Do you jump in with a suggestion when the group is quiet or seems stuck or do you tend not to make any suggestions at all?
Are you lively and noisy in a group setting or quiet and retiring?
Do you like to talk with others about your ideas or do you like to just get on with it?
Do you think your ideas are the best or do you think others always have better ideas?
Are you able to be flexible or do you tend to like to hold onto your own ideas or sense of what the group should be doing?
Are you a team player or are you more of an individualist?
Do you like to get to know the people in your group on a personal level or are you quite happy just getting together without knowing intimate details about others?
Do you let others know how their behaviour affects you or do you keep your feelings to yourself?
Learning Topic 3: Work with the young person as the focus
By the end of this topic you will be able to use your knowledge and skills to:
Apply youth centred practices when working with young people
Respect the rights needs and responsibilities of the young person and worker
Establish professional relationships and boundaries with a young person and recognise and manage power inequities in working with young people
Section 3.4: Recognising and managing power inequities in working with young people
Young people can feel excluded from the employment, political, health, housing, financial and legal systems, through lack of understanding and limited experience in dealing with these systems and often a feeling of not being heard.
In 1995 the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (ALRC, 1997) conducted an inquiry into ‘children’ (aged 12-25 years) and the legal process. A significant finding of the inquiry was that ‘children’ do not have political power. They have limited say in decisions affecting their lives and are generally unable to have input when decisions are made against their best interests. The National Children’s and Youth Law Centre Submission clearly summed it up by stating:
Children and young people are a relatively powerless group in society. Adults very often make significant decisions about children without consulting them or seeking to involve their participation in the decision making process. They are rarely informed or consulted about new laws and policies which will impact upon them. They are frequently denied rights and opportunities that other members of the community take for granted. Many laws treat children and young people not as people but as the property of their parents or as objects of concern. Many protectionist laws and policies are based on outdated paternalistic notions. There is a considerable imbalance between children and young people and government agencies such as the police and schools.
Young people need to rely to a large extent on adults to speak on their behalf and protect their rights. The vulnerability of children tends to be reinforced by the attitudes of adults in society and the legal processes. High rates of unemployment, homelessness and mental health problems (including suicide) reinforces the critical need for young people to be advocated for strongly across government and non-government departments.
The ALRC (1997) found that many young people do not feel they have a voice in the legal processes affecting them.
70 percent stated that the magistrate or the judge did not let them have a say in their case.
62 percent did not know what was happening, and
78 percent believed they did not have enough say in decisions made about them.
These findings highlight the crucial role for workers in providing a strong advocacy role for young people and their families.
In order to be a strong advocate for young people you are working with it is important to have access to good legal information. It is impossible to keep up with legislation related to young people because it frequently changes and varies from state to state. However, there are now a number of ways to access good information quickly. The Internet, for example, provides comprehensive information covering each state.
In 1995 the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (ALRC, 1997) conducted an inquiry into ‘children’ (aged 12-25 years) and the legal process. A significant finding of the inquiry was that ‘children’ do not have political power. They have limited say in decisions affecting their lives and are generally unable to have input when decisions are made against their best interests. The National Children’s and Youth Law Centre 