About this resource
First conversations shape whether a young person comes back. This guide helps workers explain the service and confidentiality in plain language, ask what the young person wants first, check in lightly across key life areas and agree next steps, without turning intake into an interrogation.
Purpose
To build trust at intake by being honest, youth-led and focused on what the young person wants.
Who it is for
Primary profession: Youth workers. Also relevant for social workers, community services and case workers.
Client or participant group: Youth workers meeting young people aged about 12 to 25 for the first time.
Practice setting: Youth services, outreach, school-based and casework programs.
Suggested uses
- First meetings and intake
- Training new youth workers
- Re-engaging young people after time away
- Reviewing intake practice in supervision
Instructions for practitioners
- Explain who you are, what the service does and what confidentiality means, including its limits.
- Ask what the young person wants help with before anything else.
- Use the life areas lightly; skip any the young person does not want to discuss.
- Notice and name strengths.
- Agree next steps and how they want to be contacted.
Accessibility considerations
Meet somewhere the young person feels comfortable. Offer interpreters, and keep notes short and shared where possible.
Scope and limitations
A conversation guide. Follow your organisation's intake, consent, child safety and mandatory reporting procedures.
Research basis
Young people are more likely to seek help when they know where to go, trust the person and feel less stigma. Biopsychosocial and ecological models describe how health, relationships and wider systems interact in a person's life. Case management practice standards describe assessment, planning, coordination, review and planned exits with the person at the centre.
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674028845
- Case Management Society of Australia and New Zealand. (2013). National standards of practice for case management (3rd ed.). https://www.cmsa.org.au/
- Engel, G. L. (1977). The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine. Science, 196(4286), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.847460
- Rickwood, D., Deane, F. P., Wilson, C. J., & Ciarrochi, J. (2005). Young people’s help-seeking for mental health problems. Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health, 4(3), 218–251. https://doi.org/10.5172/jamh.4.3.218
What is included
A 3-page printable A4 PDF, including a practitioner notes page with the research basis (version 1.0).
Originality
Original Practitioner Plus content: wording, activity structure, layout and icons were created for this resource. No third-party worksheets, illustrations or text were reproduced.
