Developing Youth Work Skills
Training Courses
Training volunteers to work with young people
Managing Challenging Behaviour
Developing Facilitation skills
Developing Presentation skills
This section is devoted to developing core youth work skills, staff development and supporting volunteers.
Training volunteers to work with young people
Aimed at voluntary, private & statutory youth services this training package offers quality ideas to train and support anyone volunteering to work with young people. This includes youth clubs, youth information services and targeted support programmes.
An interactive day, participants will take part in practical activities to explore volunteer’s motivation, understand the role of a volunteer, professional confidentiality and boundaries, as well as how to engage effectively with young people. It can be delivered directly to new volunteers or as a 'train the trainer' event, giving delegates the skills and knowledge to successfully run their own volunteer induction programmes.
Learning outcomes:
Over the day participants will:
- Consider why people volunteer
- Explore the skills and qualities needed to work with young people
- Explore stereotypes and assumptions
- Consider ways to set and enforce boundaries and confidentiality
- Try out activities to motivate and engage with young people
- Be given a suggested framework and session plans for training volunteers
Supporting Youth Work Resource Book: So, you want to work with young people
An Introduction to Youth Work
This is an interactive course to develop effective, practical skills to work with young people. Suitable for voluntary agencies and private sector organisations as well as local authority children and young people services, the training can be offered as a one, two or five day course.
Choose from tailor made modules, including targeted support, diversity, groupwork and building communication skills to make up the ideal induction programme for your organisation.
Learning outcomes:
Over the course participants will:
- Explore the values and ethos of youth work
- Consider the role of the youth worker
- Develop skills to engage and assess young people
- Reflect on personal values and attitudes
- Develop an awareness of professional confidentiality and boundaries
- Learn how to evaluate work with young people
- Look at curriculum and session planning
Supporting Youth Work Resource Book: So, you want to work with young people
Introduction to Management
Aimed at new or prospective managers, this session offers an opportunity to develop management skills and explore basic management theories.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this training participants will have:
- An introduction to managing staff
- Explored basic management theories
- Developed an understanding of a range of management styles and some of the factors that need to be taken into account when leading a team
- Considered time management and ways to delegate and prioritise work
- Identified personal management styles and developed a leadership action plan
Developing Groupwork Skills
This course can be delivered as a one, two or three day programme. It presents a positive and highly practical approach to groupwork, helping practitioners to develop their skills. For those who are new to group delivery it will offer encouragement, enthusiasm and practical examples, to help you build your confidence. Suitable for anyone working with young people aged 11-19 in non-formal education settings, it explores key theories, dynamics and processes in working with or leading groups, as well as developing personal groupwork facilitation skills.
Learning outcomes;
By the end of the course participants should have:
- Explored group work theory
- An understanding of group processes and dynamics.
- Considered the positive and negative roles within groups.
- Considered strategies for dealing with difficult members and situations.
- Explored leadership and leadership styles
- Taken part in groupwork activities
- Experienced co-working and leading groups
Supporting Youth Work Resource Books: Teambuilding, Icebreakers, Evaluations & Endings
Managing Challenging Behaviour
This is an introductory day for youth work practitioners to look at working with challenging and aggressive behaviour. It aims to support professionals working with young people in a range of settings including schools, youth clubs and detached projects by offering strategies, activities and an opportunity to share experiences and best practice.
Learning outcomes
Through this workshop participants will be able to:
- Define aggressive behaviour
- Consider their own responses to crisis/difficult situations
- Consider factors & 'triggers' that can lead to aggression
- Use a range of risk assessment and preventative work to reduce tensions
- Try out simple techniques to de-escalate challenging situations
- Explore issues through case study and group work activities
Developing Mentoring Skills
Becoming a mentor is all about developing good communication skills and positive relationships with young people, enabling them to set goals and work towards them with support.
This course is an introduction to mentoring and can be effectively used to train volunteer or paid mentors to support young people. It can be offered over six weeks (6 x 3 hourly sessions) or three days for up to fifteen participants. Alternatively it could be delivered as a ‘train the trainer’ package.
Learning outcomes
This training programme will:
- Develop the skills required for coaching and mentoring
- Explore the role of ‘mentor’
- Consider boundaries and confidentiality
- Develop goal setting and action planning skills
- Look at ways to offer praise and celebrate achievement
- Explore ways to give effective feedback
- Look at assessing, recording and evaluating work
Developing Facilitation Skills
This one day facilitation skills training course is designed to offers participants a good understanding of what facilitation is, whilst building the practical skills required to enable groups to be more productive and effective. It can be delivered to practitioners and managers, as well as directly to young people.
This is a hands-on day that provides a basic grounding in how a successful facilitator works with a group and details the techniques and frameworks needed for effective facilitation. Learners will explore how to let the group concentrate on ‘content’ whilst the facilitator focuses on what is to be achieved and manages the ‘process’
This day is ideal for those who are newer to the field of facilitation or who want to develop their interpersonal skills when working with others. This includes learners who attend or lead a variety of meetings, wish to become more effective at guiding people or teams to solve problems, and those who intend to facilitate training workshops.
Learning outcomes
At this end of this facilitation skills training course participants will be able to:
- Explain the role of a facilitator and the key skills needed to work with groups
- Understand how to keep a group motivated and recognise situations where intervention is required, including managing group conflict and disagreement constructively
- Practice the tools and techniques learnt during the course to enable successful facilitation
- Identify personal facilitation strengths and areas to work on
Developing Presentation Skills
This course will help develop the skills required to make interesting, effective and powerful presentations, using a range of resources and styles. Interactive and highly participative, learners will develop the key personal skills needed for giving formal or informal presentations and gain confidence in the ability to communicate with an audience.
This is a programme for those less experienced at making presentations and there is an emphasis on practice, feedback and coaching. Learners will be expected to prepare a short presentation to deliver on the day and facilitate peer feedback. Handouts to support learning will be given to all participants, as well as signposting to additional learning and reading for those interested in exploring it further
Learning outcomes
By the end of this training, participants will be able to:
- Plan and prepare presentations
- Consider different learning styles
- Use key techniques for gaining and maintaining attention and credibility
- Deliver presentations in a way which reflects positively on the individual and the organisation
Feedback from delegates
'The training explored relevant equalities and diversity considerations, which is very important in mentoring young people'
'All of the activities that we undertook helped me to learn and made the training go quickly and enjoyably!'
'Vanessa is a fantastic trainer who really gets everyone in the group engaged.'
'I have attended a lot of similar courses and this counts as the best - the atmosphere was excellent and constructive'