable with this role? Are there things I would like to improve on or change?

Use your notes and ideas to complete Journal Entry 1 now.

Note: Youth work that is strength-based supports young people to identity and work to their strengths. (See Clause 3 in the Code of Ethics for Youth Work in Aotearoa New Zealand.)

Personal reflection  

Read through this example of a personal reflection and its questions. In your journal, write down answers to these questions and more general thoughts on what your approach is at this point in your professional development.  

"This Module is an opportunity for me to use a strength-based approach to facilitate a group of young people as they plan and carry out an event or activity. I will support, mentor and/or facilitate these young people as they participate, take on leadership and develop important life skills through this process."   

• How am I feeling about this?  
• What do I think I will do well? 
• What am I likely to find challenging? Or, what am I nervous or uncertain about? 

Supervisor or mentor’s statement

In your journal’s personal reflection, you wrote about things that might make the project challenging for you. Who do you know who could help you to think about how to approach these challenges?

As mentioned earlier, you’ll need to identify someone like a supervisor, mentor, more experienced colleague or peer, or manager with knowledge, experience, expertise, wisdom or insight into the challenges you face.

As discussed, you’ll need to ask this person if they would meet with you at least three times over the approximately 15 weeks of Module 5 to discuss the approach you are developing as a youth worker. This is an opportunity to discuss your approach to practice and learn from another’s perspective to help clarify your thinking.

Please ask this person to write a statement, similar to the one below that you can submit with your assessment. Note: this same statement is also in the Final Reflective Summary template. 

Note: Keep this statement with your Journal Entry 1 as you will have to submit it as part of Assessment 4.2.

What do I do with my journal entry and statement?

As you work through the online topics, you will be told when to add an entry to your reflective journal; there will be six in total. These six journal entries and the Final Reflective Summary make up the content for Assessment 4.2. You will submit the full journal near the end of the Module.

As with previous journaling, you do not need to submit your actual journal writing (unless you want to). However, you are required to submit evidence of journaling. To meet this requirement, you must submit at least a half-page reflection on what you wrote, or an extract from your entry.

Important: While you will not be assessed on the content of what you write, as it is personal to you and your own journey, you must submit evidence of six journaling instances with Assessment 4.2 along with the completed Final Reflective Summary at the conclusion of this Module.

Before you move on to the next topic, you should have:

• Completed Assessment 4.2 – Journal Entry 1
• Found someone to meet with to discuss the development of your approach and obtained a statement from them
• Read Assessment 4.1, 4.3 and identified any issues you may have in completing the project later in the Module; if necessary, discuss and trouble shoot with your manager, supervisor and/or tutor.