Thoughts From the First Week

Friday was pretty much a paperwork day.. Nothing too exciting to blog about in general but it was still a tone of learning. I tried to get caught up on my blogging a bit. I also had my first international placement seminar chat with Catherine which went well. Talked about in general how I am doing in my placement and just being in a new country. Talked about my goals and was pushed to talk about them in a bit more detail and find stronger ways to be able to concretely show that I had completed or reached them (which I'm not surprised about, like I said I tend to like to focus on the bigger picture at times).
I have leaned so much in just a week about the program itself. I think I am really enjoying the fact that it is a block placement. By having it be a block placement (ie. A solid block of time – Monday to Friday, six weeks everyday vs 10hr a week for two terms) I am finding that I am much more entrenched into the everyday workings of the centre.. but then again it has been quite a few years since I have even done a placement. I just find that in my previous placements in my diploma it took me a month or two to get where I feel I am at the end of my first week which is super nice. I do know there is so much more for me to learn though. I can tell I'm just really starting to understand the work that is done here and starting to figure out how all the different programs work together, but are very separate from each other.
The other part of just this whole experience that I am really enjoying is getting to live in the community. I am finding that I am getting an opportunity to see different sides and views of the community, of the services, and just a more well rounded experience of getting to know the environment/community where the young people I will be working with are from. I think this can only help me in understanding some of the social issues more clearly and relating it back to my experience in Canada.
I think a big learning for me has been figuring more in-depth what the centre is even really about. Coming into it I thought the centre was more of a the type of youth centre you might find in Canada, and me saying that is kinda funny in the first place cause I really have no idea what a youth centre in Canada is really like other then from word of mouth since I have never really worked in, gone to, or visited a youth centre in the community. But with that being said, I think I do have a general idea of what some of the youth centres in Edmonton area where friends and classmates have worked and done placements at are like in the most surface level way. But my experience at the centre has helped me to even question that. Here there are multiple programs all running under the same roof but are not all necessarily joined and are not funded by the same funding bodies. The centre has more so turned into a hub for youth work. Because of this I have found it to have a very diverse staff team all working under different agendas helping each other build each of their practises and meet their goals. It also gives them the unique ability that if a young person is ageing out or not a good fit for their (FAN) program, they have multiply other programs to try and see if they might fit better into one of those programs (Education Program/Detached Youth Work).

Pizza Oven

One of the other really exciting things about this week is I have slowly been introduced to different projects the centre has been working on. Mick talked to me about a bunch of different projects from a garden, to building a pizza oven, to working with young people from prison on building a pad area outside built with stones made in prison. Martin from the Fan project has been working with the youth on different painting projects around the building to help update it's looks and give the youth who are now using the facility more ownership of the building and make them feel more a part of it. I was also told about some of the videos the youth have done (acting, writing, directing, filming, etc) and how they have won awards for these short films. Martin (from the Education program) and Dara (from the Efforts program) explained to me more in depth the Hero project getting youth from Northern Ireland to mix and play Hockey with youth from Finglas in a partnership with some Canadian hockey coaches.