The Teenage Whisperer

I have been working with teenagers for practically my whole life- in early life I was babysat by one, shortly after had elder siblings who were teens and then became one myself. Even after I stopped being one myself, I still had a younger sister who was one and by the time she had entered her twenties, I was working professionally with them. While my greatest academic learning has come from my professional work, I do not discount my valuable experience living with and being one!

Professionally speaking I started out studying at the University of Bristol graduating with a BSc and two MScs in Social Science, incorporating a hefty dose of psychology. This was put into practice working in a mainstream secondary school in England for 11-18 year olds, working specifically with those with emotional and behavioural difficulties. I then moved on to working with young offenders / juvenile offenders where I currently find myself.

It has always been said that I have an innate natural talent for child / teenage behavioural psychology and the success that I have had engaging teens in my worklife bears this out.

My underlying operating values are:

• a belief in the power of redemption – nobody should be thrown on the scrapheap

• everybody is capable of change, no matter how small

• without a sense of hope, then nothing can and will change

• positivity gets things done, negativity brings everyone down

• the power of taking personal responsiblity- can hurt but ultimately it motivates and fosters improvement in people

Overall, with each and every young person I have worked with I hope that they knew that I cared, which is what every man, woman and child needs to know if they are to be the best they can be. This is my motivation for this blog also- if professionals and parents etc read this blog and take one thing away from it that helps a young person to know that they care, then I have achieved my goal.