Sharing resources

The Light Project exists to Demonstrate the Christian message in a relevant way 
AND to equip others to do the same.

A simple way we can fulfil the second part of our mission statement is to try and share our resources and policies. Now let me state from the start our safeguarding policy is not perfect. It is in fact far from perfect. However, our policy is working for us at the moment and we are happy to share where we are. So at the top of the D'Biz Youth Work Blog (www.lpdbiz.blogspot.com) you will find some new links. Including our safeguarding policy, our incident report form and the Professional Nation Occupational Standards for Youth work. 


Things like Safeguarding Policy's and risk assessments are not very exciting but they are a really important part of taking care of the people we work with. If by sharing our resources we help another group better look after their young people I will be very happy and feel we have done a good job with our second half of our mission statement. Also if you notice anything in the policy you think is out of date, a mistake or just plan wrong please let us know. That is the other advantage of sharing our policy's and resources. It opens us up to more constructive feedback. 


By Gareth Cheesman 

Random quotes about managing behaviour

In youth work we are always looking to balance youth work aims of good relationships and safe environment. A key area for this debate is managing behaviour and possibly discipline. A youth work students produced this collection of quotes.

‘Like progressive educators in the school sector, youth workers must continually wrestle with the problem of...managing...the learning experience without resorting to harsh and inappropriate stratagems as well as...enable learning to take place.’ P.109

‘Workers may have to intervene to prevent young people from victimising, bullying or harassing other individuals or groups...the issue for the worker is when and how to challenge constructively and ensure those doing the taunting not only stop, but understand why it is wrong. Workers may...have to exclude certain young people from a centre...if their behaviour is unacceptable, because allowing them to stay...would disadvantage others.’ P.112

Jeffs, T and Banks, S. (2010) Youth workers as controllers. In S. Banks (Ed) Ethical Issues in Youth Work (2^nd Ed). Oxon: Routledge

‘An inevitable consequence of the voluntary ...relationship between young people and youth workers is that the latter...rely on their moral authority to secure a constituency. Securing and retaining such authority, often in trying circumstances, creates...tension...for without resorting to subterfuge they must seek to become the kind of people that young people can trust...completely reliable and consistent.’ P.76-77

Jeffs, T and Smith, M (1999b) Resourcing Youth Work: Dirty Hands and Tainted Money, in Banks, S. (Ed.) Ethical Issues in Youth Work. London: Routledge. Found in Young, K (2006) The Art of Youth Work (2^nd Ed). Lyme Regis: Russell House Publishing.

‘[Youth workers]...must acquire the capacity to work and converse with people whose behaviour may be totally unacceptable to the overwhelming majority...this is not easy, but such professional distance is essential.’ P.32

Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. (2005) Informal Education (3^rd ed.) Nottingham: Educational Heretics Press.

‘Youth workers acknowledge the more damaging influences that some peer groups can have on individual members...and seek to divert or, if necessary, confront these. However, they also recognise that young people choose these ‘natural’ interactive settings for very positive and developmental reasons – for example, away from adult expectations, to explore and test out identities, roles and relationships...[these] provide numerous  opportunities for youth workers to prompt and support both personal learning and constructive collective activity.’ P.4

Davies, B. (2010) What do we mean by youth work? In J. Batsleer and B. Davies (Eds.) What is Youth Work? Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd.

By Gareth Cheesman

Christmas in Chester

I love it when the Christmas market come to Chester. I think it creates a really festive atmosphere. I find Christmas a great time to talk about Jesus with young people. It can be a real challenge to some people who find themselves focusing on all the presents and commercial side. On the 13th of December a group of students from the light project will be doing an exciting project looking at helping people connect with the Christian message. 

Possible locations for a Christmas project ?

Possible locations for a Christmas project ?

<b>Full to the top or a ghost town</b>

For the first time in my professional career I ran an open community youth club on Halloween. Normally Halloween falls during school half term and as we follow school opening it has never happened before. We opened knowing that Halloween may have unusual impacts on numbers. We didn't know if the festival would encourage lots of people out of houses and therefore increase numbers or would people all have parties to attend and trick or treating to do and therefore decrease numbers? We opened the club not knowing what to expect in attendance or behaviour.

After being open for 30 minutes we had our answer. No one was coming. Not a single young person walked through our door. Our club was empty so we went out and did some detached youth work. We learnt a lesson about working on Halloween.

But this night got me thinking is it better to have too few or too many young people in a youth club?

When you have too many young people in a youth club I have found myself spending most of the evening dealing with behaviour and crowd control. The result being no engagement with young people in conversation or shared activity. No relationship building or informal education. But still the young people may have an enjoyable evening in a safe place, possibly with new experiences.

Now ignoring extremes when no one attends it is also a difficult situation when numbers are low. With low numbers the youth club workers who are spread out across the building may all be waiting to engage with the same people. This can put some strain on the young people but at lest we can be confident that no young person will be ignored. I think the greatest danger with this situation is workers getting demoralised, thinking the works not worth doing.

So I'm still not sure. Most clubs have a sweet spot for the number of young people attending ( this number can change over time and depends on everything from the age of people, the number of workers, the activities and even the weather.) But is it better to have more or less young people?

Sent from my iPod