About WAAYW

a professional association for youth workers

Our Vision:
“Western Australian Association of Youth Workers...Your First Point of Call for Youth Work”

what we are

The WAAYW is the professional association for youth workers in Western Australia, an important element in the professionalisation of youth work in the state. The purpose of the WAAYW is:

“To promote, develop and regulate the profession of youth work to ensure better service to young people”

promote
WAAYW aims to provide clarity around the role of the youth worker and create better understanding of the instrumental role that youth workers play in communities. By improving understanding of what a youth worker does and does not do, young people, employers and other professionals can be clear about what youth work can deliver and contribute in settings of all kinds.

develop
Assisting youth workers, and the profession, to continuously improve by:
- Providing or working with others to provide opportunities for networking, research, training and reflective practice.
- Encouraging youth workers to further their training and qualifications.
- Improving access to training for those who find access difficult.

regulate
Finding strategies to ensure that youth work practice is more consistent from place to place, agency to agency, youth worker to youth worker. This involves maintaining and developing the Code of Ethics we all work by and ensuring youth workers are living up to their ethical responsibilities. It also involves ensuring that youth workers develop the skills that are necessary for professional practice of a high standard, either through qualifications or experience. This is why only certain practitioners are eligible for membership of the association.

For more information you can view the WAAYW pamphlet here.

what we are not

not a peak body
In Western Australia, the peak body for the youth sector is the Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia. YACWA is an essential advocacy body that represents the Western Australian non-government youth sector at State and Federal levels. Part of this requires lobbying government in the interests of the non-government youth sector and the young people it serves. This is not a key role of WAAYW. Not all members of YACWA are youth workers and whilst it is envisaged that WAAYW and YACWA will work together in some ways, WAAYW is not interested in duplicating the important work that YACWA does for the sector. WAAYW recommends that youth workers are both members of YACWA and the Western Australian Association of Youth Workers.

not a union
WAAYW is not a union, this has been an active choice by the association. Some professional associations are unions and some are not. The union role is one that focuses on industrial issues for members, such as pay, conditions and representation for disputes between workers and employers. The reasons WAAYW has decided not to take on the union role are that:

- A union for workers in Community Services already exists. The union that most youth workers join in Western Australia is called the Australian Services Union. A link to their website can be found at the ‘organisations of interests’ tab in the ‘Resources’ section of this website.

- WAAYW’s major focus is on the areas described above. Improving practice means that very occasionally the association may have to act against the interests of a member in order to ensure the profession as a whole is able to provide high quality services to young people. For example, where a member has shown themselves to be acting unethically, WAAYW would always be on the side of ethical practice. A union could not act against the interests of members.

Nevertheless, one of the benefits of professionalisation is better pay and conditions so, whilst WAAYW does not actively pursue these ends, they may be a fantastic side effect of the work that we do.

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