Episode 36: Ben

In this episode, I speak with Ben, a Ph.D. candidate at Western Sydney University with a social work practice background in community mental health, group work with men and boys, and community development (with the Penrith Panthers Rugby League Club). He is the founder of two social work-focused podcasts (Social Work Stories and Social Work Discoveries), and has been tutoring across various social work subjects for the Masters and Bachelors of Social Work at WSU since 2017. He has just submitted his Ph.D. which investigates the complexities of relationships between men and boys in a dynamic group mentoring program at the Penrith Panthers called Building Young Men. Ben is embedded in the Building Young Men project as a mentor, researcher, and program developer, which he loves.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Panthers on the Prowl - https://panthersontheprowl.com.au/Building Young Men program - https://panthersontheprowl.com.au/programs/building-young-men/Social Work Discoveries podcast - https://swdiscoveries.com/The Social Work Stories podcast - https://socialworkstories.com/Michael Flood’s book: Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention - https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137442109Steven Roberts’s book: Young Working-Class Men in Transition - https://www.routledge.com/Young-Working-Class-Men-in-Transition/Roberts/p/book/9780367473723bell hooks’s book: The Will to Change - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Will-to-Change/bell-hooks/9780743456081Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (Loic Wacquant) - https://loicwacquant.org/books/Sage’s Handbook of Youth Mentoring - https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/handbook-of-youth-mentoring/book234516Jim Ife's book: Community Development in an Uncertain World - https://sites.google.com/a/bagygln.web.app/mv/479018-fZmyAAAABen on Twitter - https://twitter.com/benlukejosephThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZTTqI9AUKNIh51EEkvn7LspqQv_rLzVqjuPwRYRr5Ro/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.