How a being a youth worker can create heartwarming moments with people

Hello everyone! Hope you're all having a great week so far, whatever you're doing.

Since I have a day to myself, I thought I'd share something that had happened whilst I was helping out at the Challengers Orange Aid event on Saturday. 

On Saturday, (13th of September) I had the privilege to be asked to help out at the 2nd time running annual Challengers' Orange Aid event. 

Me & my friend/colleague were in charge of manning the lego tent for the day, and I'm sure we had at least 10 kids come in to have a good build with them, as well as make one big scattered pile of different assorted legos.😂

That aside, we saw loads of other families thoroughly enjoying themselves too. Which was so lovely to see! Especially how they have such a good relationship with us as a service, and they know how well we support them whenever they need it.

I was sitting out by the lego tent for most of the day, and at one point, there was a boy who I recognised that went to the SEMH school I used to work at for 6 months (Grafham Grange). When he, and the mother were sitting close by our tent, the mother came over to me, and said that the boy recognises me from his school. He remembers my name as well. We both had a friendly chat for a few minutes, then when the mother & boy walked away, the boy said to me in a nice tone & manner: "Have a lovely day, and see you later".

This warmed my heart knowing that kids like him are perfectly capable of showing a kind personality when they are in a community friendly event. Especially when they remember you from their school setting. Fun fact: I had actually worked with this boy in IL before at my old school I used to work at, and I could hardly believe the difference in him when I saw him away from the school. This is purely all down to friendly interaction I had with him there.

Another time, there was another mother & son who approached me, and the son used to attend the previous Challengers scheme I worked at before it got shut down due to financial issues. The mother had a friendly conversation with me to begin with, by talking about how well her son is doing now since he aged out of Challengers 3 months ago.

She then kneeled by me to talk about some personal issues he'd been having over the past year (Won't go into any detail). The last few things she said was how much she appreciates as youth workers being there for the young people, like her son, as we make them feel accepted for who they are for what they are as individuals. She also added how she wants nothing else in the world other than her son to feel safe for who he is.

These are the pure reasons why I still carry on doing what I do as a youth worker, as I get to work closely with different young people by helping them be more confident with interacting with adults, as well as help them to have more confidence in themselves as they get older. The best part is when you know they know it too.🧡

How the power of play is so impactful on young people

Hello everyone! Hope you've all had a good August, I know I have!

I say that, as I was working during the weekday for 3 weeks from the 28th of July - the 19th of August. Not to mention that I got to enjoy myself doing other things over the weekends in between as well. I even had a an enjoyable holiday from the 20th and only got back home yesterday (the 28th).

Since I have downtime for most of today, I thought I'd do a post on here which is inspired by the Challengers' Impact Report of 2025. Especially how my life involves that place at the moment. It will mainly consist of how play is so vitally important to help young people with various disabilities navigate the world.

One of the core values at Challengers, is to NEVER exclude anyone regardless of how complex their needs are. This is done to ensure that they all fit, as well as interact with every other young person on scheme who all have similar needs to them.

Now, let's talk about inclusivity... What do we do at Challengers to ensure every young person feels included on scheme? The answer couldn't be much simpler, we provide a range of activities which are all accessible to suite every young person's need. Even if the activities are not accessible to some young people at first, we will always make every effort to make them accessible to those young people.

This also leads me to the next rhetorical question... How do all of the staff at Challengers let the young people have fun playing on scheme? We (as staff members) undergo regular safeguarding, first aid & crisis drills training to ensure every young person who comes on scheme is in safe hands & well looked after. To this extent, we get visits from Ofsted to check we meet the safeguarding needs that Challengers provides to young people.

And the big rhetorical question... Why are both of these things blended together so vitally important for young people to play on scheme? This is because we are dedicated to bringing laughter & smiles out of these young people despite the challenging behaviour that they present us with. Although in all of the schemes I've worked in, it's some more than others. Allowing challenging young people to play really helps them to become more happier, and they can demonstrate that (verbally or not) by interacting with us, as they rarely get so much of that much needed intensive interaction elsewhere. Some young people are even aware of how well we look after their medical needs, as we will always welcome them with warm arms into our schemes where no other place would due to how complex their medical or behaviour needs are.

To see the evidence for yourselves, I have attached the Impact Report of 2025: https://disability-challengers.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Challengers-Impact-Report-2024-25.pdf

*I began this post on the 29/8, but didn't finish it until the 30/8*

How working at Disability Challengers feels so rewarding

Hello everyone! I cannot believe it's now the 1st of March already?! I swear NYD still felt like it happened yesterday?!

Anyway, enough hyperbole. I know it's been a month since I was last active on here, as my work-life is heavily getting in the way of that. Especially with my new job. However, I have an unexpected day off work today, so I thought I'd make an appearance back on here again.

As the above title states, I feel like I should talk about how rewarding my job at Disability Challengers is, as well as how does it personally make me feel rewarded.

For those of you who have never heard of Disability Challengers, it is a charity-based job where it primarily consists of interacting with children with disabilities, as well as providing them with fun activities.

And as the company name states, every child comes with a unique set of behaviours. Hence I also manage those children's behaviours whilst having fun interacting with them on scheme.

Working at Disability Challengers feels so rewarding for me, as I am (let's not leave out my colleagues/friends here as well!) providing a safe, playful & overall fun environment for our service users. The backstory of this reason is due to the fact that they may have nowhere else to go & have fun, as other people view their disability as a burden.

I personally like to vision myself as a superhero at the end of every shift. This is because helping people helps me to become a better person in life, and I tend to thrive on the very thought of me visioning myself as a "superhero".

In fact, the last 10 months I have been working at Disability Challengers has made me develop into a more better person. Both physically & mentally. This is because I had the pleasure of working alongside some amazing & all round lovely people, (particularly on the schemes I work at) who accept me for who I am as a person, which help me to gain more confidence when working as a team.

*I began this post on the 1/3/24, but didn't finish it until the 2/3/24*

The best way to understand people's behaviour

This is a post which will be relating to my job as a disability play/youth worker. Not only that, but I will also be dishing out tips & advice for the best way to get to understand children & young people with complex needs.

What does a play/youth worker do?

A play/youth worker is a member of staff who works on play or youth scheme, (or in my case, Disability Challengers) and basically gets to work with children & young people while they get to have fun playing on scheme.

However, a playworker doesn't just play with children & young people, a play/youth worker also has an important job to ensure everyone is safe while playing on scheme. This is essentially called safeguarding.

Going into safeguarding, I, as a play/youth worker, must keep my vigilance at all times when it comes to children & young people's behaviours. This is because behaviour can either be represented verbally or physically, which could eventually become a risk to everyone on scheme, as well as themselves. If a behaviour really was to escalate into the too dangerous category, then a play/youth worker will have no choice but to perform a safety intervention. (SI) This is where a play/youth worker (who MUST be trained in SI to do this) physically removes a child or young person off from another person if they are physically hurting them.

All in all though, a play/youth worker ensures any child or young person has the best day on scheme regardless.

What is the best way to understand children & young people with complex needs?

We always do a briefing 15mins prior to the children or young people coming onto scheme. This helps us to get to know the children or young people who will be coming in for the day, as we get to read through their information sheet. Or as we call them, CIS's.

I'll use the example if I was to going get put with a 1:1 child or young person for the morning & another for the afternoon. I usually let that 1:1 child or young person do what they want to do, so it helps me to understand what they like to do best on scheme. I also pay close attention to how they communicate, whether they use a device, body language, noises or just verbally talking. No 2 people I work/interact 1:1 with are the same. 

If I was to bullet point some handy tips for you all when it comes to working with children or young people with complex needs at a place like Disability Challengers, they'll be things like:

• Always communicate to non-verbals using sign language, as they would benefit from this more
• Ensure you read through their CIS's thoroughly, so you know how to handle them on scheme
• Never show your impatience with trying to get your 1:1 to do something, like going to the toilet, as A) It will make yourself look unprofessional, and B) It may traumatize them
• Never punish a child or young person if they did something wrong on scheme, like hitting someone, as it is not our protocol to give them punishments
• Always listen to what any child or young person comes up & says to you on scheme, as they feel like they can open up to you about anything on their mind
• If you get asked to hang around with the non-1:1's on scheme, do try to interact with them all, because some of them may feel lonely without staff interaction
• In relations to hanging out with the non-1:1's on scheme, try to get them all playing together

I think that's pretty much everything covered for this long post now. 

Anyway, I hope my personal insight to what I do at work, as well as my tips has provided sine useful insight for anyone wishing to work as a play/youth worker one day.

If anyone has made it all the way down to this point, I just like to thank you for taking the time to read all of the way through, and I shall hopefully be back very soon with another post!

*I began this post on the 12/8/23, but didn't get round to finishing it until the 18/8/23*