Film review.
(GBR) Mark and I spent the last two days with fifteen youth workers from the Milton Keynes Integrated Youth Service, helping them explore, understand and use social media in their work with young people and in their own professional development.
Here's the short film review:
Milton Keynes Youth Service would like to thank MediaSnackers for not only delivering the most up to date and relevant training over the two days but for also moving us on as a service. The package delivered, the examples given and the practical application and also the exploration was truly amazing.
The delegates who attended ranged from various backgrounds with equally varied levels of understanding. Some of us knew elements, other little, some were keen, some were hesitant. However, over the course of the two days everyone was taken on a journey that was supportive and understanding of differing abilities.
Ethical issues were fully explored and delegates spent a healthy amount of time investigating their own thoughts and feelings towards social media, the impact and benefits. Fears were explored and discussed leading to better understanding and increase in confidence.
From my point of view I personally gained a great deal out of the two days, learning how to apply new ways of working to my practice, so many ideas have since sprung up! I also enjoyed watching people visibly develop in front of me. The way fears and barriers were reduced or bowled over was incredible. Towards the end of the event watching people show what they had done and how proud of what they had produced was so great to see.
What next? This has changed so much already! The service has formed a social media team in which we are investigating how to best and safely integrate social networking in to practice delivery. We have also begun to deliver projects using social media. Such platforms as YouTube, Facebook and Blogger are proving to be so empowering. Even service managers have got a Blogger going as a way of updating each other to reduce emails. Staff that previously would never had gone near social networking are now working with young people, creating groups of interest online and making videos to promote the positives of youth.
Everyone at Milton Keynes Youth Service is so thankful to MediaSnackers for such a huge impacting course that will and is making a huge difference.
Matthew Barnaby, Youth Participation Team Leader
Related posts: Milton Keynes Youth Service Staff Training Part One and Milton Keynes Youth Service Staff Conference