Unit 307

Kristina Stylianou
Unit 307

1.
It is important to provide young people with accurate and up to date information because if I were to give them the wrong information, I would be letting myself and the young person down by not having the right knowledge. For example if a young female came up to me asking sexual health advice and I gave her leaflets that were out of date and not correct information, I could be putting her in a bad situation. Whereas, if I provided the correct information she would have a better prospective of the situation and I would have helped her with her query.

1.2
Our role as practitioners are not to let our personal feelings show when giving information and advice. This could be if a young female aged 13 approached me asking for sexual advice and personal opinion may be that she is too young to be having sex. However I must keep my feelings to myself and provide the correct information and advice to this young person.

2.1
In the youth work setting, I would encourage people to approach me if they needed advice as I can then help them with any decisions needed to make or any questions they may have on their life. For example if someone needed help choosing the correct University or job role, I would be able to provide them leaflets on the different Universities and courses available. If they wanted advice on job roles I could take them to Lewisham’s website where the give information on job applications and offers.

3.1
It is important to provide opportunities for young people to give them a sense of responsibility, which will help them in the future. Recently I have organised for a Sexual Health Advisor to attend the Adventure for a Sexual Health session. During this, the young people learnt all about STI’s, different contraception methods and where they can go for advice. This gave them all the information and resources they need to make an informed choice regarding their sexual health.

3.2
At my Adventure, I had a young person aged 16, who was always in and out of Youth Offenders. He liked to try new things but was associating with the wrong group of people within his area. This lured him away from his true skills which were making things, i.e. carpentry.

The last time he came out of prison, his forth time, he decided he wanted to change his life around, by starting a fresh; with the help of Probation, the Youth Offending Service, etc. We then worked with these partners to try and secure a good future for him, by looking at different courses he could do, that he would also enjoy to keep the motivation going.

3.3
As mentioned above in 3.2, I have helped a young person to look for different courses to keep him motivated. I gave him a number of colleges to get in touch with that run courses he will be interested in. With this information, I asked him to come back to me to find out if he has been researching and finding out about this. I wanted to make sure he was taking on board the advice we gave him and putting it to good use, which I was keen to see when he came back.