BACK PAGE: Last Word

I'm leading the involvement of young people in the interviews for our targeted personal advisers. My challenge was to get a group of young people up to speed on Connexions and ready to interview the prospective PAs.

It has been quite a while since I actually did this sort of thing. But I quickly remembered the three essentials: a couple of brilliant co-workers, a flip chart or OHP and a toaster.

I talked a couple of other youth workers into being the brilliant co-workers - the kind who would have young people desperate to get involved even if they were offering double detention on a Saturday. I checked the toaster was in working order. The power of the toaster should not be underestimated.

As many youth workers know, a cup of tea and a piece of toast can go a very long way indeed.

As the day got underway, I remembered how much fun this sort of thing is. One classic moment was when the life-or-death question 'so will we have bottles of water on the table then?' shattered the concentration of the group at the most complex part of the interview techniques workshop.

Everyone was participating, arms uncrossed and feet pointing the right way. We only had two mobile phone interruptions during the afternoon.

We agreed on an interview format, opting for a case study. I remembered that you can guarantee young people will jump in at the deep end. We considered incest as the case study subject, but finally settled on alcoholism and teenage pregnancy. I could tell that without some careful facilitation, our case studies could have ended up reading like ratings-hungry soap scripts. Never mind a debrief, we would have had to have provided full counselling afterwards.

However, tired (but not hungry thanks to the toaster), we pulled it all together. Our search for the perfect PAs has been a win, win, win situation.

We'll make better appointments; the young people involved have learned lots; and I've been reminded how rewarding it is to work with young people.