Reference no: EM133308000

Case: John Balagee is a 16-year-old male who lives at home with his parents, Margaret and Paul Balagee. John is of Aboriginal decent and is Paul and Margaret's only biological child. John plays football in a development squad, gets good grades, works part-time at a fast food company and helps around the house with chores.

Paul was recently asked by his kinship brother (not biologically related) to take in Max, aged 15. Max's family are located in Alice Springs. Max has a history of getting into trouble with the police. He has a record for truancy, shop lifting, petrol sniffing, underage intoxication, violence and verbally abusing police.

Although not biologically related, Max is considered family under the kinship system, and Paul did not want to say no to his kinship brother out of honour and respect of culture and tradition.

Max has now lived with the family for six months. Max rarely attends school, he often pretends to go to school and sneaks back home to smoke cannabis while Paul and Margaret go to work. In the evenings, Max often disappears for hours to hang out with older boys in the area. He often returns home early in the morning intoxicated with alcohol or in the company of local police.

If Max is intoxicated, he often goes into John's room, and calls him names like 'pussy' or 'loser' before retiring to his own room. On most occasions when Max returns in company of the police, Paul and Margaret can be heard arguing with Max about his behaviour until Max walks out or goes to bed. Max's anti-social behaviour has resulted in Paul and Margaret being summoned by police a number of times.
John has been frequenting the 'Solid Youth' youth service for the last five months. Over that time, you've noticed John's behaviour change - he appears to be more withdrawn and isolated. John has been coming to the youth centre more frequently.

One day, he tells you that he hates being at home because of Max. He says that Max steals all his stuff, calls him names and is always trying to fight him. He says that his parents spend most days arguing about what to do with Max and have barely spoken to John in weeks. John said he's been sleeping at friends' houses a lot because he hates being around Max. John recently lost his job because Max and his mates went to John's work and started throwing chairs and tables around. John has also stopped going to football because he's been too tired from Max antagonising him in the early mornings. John cries as he describes how different his life was before Max and doesn't understand why his dad can't break tradition.

As a youth worker at Solid Youth, you have organised to facilitate a meeting between John, his parents and Max to see if you can help resolve some of the issues the family is facing.
Working effectively with young people and their family

Throughout this learner guide we have focused on skills to ensure you will be able to communicate effectively with young people and their families to achieve positive outcomes.

Question 1: How can you assess the impact of your own cultural values?

Question 2: How can you put aside your cultural background and create a multicultural acceptance in your youth work?