Code of Ethics and Mana Taiohi
Over the next two topics we are going to explore best practice strategies to help young people develop life skills. We start by revisiting the Code of Ethics for Youth Work in Aotearoa New Zealand1 and its Mana Taiohi principles which frame and directly influence how you support and mentor young people.
The Code of Ethics guides how we make decisions and behave in our work with young people. As youth workers, we are in a significant position of influence, and often power over young people, their lives, and families. The Code ensures that we centre the privileged work we do in the best interests of young people in a safe, trustworthy, and ethical manner. The Code of Ethics is a living document we can continually refer to as our guide for best practice, especially in situations or areas of uncertainty.
As discussed in previous Modules, Mana Taiohi are the principles that provide a framework for the Code. They came out of a review of the Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa, with a particular emphasis on how we can adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as youth workers, and work better with rangatahi Māori.
This is the waka we row together. Being strengths-based and mana enhancing in our practice starts with us, and our relationship. Young people have the best bull$#!+ radars. If we are unable to practice what we preach, how can we expect young people to be expected to believe us as we endeavour to support them.Charmaine Tuhaka and Jane Zintl. 2019. Mana Taiohi – the journey, the destination
Task: Revisit the best practice principles of Mana Taiohi
Reread the article Mana Taiohi – the journey, the destination.2 As you read, think about how the best practice principles of Mana Taiohi influence your work. How do you go about incorporating these principles into your daily practice?
You can access the article at the link above. You will need to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the link to a pdf copy of the article.
Task: Which principle is demonstrated here?
Read the description below of a Mana Taiohi principle integrated into a youth learning situation on preparing for a job interview:
A group of young people are getting to know one another as part of a work-ready skills programme. The aim of the activity is to develop practical interviewing skills and to build up their confidence. The activity starts with a discussion, to help the group get to know each other in a positive way. The discussion is based around something that potential employers often start with – “Tell me something about yourself”. The young people prepare answers, practice with each other, and get feedback. They brainstorm what they have learned about each other and identify aspects that could show each person in a positive light to a potential employer. This leads in to identifying good answers for the job interview. The youth worker uses additional role plays to help prepare the young people to feel more confident answering this question in a job interview. Each person, including the facilitator, then shares what they learned about the group through participation in the role plays.
What are life skills?
A life skill is one that is necessary or desirable for full participation in everyday life.3
Life skills enable people to face and deal with the demands and challenges of everyday life. This becomes easier once we understand our thoughts, emotions and actions. This in turn leads to greater control of our behaviour, and helps us to develop healthy, supportive relationships.
Today’s job market has a high demand for soft skills related to interpersonal and intrapersonal communication, relationship management, ethics, emotional self-management, consistent work habits, teamwork, negotiation, leadership, problem solving, and an ability to manage one’s own learning, to name a few.4
In our society, education for young people is often very focused on academic performance. Community activities and learning through daily life may be viewed as useful but extra to the primary goals of formal education. However, the skills young people learn though participation in social or community activity are just as important for daily life and success in the workplace. How a young person experiences and responds in their day-to-day life shapes who they are (their identity). For young people, every interaction or activity can become a valuable new learning opportunity to further develop their understanding of how the world works and how they can contribute and participate in positive, creative ways.
We need to provide young people with opportunities to learn and practice the skills they need to contribute as full active members of their communities. These include skills relevant to thinking, self-management, communication, language, and social participation. The key competencies associated with life skills are drawn from a wide range of knowledges, attitudes and values and are essential for effective learning throughout life.
It is important to remember that young people adopt and adapt ideas, attitudes, practices, and behaviours that they see valued or used by those close to them or whom they admire in the wider culture. Young people integrate and develop expertise in these behaviours and ways of thinking until they become part of their identity or ‘way of being’ in the world. How young people develop life skills is shaped by their cultural knowledge, community ties, social interactions, environments, access to knowledge and ideas, and their available resources.
Task: Choices, actions, and habits
Think about some of the choices you make on a day-to-day basis, such as what to wear, what to eat, and who to socialise with. How do these choices relate to your life skills, and how do they impact your ‘way of being’ in the world? Watch the short video [5] below (3:27) and think about the following questions as you watch:
- What is the key concept of this video?
- What forms of privilege does this person have in their life?
- What are the wider economic, cultural, and environmental contexts that they are making choices within?
- Which life skills are being highlighted?
- How could learning life skills help the person in the video?
- What else could help them to lead a happy life, in addition to what’s shown in the video?
Small choices become actions, actions become habits, and habits become our way of lifeProject Better Self
SAFE approach to life skill development
In this section we will link the development of life skills to the principles of a learning model called SAFE. This model is based on an analysis of after-school programs aimed at encouraging the growth of personal and social skills in children and adolescents. In a research paper discussing the SAFE learning model,6 the authors recommend using a step-by-step approach that emphasises active forms of learning in which the young people can practise, focus their time and attention, and aim for clearly defined goals. They identify four interdependent features of learning that combine to form an approach described by the acronym SAFE (Sequenced, Active, Focused and Explicit).
Sequential learning
With a sequential learning approach, as mentioned above, we break skills up into manageable ‘chunks’. We then put these chunks into a step-by-step process for the purpose of learning. In this way we improve our ability to acquire new skills because it feels less overwhelming and more achievable. The burden of learning is greatly reduced. The person learning and developing the skill can focus their attention on achievable actions and follow a step-by-step pathway to greater proficiency in increasingly more complex situations. A series of outcomes are created and put into a sequence to achieve a final set of goals.
Sequential learning is a process that:
- links learning (including underpinning theory and ideas) through engagement with practical actions in real world situations
- combines a range of strategies, ideas, and activities into a coherent, sequential learning process
- aims to connect and integrate this instance of learning with a range of other life situations.
A sequential learning approach requires clear, specific learning objectives that identify and articulate which aspects of skills like communication, conflict resolution or decision-making are being learned. Also, how the learning builds on what came before it and its contribution to achieving the overall goal.
Young people need to know:
- what the overall goal is and what is expected of them
- how what they are learning fits into the learning sequence
- how the newly learned skills prepare them to take on new challenges.
Sequential learning enables the young person to take on a challenge one step at a time without being overwhelmed by the bigger picture. At the same time, a clearly sign-posted learning sequence shows the young person both what they are working to achieve and gives them a way to look back and clearly see how far they have come.
Here is an example of a sequential learning approach in the development of financial literacy – how to use money. This is not a one-off activity. Start out with small amounts and simple transactions in a simulated money use environment. Over the course of learning, use larger amounts with more complex transactions; introduce budgets and real-world money use situations. For financial literacy skills to become behavioural changes or habits the young person could practise focusing on different aspects of budgeting every time money comes into their account. However, financial literacy should not be developed in isolation from other life skills. Learning things like the difference between needs and wants, self-management, and responsible decision-making should be integrated into the financial literacy learning using a sequential and transparent approach. The young person could, for example, practise using the PACED (Problem, Alternatives, Criteria, Evaluate, Decision) decision-making model to make a purchasing decision based on their budget.
Active learning
With an active learning approach, young people are provided with opportunities to actively participate and safely practice new skills in a variety of situations. The aim is for young people to understand and appreciate the value of what they are learning and for this to change their behaviour. Simply being told or shown how to do something is not enough to create this change nor for something to become a regular part of a person’s daily life.
While they are learning, young people need safe spaces that retain aspects of real situations but without real world consequences. Strategies like mock interviews, simulations and role plays enable young people to:
- practice new skills and try out behaviours safely
- get real time feedback they can integrate into their learning.
Ultimately, however, acquiring life skills requires a lot of active learning in the real world. Where possible, it’s important to put young people into real-world situations but without leaving them unsupported. For example, supervised work experience programmes, or difficult conversations that include a mediator. The young person uses their newly learned skills in a safe and controlled environment (or simulation). They get feedback and try again. When ready, they move into additional real-world situations, and they continue to integrate their new skills under supervision, with support and feedback. They go through cycles of active participation and feedback until the new skills are mastered.
Returning to the example of financial literacy, the young person could first participate in a simulation where they have to budget and make financial transactions using mock money in a made-up situation. Later the young person participates in a controlled situation that involves real money, but someone checks their budget and talks with them about their options and process.
Focused
Development of any new skill means setting aside enough dedicated time and focused practice until the young person can use the skill without giving it specific attention; it becomes second nature to think, behave or act in a certain way. Concentrated focused practice needs a distraction free environment.
When you first learned to ride a bike, you did not just jump on the bike and head out onto a busy road! You started in your yard, driveway, or an empty parking lot. Here you concentrated on how to start, stay upright, and stop confidently. You set aside time to practise these things over and over. You had to pay attention to every little thing. But eventually, the basics of bike riding became second nature. Then, you could focus on learning the road rules in a safe area with few vehicles before you started to ride in traffic.
Notice how focused learning integrates with both active and sequential learning approaches. You did not learn the road rules for bikes just by being told them. You also had to practise using them first on a simulated road (empty car park) and then on a real one. You learned one step at a time. You did not try to learn everything at once. At first you gave more focus and attention to getting the basics right. Later you learned to ride in progressively more complex environments. It felt more manageable because you could focus time and attention on learning a narrow range of things each time.
Explicit
Learning objectives and outcomes must explicitly target specific skills, or aspects of those skills. The young person needs to know:
- what they are expected to learn
- how long a session or activity will be
- what they are expected to do.
Instructions should be clear and precise. It is easy to misunderstand statements such as “We can do that later.” Do you mean five minutes from now, after lunch, or next week? It is better to say something like, “We can do that after you have completed this group activity”. Or, “We will do this first thing after lunch.” Instructions should be consistent and specific in a language the young people can easily understand.
Examples of how instructions, explanations and learning can be made more explicit include:
- Use plain English or everyday language. Try to avoid using jargon, too many words, long sentences, uncommon expressions, and ambiguous vocabulary
- Tell the young person what the outcomes and goals are
- Be clear and transparent about what they are learning and its process
- Be clear from the beginning with any expectations for behaviour, resources they can use and how any success or achievement will be decided
- Use clear, concise verbal instructions and explanations backed up with written ones that a young person can easily refer back to.
An explicit approach makes the learning process and communication transparent, clear and concise with achievable outcomes that can be clearly identified by everyone, which can also help keep young people motivated. It is difficult to achieve a vague goal or one that you do not know even exists. Being explicit helps to break down barriers to further learning.
Task: SAFE principles
Match the SAFE principles to the descriptions.
Task: Introduction to social and emotional learning
Watch the video below (5:37)7 as an introduction to social and emotional learning (SEL). Although this video shares social and emotional learning strategies in a North American context, the initiatives explained here have similar outcomes to those seen in Aotearoa New Zealand. Youth initiatives that incorporate SEL encourage young people to envision what they want their life to be like, and then youth workers or mentors work alongside the young people to help them achieve their goals. Social and emotional learning originated from a variety of research and successful programmes around the globe. It is continuing to be adapted for use within the New Zealand context.
Core competencies of social emotional learning
As humans we learn through exposure to a variety of experiences and influences that help us to build our identity and shape our self-awareness and perceptions. This includes our own personal journey, family history, background and culture, relationships, community, and other influences like government policy or media. Who are we? What is our place in the world?
As we have covered in previous topics, for many young people, their world can feel unsafe and unpredictable as they navigate social norms related to the self, sexuality, religion, race, social status, and economic conditions. Young people face assumptions and judgements from others and society about who they are and what this means for them. How positive or negative these external perceptions are and their impact can often depend on factors outside of the young person’s control, yet they still must navigate them.
Providing young people with the tools to develop aspects of social emotional learning like personal motivation, a growth mindset, or self-understanding can have a powerful impact on learning life skills like healthy interpersonal interactions or social confidence. Social emotional learning can happen anywhere – at home, in the classroom, through interactions with others, mentoring relationships, or group activities.
In this section we’ll focus on the five core competencies of social emotional learning:
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship skills
- Responsible decision-making
Self-awareness
A young person who is self-aware can identify their own feelings and they understand how their emotions and thoughts influence their responses and behaviours. This happens in stages. First, they can recognise their own emotions. Then, they use this information to identify what is trigging those emotions and how they are expressed. Finally, they are able to identify how their emotional expression is affecting others.
Self-awareness means that I know:
- my personal strengths and my challenges
- what I need to help me thrive in life
- what it means for me to have a growth mindset
- my values and beliefs; and what matters most to me.
Self-awareness means I have thoughtful answers to these questions:
- Who am I? How do I see myself?
- Why do I think and behave this way?
- How do others see me?
- Am I being true to who I am in this moment?
Self-awareness enables a person to distinguish and hold their own beliefs and values, while still supporting and accepting others with perspectives and viewpoints different to their own.
Youth workers can support the development of self-awareness through:
- interactions with young people that respect others’ perspectives, thoughts, and emotions as valid and important.
- tools and conversations that help young people to learn about who they are and how this influences their behaviours and decisions.
Self-management
A young person who has good self-management or self-regulation knows how to monitor and consciously adapt their behaviours. It involves:
- planning (forethought)
- action (performance) and
- feedback (self-reflection).
Self-management requires self-awareness. When a young person knows and understands how their feelings and thoughts impact their behaviours and responses in a range of situations, they are aware of their triggers and where their reactions are coming from. This provides the information they need to inform greater control over how they respond in different, and especially difficult situations. That is self-management.
Self-management is the ability to behave in situations in ways that you determine rather than simply reacting in ways that are instinctive and controlled by emotional triggers you are unaware of. Without self-management our behaviour may be damaging for ourselves and others.
Indicators of self-management include:
- changes in behaviour – positive behaviours in difficult situations (especially if these situations had previously triggered negative behaviours)
- persevering through a situation; resisting the impulse to give up in the face of challenges
- not being afraid to start over when necessary
- being focussed and on task or staying on message
- taking the initiative in challenging, uncertain, or difficult situations.
Self-management builds resilience in young people as their behaviour is based on self-knowledge, which gives them greater power in a situation. They have control over what they initiate, how they respond and which actions they choose to take.
Social awareness
In an ideal world, all young people would have a supportive network of trusted adults whose beliefs and behaviours supported them to feel confident stepping out of their comfort zone.
Social awareness is what enables us to develop and maintain social connections. It gives us the ability to form deeper relationships with spaces, communities, and people because we understand the social norms and the demands of social interaction. We experience a stronger sense of belonging and connection with others. We are tuned in to how others feel and can identify their emotional signals; we recognise when they are happy, sad, or angry. We can step outside ourselves and see the world from different perspectives.
As youth workers, we can develop greater social awareness by:
- supporting and providing opportunities for verbal or written self-reflection
- describing our own emotions and relating these to our lives and experiences
- giving young people space and the tools to talk about their emotional states – fear, frustration, anger – rather than responding only to their acting out behaviour
- providing young people opportunities for interaction with people and ideas outside of their usual social circle
- modelling how to respect and learn from others through how we interact with others (including the young people themselves).
When young people only view the world from their own perspective or of those immediately around them, they only see their own problems. However, the ability to form genuine connections and see the world through the eyes of people outside of their usual circle builds empathy and changes self-perceptions.
When a young person can name their emotions (self-awareness) and respond to these emotions with behaviours they control (self-management) they can use this knowledge to develop social awareness – to build empathy and an ability to see life and situations from other viewpoints.
Relationship skills
Relationship skills are the ability to communicate and connect with a range of people in a healthy way that manages conflict in a productive way – avoiding a vicious cycle of conflict.
Social awareness helps the young person establish empathy with people – family, school friends, teammates, or workmates – and increases their engagement with those people. They find commonality through conversation and interaction and build relationships. However, what happens when a young person steps outside their comfort zone because they need to, or they choose to establish more challenging relationships? What happens when they encounter cultural differences or conflict with peers, or difficult social expectations or hostilities? How do they develop positive and healthy relationships in more challenging spaces?
Social awareness develops empathy, meaning we can start to imagine what it is to be the other person, to live in their world, to have their reality. However, empathy alone is insufficient. Healthy relationships require respect for others’ emotions and taking their perspectives and experiences seriously. Emotions like sadness, hurt or anger must be accepted as valid (even if some behaviours are not) and these emotions must be engaged with in ways that demonstrate consideration and respect. There needs to be a genuine desire to improve connection through conversation.
It is difficult for young people to learn effective relationship skills if they do not experience them from the adults who work with them. It can be challenging, but in order to support their relationship skills development, young people need to see us using them in our practice, especially when we are faced with situations of conflict, judgement, or unfair treatment.
Responsible decision-making
Decision-making is a process. We identify when a decision must be made. We gather information. We look for alternative options. We weigh up the different options against what we need and what is possible, and then make our choices.
Young people need all of the previously discussed social emotional core competencies to make good decisions. Young people often make bad decisions because they are still learning the life skills they need to make better ones.
As a young person’s self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills improve they become more conscious of the consequences of their decisions and behaviours. While their curiosity and desire to test boundaries may stay the same, they are better able to visualise alternatives and think through how different decisions could lead to positive or negative outcomes for both themselves and others. They are also aware that they have the power to make decisions. They understand that their decisions have consequences, which they can take responsibility for.
Responsible decision-making for young people can involve things like:
- finding alternatives to emotional outbursts when they are mocked or insulted, or when they’re on the receiving end of unfair judgements
- replacing or not repeating past unhealthy behavioural patterns
- the ability to deal with pressure from peers to do things they do not want to do
- proactively solving their own problems but reaching out for help when they need it
- providing support and being a positive influence on the decision-making of peers and family.
As a young person begins to acquire social and emotional core competencies, they also begin to increase their understanding of ethical and unethical behaviour. This influences their decision-making process and their perception of what their role is, or could be, in their community or society.
Task: Behaviour change in our own lives
As youth workers we mentor and support young people to develop life skills, but how familiar are we with social emotional learning and behaviour change for ourselves? How well do we cope with situations and relationships outside our comfort zone or when we do not feel confident?
Think of an experience you had that was outside of your own community or comfort zone. In this space, you did not know anyone, but you needed to meet with new people, communicate, build rapport, and establish relationships with these people. Can you recall what you did, how you approached the situation and how you felt as it was happening?
How was this situation for you, as it relates to:
- Understanding others and effective engagement with them
- Demonstrating cultural competence
- Establishing positive, healthy, lasting relationships
- Encountering conflict – mild and serious
- Offering help and support
- Asking for help and support
- Standing up for yourself
Task: Applying the core competencies to your practice
We have now covered the five core competencies for social emotional learning:
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship skills
- Responsible decision-making
How do these core competencies of social emotional learning inform your practice as a youth worker? What are some examples of you demonstrating these competencies in your own practice? Can you think of some examples of you working with young people to develop these competencies in the context of learning life skills?
Read through this resource on SEL from Te Kete Ipurangi.8 It matches specific skills to each of the social emotional core competencies. Keep a copy of this in your toolkit to refer to as you develop activities and sessions as part of your youth work practice.
Zone of proximal development
In this section, we’ll look at another model of youth development. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development9 is the distance between a young person’s actual developmental level and their potential (development level). A young person develops this potential through using skills like problem-solving with the support of adults or in collaboration with more experienced or capable peers.
As a diagram it looks like this:
- Centre (I can do unaided) represents the person’s existing knowledge – what they know and understand.
- Outer circle (What I cannot do) represents what the person wants or needs to be able to do in relation to one or more of the social and emotional learning competencies.
- Space (I can do with guidance) between the centre and outer circle represents where learning takes place with guidance from a peer, adult teacher, facilitator, or mentor. This is the zone of proximal development in which the SAFE best practice approach can be used for learning life skills.
This proximal development model can be used by the young person to help identify and talk about their individual learning needs. You can use it to help map out in more detail a strategy for helping the young person to successful meet their learning needs.
Task: Applying the zone of proximal development to activity design
Compare the zone of proximal development diagram with the resource on SEL from Te Kete Ipurangi8 that you looked at in the earlier task. Review the list of skills for each social emotional learning competency. Think about a young person or group you currently work with. How might you use this to help you plan some learning activities or sessions?
Keep this resource in your toolkit. You will be able to use it to help you design activities or sessions as part of your assessment.
Explore further
Here are some additional resources to help support your practice in using social emotional learning in your work with young people. Some of these will need to be adapted for the needs of young people in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. However, they represent a youth centred approach that is diverse and flexible. These resources include strategies for planning, scaffolding, engaging individuals and groups, and collaborative learning.
Social emotional learning and life skills
- Act for Youth is a centre for community action that connects research to practice in youth development. On this page they provide a collection of strategies and tools to help youth work professionals to promote social and emotional learning, along with useful links to other websites: Act for Youth – SEL Strategies and Tools
- The Education Hub is a collection of useful resources for educators. This link takes you directly to their introduction to social and emotional learning: The Education Hub – An introduction to social emotional learning
- Te Kete Ipurangi has a comprehensive guide for supporting positive peer relationships and understanding social and emotional learning in a New Zealand context: Te Kete Ipurangi – Guide to Positive peer relationships – Understanding social and emotional learning
- The Berkley Well-Being Institute provides definitions of life skills, abilities, and discusses the importance of focusing on these in youth development settings. It also includes information related to other skills and two recommended videos with inspirational messages about life skills: Berkeley Well-Being Institute – Life Skills: Definition, Examples, & Skills to Build
- CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) is a multidisciplinary network that includes researchers, educators, practitioners, and child advocates. They conduct research and provide resources on social emotional learning. You can learn more at their website, and through two videos that we have selected for you to watch: CASEL – What is the CASEL framework? | The fundamentals of social emotional learning (25:09) this video includes a model that overarches the SEL strategy | An overview of a social and emotional learning programme (6:14)
- The Extension Centre for Youth Development Training and Events at the University of Minnesota shares feedback from students on SEL strategies used throughout their education, and feedback from educators on research and outcomes of using these tools: Social and emotional learning in practice | Social emotional learning toolkit (5:37)
Mentoring resources
- The New Zealand Youth Mentoring Network offers a guide to effective and safe practice to support youth mentoring relationships and programmes. You can download the resource from their site here: Resources | Publications | Guide to Effective and Safe Practice in Youth Mentoring Aotearoa New Zealand (2nd edition)
- If you are looking for a bank of youth mentoring resources you may be able to adapt for your practice, you may also find this collection from the University of Auckland useful: The University of Auckland – Youth Mentoring Resources
Both this topic, and the next one, will help you to complete Task 1 in Assessment 4.4 and 4.5.
