Q&A

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If you are a youth worker, Connexions worker, participation officer, teacher or voluntary sector youth leaders, whatever you want to ask, simply email Vanessa and the answers to all questions where others could benefit will appear here on the Q&A page.

Q. My Name is Dan Turpin and i am a Youth Volunteer Advisor for the Southend involved team. I am taking a session on confidentialty and boundries. The group I am working with are 16+ and are training to be sexual health volunteers want the session to be fun and intresting! Any ideas?? Cheers.
Dan

A. Hi Daniel
Here is a rough session plan for you to follow that will look at values, personal boundaries and how to work effectively with issues that your volunteers may feel less comfortable with. All are interactive and offer the opportunity for discussion and teambuilding too.
1) Warm up – provides a chance to suss out individuals values etc– agree/disagree. Call out a range of statements – for example ‘the age of consent should be raised to 18’ or ‘ the way some girls dress they are asking for sexual attention’, and ask people to move to one side of the room or the other. Make sure you have lots of topics that cover a whole range of values and attitudes.
2) Boundaries discussions – read out scenario’s and ask the group to discuss what they should/would do as a youth worker.
3) Comfort Zone Cards – devise cards with a range of scenarios on that relate to your topic. For example ‘a young person asks you what the extra strength condoms are for’ or ‘a young person says they have had unprotected sex within the last 24 hours and think they may have an STI’. Give out a piece of flipchart paper with a continuum ‘Most Comfortable’ and ‘Least Comfortable’ at the other end. Get them to discuss and then place in the right place, dependent on how comfortable and confident they are about discussing the subject and advising young people. Then talk about those they feel least comfortable with, why and how they can feel better about discussing the subject with other young people.
For further details see my book ‘So you want to work with young people?’, which has a chapter on boundaries
Hope this is useful and all is well in Southend
Vanessa

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