News

The YWA would like to share an upcoming global personal development retreat for youth workers.

ComMutiny – the Youth Collective and Pravah in partnership with Commonwealth Secretariat are pleased to announce they will be conducting a six-day online course over three retreats between April & June 2021 (Retreat 1 , 5-9 April 2021, 2.5 days; Retreat 2 – 28-30th April, 2021, 1.5 days; and Retreat 3, 25-28 May 2021, 2.0 days). On completion of the course, participants will receive a joint certification by Commonwealth Secretariat, ComMutiny the Youth Collective and Pravah.

We are now inviting youth work practitioners to participate in the ‘Ocean in a Drop – Developing Inside out youth Leadership, an Online Course for Youth Workers/ Youth Facilitators’.

The course will explore four core themes:

1. Youth Development;

2. Design and Facilitation;

3. Systems Thinking; and

4. Deep Self Awareness.

The participants will be expected to do pre-work and apply their learnings through projects to be undertaken between the sessions. The course will be in the form of three learning retreats as stated above spread across the three months. Since experiential learning in the real world is a crucial component of this course, participants will be practicing the learnings on-ground at their place of work, between and after the learning retreats.

The three pivots of the journey will include: - The voyager (participant); - The navigator (organization and in retreat buddy); and - The learning retreat facilitator.

During the course, the voyager (participant) will:

• Develop, lead, and implement strategies for deepening their intervention and your institutions’ (organisations/collectives/ associations) engagement with young people by processing real life challenges they are facing.

• Design and facilitate high impact interventions using creative methodologies including cross-border exposures, self-exploratory psychological tools and stimulating experiences.

• Enhance organizational effectiveness by applying systems thinking to their real-world challenge

• Delve into personal transformation.

• Be mentored by and learn with experienced facilitators and participants in the field of youth leadership. We are pleased to announce that following this online course, participants will be able to apply for a challenge pot at the end of the programme. This challenge pot is an opportunity for participants to apply their learnings from this course to follow up projects in their country. Further details of this will be shared during the selection process.

To confirm participation, candidates should register ASAP, registrations have been extended, so don’t wait to register!

Selection Criteria

Must be a youth worker, youth development professional or educator working on youth leadership programmes, with at least 3 years of experience working with young people.

 Be a representative of an institution that:

• Already work in a sustained manner with young people, with a well-established field presence and familiarity in community contexts.

• Explicitly commit to youth work and youth development work and have staff who have good youth engagement skills already.

• Have a solid good practice to demonstrate in relation to youth work practices.

• Rights-based values and can demonstrate that their approaches are rights-based Fluency in verbal and written English.

•  Experience of on the ground facilitation.

•  Openness to learning, celebrating, teamwork and keen interest in engaging with others and contributing to peer learning of co-voyagers and facilitators.

•  Ability to engage with basic online tools including excellent working knowledge of MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

•  Have access to reliable internet facilities.

•  Commitment to complete post-retreat learning processes and practices with their colleagues and co-workers on the ground.

•  Facilitators selected for the programme will need to commit to pre and post-retreat engagement.

 Selection will be based on a competency-based assessment of the candidates to engage fully in the journey. The selection process will include a form to be filled by the applicant and an online meeting with the retreat facilitators and CYP team.

APPLICATION FORM

If more information is required, your office may contact l.robinson@commonwealth.int.

This report nails the real challenges for the Pacifica Communities. Although it is based in Aotearoa it has lessons for us in Australia. These communities have strong culture and connection, they are aspirational for their children and want to succeed. However, generational poverty, low-income jobs, human rights abuses mean that they cannot breach the barriers that they face.

Until we own a much more interventionist approach to ensuring equity of outcomes for this and other communities we are going to continue to see the very despairing outcomes translating into higher juvenile justice presentations, poor educational outcomes and higher levels of family and other violence.

To read the report click here

By Jane Hickey - Victoria University

At the most basic level, communication requires a sender, a receiver and a message. Let’s consider this blog post. As the author, I am considered the sender of information regarding communication, as the blog readers you are the receivers, and hopefully the message will become clear- Communication tools become the vehicle for getting the message from the sender to the receiver and then back again! There are many different ways to communicate a message, from billboards, to podcasts, a protest rally or a handwritten letter to name a few. The sender may target one receiver, or there maybe thousands of receivers of the message. Communication is a means to build relationships, express emotions and feelings, have our needs met, make a contribution to the community and to be understood and validated. There are times when the message and meaning is clear, such as ‘Will you marry me?’ and other times where the message can be interpreted in several different ways, for example song lyrics!

Many of us rely on verbal communication and pragmatic language in our day to day life. Verbal interactions occur at work and school, in your family and personal life, and running everyday errands in your local community. Pragmatic language requires language to be used for different purposes, changing language according to the environment and context and following social rules regarding conversation.

So, what happens if the young person that you support has not acquired verbal speech?

Being referred to as ‘non-verbal’ is deficit focused and infers that verbal speech is the ‘norm’ or what ‘should’ be attained. A person who has not acquired speech can be a very effective communicator when they have access to tools that assist the communication process. Someone using Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) has a diversity of communication tools available for effective interactions between the sender and receiver. There are so many examples of AAC tools available- many at no cost or low cost, and also no tech and tech options. No tech options are vital for communities were internet and technological resources are not available or cost prohibitive.

Using an interdisciplinary team working together with a young person at the centre will have the best outcomes for the young person. Ensure that all practitioners working with the young person are empowering, directed by the young person and committed to effective communication (rather than solely focused on acquiring speech).

Check out the resource list and webinar here for further information about AAC tools…..

Jude McCulloch, JaneMaree Maher, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Marie Segrave, Kathryn Benier, Kate Burns, Jasmine McGowan, Naomi PfitznerThe Family Violence Information Sharing Guidelines were developed to ensure entitiesinternal policies and practices are consistent with the Family Violence InformationSharing Scheme.

The Guidelines state that information sharing entities must updatetheir privacy and other organisational policies accordingly. The Guidelines also clarifythat information sharing entities are obliged to follow privacy laws, which includecommunicating to clients how their information may be used or disclosed.

This report provides the 21 key recommendation made.

https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-08/apo-nid307649_0.pdf

Feel free to send us your comments or feedback at info@ywa.org.au

This report considers five key questions commonly asked about STEM education:

• What is STEM education?

• Why is it important?

• How do we include STEM in school education?

• What impact is STEM education likely to have on students?

• What will be the indicators of success?

STEM education?

It reviews some 200 international research papers to examine the main features of integrated STEM education, how it has been implemented in schools, and how an integrated STEM curriculum.

Feel free to send us your comments or feedback at info@ywa.org.au