Our learning program

Workshop #1

Participants met for the first time.

Exercise #1

We introduced ourselves – our names, where we come from, our organisation and why we have decided to join this community of practice.

Exercise #2

We negotiated an agreement about how often we would gather as a community of practice (and agreed on once/month).

Exercise #3

We discussed the ‘emerging’ action research question (see resource on Action Research by Bob Dick). For example we explored questions such as:

What will it take to ethically and effectively engage marginalised young people?
What does respectful youth work look and feel like?

Exercise #4

Peter explained how we would draw on the ‘spiral model’ (see resources on spiral model) as our learning approach. Within this approach there is no ‘teacher’. Instead the group uses a process in which we:

Focus on our experience as youth work on a topic
Discuss our experiences and observe for patterns – what is shared on not shared in our experiences
We do sense-making of our experiences and discussion – bringing in new ideas, concepts, theories to add to our understanding. Sometimes these new ideas come from ‘codes’ (a movie/reading/poem/story) that is used to provoke disruption of ‘taken-for-granted’ assumptions or practices
New practices are identified as a result of sense-making
Take new action.

Workshop #2

Exercise #1

Following on from Workshop #1 we used the following video as a ‘code’ to clarify different ways of thinking about trauma informed practice.

Dr Shawn Ginwright’s presentation on Healing Centered Engagement starts at 23 minutes and ends at 1hr18 minutes.

As a community of learning we watched the video before Workshop #2 and in coming together we:

Got into small groups and explored what resonated and any questions arising
Large group patterning and sense making.

The heart of this discussion included clarifying the difference between a social-ecological and medical model of trauma informed practice. The former recognises that ‘trauma’ isn’t so much within a young person (albeit they might have had traumatic lives and events) but is within the environment (social toxicity). The video/code also led to a discussion about youth work as ‘healing work’ – both personal and structural healing.

Exercise #2

Building on the idea of youth work as healing work, we explored the intention of youth work practice.

To have a ‘practice’ is to be clear of intention (for example, teachers’ intention is educating; nurses’ intention is caring). We asked ‘what is the intention of youth work practice?’

People considered this question alone; in small groups; as a large group.

Examples of intention from our community of practice included:

Being a safe supportive, healthy and consistent adult in a young person’s life
Creating a supportive relationship such that a young person regains a sense of agency
Helping a young person have a better day
Enabling a young person to feel connected, be seen and be heard (based on secure attachment models).

Exercise #3

We revisited the draft action research question. In small groups we discussed what the words ‘ethical’, ‘effective’ and ‘vulnerable’ meant.

In the light of the large discussion, we agreed to remove the word ‘vulnerable’ from our action research question. As such it stood as: What will it take to work ethically and effectively with young people in Child Protection and Youth Justice systems?

Workshop #3

The workshop started with reflection on previous session, adapted practice since then and also clarity about our intention as a community of practice. We discussed the difference between a ‘training program’ and a ‘learning program co-designed by a community of practice’.

We also agreed to develop some resources as a community of practice – including developing this web site, a podcast series and co-authoring a journal article.

Exercise #1

Participants discussed the challenges of criminalising young people in the child protection system.

A story as code from one of the participants:

“If my child smashes a hole in the wall I fix the hole and work real hard to understand what’s going on for my child that led to it. If a young person in the child protection system/residential care smashes a hole in the wall the police are called in, a report is made – for the purposes of the organistion claiming insurance – and the young person is criminalised”

The emergent conversation identified several challenges:

- managerialism and risk-focus by organisations

- others seeing youth work as baby-sitting (or at best ‘we have no idea what you do’)

Exercise #2

We affirmed that the action research question guiding our inquiry as a community of practice is: What will it take to work ethically and effectively with young people in Child Protection and Youth Justice systems?

BUT we added it could also be re-phrased as: What would it take to stop the pipeline from residential care to the youth justice system?

Exercise #3

Participants had pre-prepared by coming with two stories:

Story #1 - of a piece of work with a young person in youth justice/child protection that you consider both effective and ethical

Story #2 - of a piece of work that was ethical yet ineffective, or effective yet on reflection was unethical (or some kind of ethical questions are left lingering).

These stories were shared in small groups, discussed for patterns (aka the spiral model) and we started to explore new knowledge and ideas.

Workshop #4

Exercise #1

We continued from the previous workshop, exploring:

Story #1 - of a piece of work with a young person in youth justice/child protection that you consider both effective and ethical

Story #2 - of a piece of work that was ethical yet ineffective, or effective yet on reflection was unethical (or some kind of ethical questions are left lingering).

These stories were shared in small groups, discussed for patterns (aka the spiral model) and we started to explore new knowledge and ideas.

Exercise #2

We used the ‘code’ - Sisters Inside Values and Inclusive Support Model which one participant spoke about at the previous gathering.

We considered what resonated from these documents and what challenges our current practice (as a practitioner or as a practitioner's 'context (ie. institution). Here is the link to Sisters Inside Values.

Workshop #5

This session was focus on sharing young people's views on what is ethical and effective youth work and what is not.