Facilitating! Youth-Led Initiatives:

Transcription

1 Facilitating! Youth-Led Initiatives: Hands-On Skills for Adult Allies Katie Richards-Schuster, PhD University of Michigan School of Social Work

2 Overview 1. Opening: What does it mean to be Adult Ally? (10 min) 2. Strategies for recruiting, engaging, and supporting leadership development: Learning from one another (35 minutes) 3. Facilitating effective meetings: brainstorming, assessment & skills (35 minutes) 4. Soliciting Feedback to Strengthen Practice (10 min) 5. Closing: Resources and Ideas for Taking Home

3 Icebreaker: One Word 1. Write first word/or words that come to mind when you hear the term: Adult Ally? 2. Get up and share your word. Find one person, introduce yourself, share your word and why 3. Add word to word wall. Stay standing. 4. Discuss ideas- similarities, differences, and general thoughts.

4 Adult Allies are. «Coach «Supporter «Organizer «Coordinator «Ally «Nurturer «Capacity Builder «Educator «Challenger «Bridger «Mentor «Resource-Provider «Legitimater «Snack-Buyer/ Copy Maker «Transporter «Perspective-Taker

5 !! Youth Stepping Forward Adults Stepping Forward & Back

6 ! Adults in Youth-Led Work:! A Dance!! Stepping Forward & Back Stepping Forward Create Space & Structure Build Capacity Encourage Participation Support & Nurture Youth Voice Stepping Back Provide Resources

7 Key Skills for Working with Youth 1. Ability to recruit and engage youth to participate 2. Ability to help facilitate effective meetings (supporting youth to lead effective meetings, co-facilitating, or helping initiate meetings) 3. Ability to reflect on the process and gather feedback for improvement

8 Recruiting & Engaging Youth! Adapted from Cindy Carlson, Hampton Virginia Youth Commission Core Leadership Group Youth-Led Committee Initial Engagement

9 STARTING WITH YOU:! Overcoming Challenges & Identifying Strategies Keeping youth engaged-challenges: Supporting youth leadership- challenges Keeping youth engaged Ideas for Strategies: Supporting youth leadership-ideas for strategies

10 Recruitment, Engagement & Training Take 3 minutes to brainstorm your challenges & strategies Turn to your neighbor. As a pair, spend 5 minutes sharing ideas and brainstorming additional ideas What are some of the challenges? What are some specific strategies? What are new ideas? Quick round robin to share out of strategies.

11 Recruitment & Engagement:! What are strategies you use? Strategies for developing leadership Strategies for keeping youth involved Strategies for Initial Engagement

12 Common Challenges: Scenarios Break into groups to discuss some common challenges Around room you ll see different scenarios. Ideally, we ll have groups of 4-5 people/group. Scenario #1 OVER COMMITMENT: Ideas? Scenario # 2 LOSING MOTIVATION: Ideas? Scenario #2 CHALLENGING LOGISTICS: Ideas? PICK ONE. Take 10 minutes to discuss, write ideas down on paper. Quick sharing of strategies across the whole.

13 Common Challenges: Scenarios Scenario #1 OVER COMMITMENT Prioritize activities: Is everything necessary? Create multiple ways for them to be involved Ask people to make a commitment- sign a contract, set incentives Scenario # 2 LOSING MOTIVATION Icebreakers, energizers, check-ins to refocus Brainstorming goals- set vision Small wins, celebrating success Rotate leadership- engage youth in various leadership roles Scenario #3 LOGISTICS: Using group me, social media for scheduling meetings Blogging, using video conferencing for meetings Find a central location to hold meeting, set up carpool if accessible

14 Effective Meetings 1. Think about any youth meeting that you have been to that has NOT worked well. 2. Use the sticky notes to write down all the things that did NOT work well. Use one sticky note for each idea. 3. Round robin: Go around and share one idea 4. Cluster ideas: What doesn t work?

15 Developing Skills for Effective Meetings BEFORE: Room set-up, location, transportation, timing, food, materials, communication, preparation DURING: Setting expectations, flow of the agenda, opening, leadership and facilitation, process/action, closing AFTER: Communication, follow-up, tasks/assignments, in-between meeting engagement

16 Activity: Developing Plans for an Effective Meeting SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS. 10 MINUTES to discuss and plan. Each group will share ideas with the whole. Scenario #1: You have a group of students who have been participating for a long time and a group of students who are coming to the group for the first time. Scenario #2: The last three meetings students have been checking out - getting on their phones, some have been falling asleep, and others are just disengaged. Scenario #3: You have two members of the group that are really dominating the discussions. They are constantly talking and want to be the leaders in every step of the way. You are happy they are so engaged but worry that others are feeling silenced.

17 Soliciting Feedback Creating check-ins & feedback loops Evaluation activities Critical reflection on experiences

18 Examples- Resources 1. Weather check-ins, opening go arounds 2. Motivation forms 3. Journals, writing, anonymous feedback 4. Skill assessments 5. Closing assessments, closing take aways 6. Before and after/pre and post pictures 7. Reviewing progress (what s working, not working, and what can we change; where have we been? Where do we need to go?)

19 !! Resource Guide: 1. Icebreakers, team builders, energizers, reflection activities 2. Tips and strategies 3. Web resources

20 !! For More Information: Ka#e Richards- Schuster, PhD School of Social Work University of Michigan, Ann Arbor