Youth Work Hacks – a year later!

What a ride this year has been! Youth Work Hacks – the wee little blog that could – has grown into a fantastic space that I’m well proud to be a part of! It’s outgrowing me, which was always the dream.

So what’s been happening that’s causing the hoohar?

Well first, some big sites like Youth Specialties have picked up on some of our posts and have been trending them. That’s cool right?

Second, we got some cracking guest posts written for us by AMAZING people – and now there’s more coming in the pipeline.

Speaking of guest posts, we ran an international series called ‘Youth Work Around The Globe’ looking at Hungary, South Africa and Aboriginal Australia. That caught the attention of someone who will be publishing a similar book this year.

We’ve spread out too, writing quite a few things for the likes of Premier Youth Work blog, and Lead Anyone. And I was approached to give an interview for The Longer Haul podcast which will go live soon.

Of course we can’t forget about our digital-resident comic, Chloe – whose deliciously satirical and sarcastic scribbles have boosted traffic and raised some great discussions in the social media world.

We also started spending money! (I know, right?) We bought domain names, switched to self hosting, and purchased a really decent theme… which we still haven’t totally figured out how to use.

Not that it’s about numbers (of course, ever….. :P), but it’s been great to see a steady stream of subscribers and unique hits each month too. It’s a niche, so numbers are not earth shattering – but we’re doing alright!

Staying with the lighter side, we’ve had fun breaking into the quiz would with ‘Which Simpsons Youth Worker Are You’ and ‘Which West Wing Secretary Do You Need?’ Watch this space for ‘What Kind Of Youth Worker Sandwich Are You?’

Finally, we started gently in the research direction by looking into how Youth Workers view, run and resource Small Groups. Interesting data gathered that will drive some of our future posts.

Fab year everybody – thanks for getting involved! Here’s to the next.

Tim