Extension > Youth Development > Training and events > Program Quality -- Series 2
Program Quality Toolkit — Series 2 (all NEW content)
A Youth Work Institute Course
Four NEW areas of quick and easy ways to implement new techniques in your daily program. A train-the-trainer session that can be used either to make immediate program changes or as a way to extend quality improvement efforts with new staff after the Quality Matters year-long series. This session is based on four Quality Matters tool kits, all of which use the Youth Program Quality Assessment (YPQA) to encourage concrete changes in practice.
How it works:
- Review the toolkits and how you might use them in your program
- Work in small groups to practice teaching the toolkit concepts
What you’ll have when you walk away:
- An understanding of behaviors or practices necessary to create high-quality programs
- Confidence to teach staff and volunteers the toolkit concepts
- Easy-to-implement ideas for daily program sessions
Toolkit topics include:
Session 1:
- Groupings
Youth often join cliques, teams, gangs and other types of groups regardless of adult influence. Some of these have great benefits, others come with tremendous risks. Youth workers can have a role in fostering young people’s participation in groups that positively affect their overall development. This toolkit will help you lead your staff through a series of activities that show how to improve program quality by strengthening the ways you use different groups throughout program offerings and cycles.
- Active Learning
Active learning is at the center of high-quality youth programming. Well-implemented active learning supports youth development by challenging young people in healthy ways and offering them new opportunities to engage with the world around them. This toolkit is designed to help programs discover and uncover simple, cost effective ways to integrate cooperative groups, discussion, role playing, hands-on projects, problem solving and other active learning techniques.
Session 2:
- Engaging youth in leading session activities
There is often a great deal of commitment in fostering youth leadership, but valuable opportunities are sometimes missed because we only think of big picture acts. This toolkit focuses on how to engage youth in leading session activities in your program.
- Fostering youth-adult relationships
Most youth workers recognize that youth-adult relationships are necessary for positive youth development and are beneficial to both youth and adults. It isn’t always easy to foster these relationships in programs, especially if staff and volunteers don’t have a lot of experience or are busy managing programming. This toolkit offers strategies and ideas for creating a program culture that makes youth-adult connections easier and more positive.
Who should attend:
Direct-service providers, volunteers, coordinators, and supervisors in the youth development field.
Facilitator:
To request this course in your area, contact us
People who have taken this course say:
"Effective facilitation style! Thanks! Helpful tools/activities that can actually be used right away."
“This workshop gave me a lot of usable tools that I can employ in my current programs.”
