Responding to Disclosures in Youth Work

Youth Workers often claim a very important position within young people’s lives. It may be that they are one of the only trusted adults in their world and that young person is experiencing inner turmoil which they need help with. Youth workers often will find themselves hearing the intimate knowledge of a young person’s life and need to know their responsibilities and privileges in these situations.

Young people face a variety of challenges and this training seeks to outline some necessary responses to a range of disclosures from young people and a set of guiding principles for the youthworker/young person relationship. We are also bringing in facilitators from agencies who specialise in supporting young people through these specific areas so that youth workers are equiped to know who can help in these scenarios.

The Workshop will cover the following content:

• Introduction to the Ethics and guiding principles in responding to all disclosures
• Responding to disclosures about depression, anxiety, self harm, suicidal ideation
• Responding to disclosures about sexual abuse/violence
• Responding to young people coming out about sexual/gender identity
• Panel discussion from all facilitators

Facilitated by Dr Sue Bagshaw from The Collaborative Trust, Catherine Gallagher from START and Alice Andersen from Qtopia.

Extra guests are being arranged for the panel