You may still be asking the question I asked myself my first day in this position. How can I describe Positive Youth Development? As an introduction, I prefer to answer this question as it relates to current and dreamed community youth development in Rock County. As I drove from community partner interview to interview around the county this past summer, I was amazed at the number and diversity of programming in the county.
Not only was the programming itself impressive, but also the general beliefs and attitudes regarding youth capacity and adult mentorship of recognized and imagined abilities in our youth. This openness in each interview extended to excitement about learning what other community members and organizations had learned and are planning to do next. This means that I have much to learn about you, and we all can learn from each other.
In September, I began organizing the interview notes I collected regarding youth success, youth programming and youth voice in the community and the organizations that serve them. While I am excited to share that data, I don’t want the conversation to end there.
Several times over the summer months, I sent out e-mails that included resources and events I had learned about during my interviews. Some originated with Extension, others from community partners. While I could organize this information in a variety of ways, I choose to use youth-adult partnership. The four components I will spotlight through your work are: 1) Youth are involved in authentic decision-making, 2) Adults design relationships with youth to build capacity, 3) Youth and adults work together as partners, 4) Youth are engaged in their communities. You may recognize these as characteristics of youth success mentioned during our meetings. You would be right, because youth-adult partnership is a framework every one of us has in common.
I am motivated to continue to get to know the individuals and organizations building relationships with youth both through relevant content and the interactions that drive the program’s success. This monthly series of blog posts is designed to spotlight community assets for youth, whoever they are and wherever they are in Rock County, as well as archive youth programming connections, resources, trainings and/or events.
I learned my office address from repeated typing into driving directions to a myriad of never visited, much less heard of, locations around Rock County over the summer. This fall I am excited to get back on the road, this time with a better sense of direction, to learn more about Rock County from a youth perspective.
RESOURCES:
The University of Minnesota Extension maintains a well organized website on working with families and youth. Their recent newsletter promoted the following resource: Social and Emotional Learning in Practice: A Toolkit of Practical Strategies and Resources https://extension.umn.edu/what-youth-development/sel-toolkit
During a Community Asset Survey interview, a Bilingual Family Support Specialist with the Beloit School District was reading Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions by Luz Santana, Dan Rothstein and Agnes Bain.
While brainstorming with several youth center professionals, the topic of discipline was mentioned and I remembered Conscious Discipline https://consciousdiscipline.com/
While searching for resources to use in the youth focus groups, I found https://icebreakerideas.com/icebreaker-questions-biggest-list-ever#Icebreaker_Questions_for_Teens_and_Youth_Groups
