What Drives a Youth Worker?

December 19, 2014 at 2:56 pm | Posted in care home, children in care, children's homes, looked after children, residential child care, social work, young people, youth work | Leave a comment

Over the best part of 25 years, Anderida Adolescent Care has built a strong and dependable reputation. But strong and dependable organisational reputations only come about thanks to strong and dependable staff teams. 

youth_work_project_work

But if, collectively, Anderida was a fully-functioning and well-oiled engine, it would come to a grinding halt if just one of the ‘pistons’ gave up – or, at the very least, it would splutter and choke. Residential child care only works as well as the sum of its parts – if there is a crumbling in boundaries or waning in form from just one camp, the whole operation can sway off kilter; so it’s vital that everyone is firing on all cylinders.

But aside from the organisation doing what it can to help keep staff buoyant in terms of supervisions, group supervisions, ongoing support, our Kudos Credits staff reward program, our own in-house fantasy ‘sport’ and the odd bash and team building thing here and there, what are staff doing to ensure they don’t ‘burn out’ or lose any of that passion that burns so brightly when you begin a career?

Project Worker of 2 years:

“I chose project work because I thought it looked really interesting. The idea of helping teenagers learn independence skills in order to progress with their lives was really appealing to me. What drives me and keeps me motivated to this day is seeing those small steps and little changes, and knowing that I helped in some way.

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Project Worker of 3 years:

“I was attracted initially to the role knowing that I would be helping the lives of disadvantaged children, and that every day working with those young people would be different. I knew I had it in me to have some sort of positive input, so I felt it was the right kind of job for me.

The people around you play a huge role in keeping up the motivation. As well as support from the organisation itself, you need that team spirit and that camaraderie. Someone who can keep their spirits up and show a sense of humour during some tough times has a remarkably positive affect on the rest of the team. 

Just those little achievements – even as seemingly insignificant as enjoying an activity or outing – are always galvanizing experiences. They refuel your enthusiasm for the role and you push on.

Injecting Some Culture Into Child Care. World Cuisine For Looked After Children.

October 15, 2014 at 3:45 pm | Posted in children in care, children's homes, looked after children, social work | Leave a comment
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We are all creatures of habit. We like to think that we have the Midas touch in the kitchen, but we all tend to have our favourite meals and set recipe ‘knowledge base’, and let’s be honest, most of us are not great at popping out of our comfort zones and delving into the vast expanses of culinary delights from the far reaches of the globe. At least not very often, anyway. This, of course, rubs off on the kids in our lives. The more frequently we cook a well-rehearsed recipe for everyone, the more entrenched in our culinary ways we all become.

So, with this in mind, we set out to broaden our horizons at the dinner table and try and learn a thing or two at the same time. And so Spin It, Cook It, Eat It! was born.

Food Cuisines for Children in Need

For some years we have had World Food Night: every Wednesday, the young people and project workers would look to the World Food Calendar and see what cuisine was to be cooked up that night – but the charts had little more to offer than the name of the country and would become tatty and they were heavy on paper and ink. So we went digital.

Now, the young people go to The Hive, our in-house website made purely for the young people, and go to the Spin It, Cook It, Eat It! page. Here they are presented with a digital roulette-style spinner. They click it and away it goes, eventually landing on one of a large selection of cuisines from all over the world or the ‘vegetarian or seafood’ slot.

world cuisine spinner

After determining which world cuisine they will be enjoying, they spin the ‘Head Chef’ wheel, to see if they will be taking the lead role with support from the project worker(s), or vice versa. Then they click onto the page relevant to the cuisine they landed on where they are greeted by a map, an intro to the area, a video about the area and the culture, a playlist of music particular to the region, a link to a wealth of recipes in connection with the cuisine and some other useful info. To encourage engagement, we have added a five question quiz about each region, or indeed about vegetarian food and seafood (focusing on sustainability). Should they complete the quiz and show that they’ve researched each question they are awarded an A-Point – a point that’s part of our rewards program.

se asia

So, shy of flying out to India one week and Mexico the next, we feel like we’ve created something culturally enriching for the young people  that might plant a seed about the world and what it has to offer, as well as offering up some amazing food. It’s then down to them and the project workers to take it to whatever level they wish. Although we’ve seen no petty cash receipts for sombreros as yet…

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