Learning about Reflective Practice

Blog by Smahan Soussi YMCA Youth Ambassador from YMCA North London

It’s been great coming back to meet the group I met back in October on the first part of the programme, from Kosovo, Northern Ireland and England I met back in October, I have been very excited to go to Northern Ireland to continue the second part of the programme, I must say the facilitators kept the schedule secret and they have definitely exceeded my expectations.

So far we have met new people through connections that Greenhill YMCA have i.e. a youth work lecturer and a reflective practice trainer. They both gave us a lot of knowledge about both subjects and how they can be improved within our YMCA’s.

We have also visited Londonderry YMCA and met some of the staff, young people that use the youth centre and the CEO who also gave us a tour and showed us more about the history and current conflict that affects Northern Ireland daily. I personally wasn’t aware of the conflict in much detail and have now seen for myself that this is still very visible today, through segregation with peace walls and communities staying within their areas.

 Today we learnt about the definitions of reflective practice, why this is so useful and ways we can implement this through good practice at our local YMCA’s. We also looked at the Gibbs framework model and used this with our own examples that we have already been through and would’ve changed if we reflected on this.

We also interacted with each other to find out the similarities and differences within our own personal upbringing and looked at how this could affect us whilst working with young people and how people’s natural behaviours that are acceptable within their community can be translated in a completely different way from a person with a different type of upbringing.

We also went on to challenge ourselves and make good use if our team work skills. The first activity was laser tag where we were split into two team and had to shoot each other using a laser tag gun.

The second activity we were again split into two groups, the group I was in completed the low ropes course and the other group completed the zip wire. The main aim of the low ropes challenge was to get from the start to the end of the course without touching the floor, using only ropes and metal bars. Without the help of each other this challenge would’ve never been completed, we thought of different methods together and helped each other to complete the challenge.

The last part of the day we watched a motivational true story that showed courage, motivation, passion and never giving up on your team. These are the qualities a good youth worker should have and this proved that with a good youth worker and a good team behind you anything is possible.