A fundamental framework and perspective that I embrace in working with young people is the Positive Youth Development Framework where we look at young people from a developmental view rather than a deficit view. So in the coaching & mentoring that I do with young people, it’s always coming from that space of facilitating their growth and development.

And amongst the many approaches out there today, I deeply align myself with the Solution Focused Approach which truly respects and recognizes the potential and strengths of every individual as we work out the unique solution to their context.

Lastly, for the coaching and mentoring sessions, I adopt an informal rather than formal approach with young people. The reason why such an informal approach is needed is that I believe that young people can truly be themselves when they feel at ease and safe. Therefore, you can expect many of the sessions to be conducted in a variety of settings like outdoors or in their homes right where they are most comfortable.

A typical process of how I work with my youth clients would be:

• Building rapport & engagement
• Understanding what they want and how they view the situation
• Creating together with them a picture of what the outcomes of working together look like
• Identifying what’s already working for them and building on it
• Building small steps and generating creative solutions
• Reviewing and refining the plan
• Celebrating small successes together with them and their family

And a typical timeframe where I can work on something with my clients would be between 3 – 6 months typically with an average of 5 – 10 sessions in total.

To enquire more about my mentoring and coaching service with young people, please click below.
*For female youth clients, I will be able to arrange for other associate coaches to work with them.

Coaching sessions for the family can either be as a whole family or just with the parents.

Often for parents facing certain challenges with their children, they could end up feeling stuck and run out of ways to tackle the repeated incidents at home. So in the end, parents may end up doing the same old thing over and over again which can be frustrating for everyone at home. 

So one important role that I play as a family coach is to help facilitate changes in the interactions between family members. A good example would be that a parent is concerned about their teenager’s usage of their handphones. While we understand the concerns of parents, often it is not about just nagging at the teens to stop their handphone usage. Instead, it is around helping parents to improve their communications with their teenagers so that we can establish a mutual understanding of how we want to interact and live around devices as a family.

So a typical process where I will work with a family is:
– Build rapport with the family, typically starting with the parents first and then inviting the teen
– Gather information and relevant information from the family and explore with the family what their shared best hopes would look like
– Identify strengths and resources through what is currently working in the family
– Identify the next few small steps of how it looks like
– Review with the family on the outcomes and progress achieved
– Celebrate the small successes achieved by the family 

To enquire more about my coaching service for families, please schedule a free consult with me here.

a. Casework and programme supervision for youth work practitioners & agencies

As a practitioner who specializes in the Solution Focused Approach, I adopt a certain way of looking at the practitioner’s strengths and resources in their practice. By having such a perspective, we not only tap into these important assets of the practitioner, but we also take a genuine interest in the practitioner’s best hopes for themselves rather than the supervisor’s in their growth and development.

Another offering that I can offer is help align teams and agencies who truly want to be embrace and align with the Solution Focused Approach as their agency framework. There are many benefits of having the practitioners and the management team coming together to embrace a common framework. In such an environment, practitioners will find that they can truly feel safe and supported to focus and growth their practice intentionally over time.

Finally, one of the unique features of a Solution Focused supervision is to pace with the supervisee in creating and tracking their own small steps towards their preferred future for their practice. Often times, supervisees will find themselves feeling empowered and take ownership of their development because we believe that they can be the experts of their growth.

To enquire more about supervision for practitioners, please schedule a free consult with me here.

Trained and supervised the staff team from CARE Singapore in youth work strategies and programme design.

Growing and managing a staff team while at the same time ensuring that the services truly make an impact for our clients can sometimes be an insurmountable task. With the different stakeholders in an agency setting that you must consider, it can be quite tough handling it all on your own.

With my experience and skill set, I believe that I can provide and customise solutions to your team and agency using a Solution Focused Approach. It is my hope that many more youth agencies today can truly be that haven of hope and safety where more young people can discover their true potential!

To enquire more about my consultancy services, please drop me a message below.

Sharing my humble experience and learnings from my own journey of pioneering REACH Youth Service under REACH Community Services Society from 2004 – 2022.