Annually away

There are various times in a year when I'm not going to be in the local vacinity but away on some sort of training/retreat time.

This week was one of those times. I was up in Audley End, taking time out with other youth works from across Essex to learn about Young people, Sexuality and Spirituality. David and Brandy came all the way from Knoxville to share in a very specialist subject it seems. David is only one of about 80 people in America who provide christian based sex therapy for families and teenagers.

Now be honest... Did you know it existed? I had some sort of idea, but still wasn't 100% sure, so as always I went into the unknown, head on, wanting to learn about this.

I learnt a lot. Things about teenagers that I never knew and had some really interesting discussions with the people that were there. Some of the behaviour I see has been explained, some of it is still a mystery, but I've got a way of finding out why that behaviour occurs.

David's work website is here.

I know I'm going to try and read up on this more and I've got a couple of CD's to listen to that are going to be good. David and Brandy were brilliant, easy to understand and consistently good with all their information. The whole time away was constructive for me, I did some thinking and started to understand my behaviour a little more. Made some good connections with people and I'm looking forward to seeing them all again.

I've also got another link for you to look at, head over to schoolswork.co.uk to see the new 'we love our youthworker' charter that has been launched, also check out Dave's brilliant postcards that go with the charter. (I want to retreat to the top of a column!)

Today is a 'do the minimum' day... I like it!