WAF - the training and its influence on our practice
Angie Birch, Outfit Team, BRYR
The following article describes some of BRYR’s experiences with the WAF process to date. The areas the article focuses on are: BRYR’s experience with the training, our experience working the WAF way, finally how BRYR came to the decision that our Outfit programme participants would all benefit from being “WAFFED”.
BRYR released five of its full time youth/outreach workers to be trained the WAF way. All five attended all the training and learned a lot from it. One of the main elements that stands out in my mind from that training programme is the “shift in paradigm” that needs to take place in order for the Ballymun community to get the most out of its WAFS. We have come to realise over the last number of years in Ballymun that working in an interagency manner is more beneficial for the people we work with. However, at the same time it is also more challenging for the agencies to change the face of their organisation so that the interagency model becomes integral to their everyday work.
The forty-two WAF trainees consisted of staff from eighteen organisations, both voluntary and statutory, across Ballymun. Each trainee was placed on a level playing field all starting from the same point. WAF was new to everyone. The WAF trainees possessed a vast amount of experience both personal and professional that they brought to the table, there was room and respect for experiential learning as well as the many recognised theories that were presented to us, and we learned that belief in our ability to work with vulnerable young people is key. We do have within us many of the skills/knowledge that are required to help an individual/family to bring about positive change. WAF taught us we don’t always have to refer our young people on to the “health professionals.” Key to WAF is the young person, their goals, their family and other support systems, helping themselves and drawing on their natural strengths, skills and knowledge so that for the young person themselves it is their plan of action and they have control of where they want to go.
This next section describes how we in BRYR are putting WAF into action. The beauty about WAF is that all the organisations that were trained can use the WAF the way that is best for the need of the young people they are already working with. How we identify a WAF case is, if we feel someone we are working with may be heading for a crisis or indeed coming out the other end of a crisis, or their situation requires support, and if their family are interested in being part of a process now in BRYR we can offer them WAF.
As WAF is new to us the take up is slow and monitored and we learn by doing. One case we had since May is still going on, for the first month or two the level of support required was very high but the support required now is a lot less. WAF can be different from case to case, presently we are working on another case but we have to go at the young person’s and the family’s pace not ours. All the way through the process in the different phases, Catherine our WAF coordinator and Graham our clinical psychologist are available for meetings to discuss the steps along the way.
Its good how its broken down into separate stages so all we have to do is get through one stage and not worry about the second stage until we are ready for it. This approach keeps it simple and focused. In our experience we had a number of meetings with the young person, with their family, discussing WAF, signing the contract, discussing strengths, developing crisis plans and setting up goals, we have aimed at this becoming integral to our existing work. We don’t look for WAF outside of the young people we are already working with, we focus on who we are working with and how they could benefit from the WAF model.
To this effect we are currently planning to introduce “WAFFING” to our new Outfit programme participants. We envisage they will all buy into the WAF process in January/February 2010, we will then together set goals with them and take it from there. We will have 16 new ‘Outfits’ who will all benefit from WAF and using this model also gives us the added benefit of bringing their families on board. This is all new to us as youth workers. It has to be remembered that traditionally in youth work we work with the young person on their own. We have all come to learn that working with one agency or person in isolation is not as beneficial as if we were working together, family, young person and appropriate agencies – now we are WAFFING!!
