Building a Positive Community with Teens – Part 2 – VIRTUAL

Participants are REQUIRED TO ATTEND ALL TRAININGS in the series and create and try out tailored activities in between trainings.

Part 1 – Building Positive Community with Teens – Laying the Foundation

Part 2 – Building Positive Community with Teens – Meaningful Relationships

To learn, stay engaged, and develop as individuals, teens need a safe, predictable, joyful, and inclusive space where they can experience belonging, significance and emotional safety. They also need to feel comfortable taking risks and working with their peers. How can you create such a space for the teens you work with? This lively training series explores the environment in which you work with youth and provides strategies, fun group activities, and relationship-building meeting structures that will help you establish a community that promotes positive experiences for teens.

Please note: Only afterschool practitioners working with middle school, high school, or fifth grade elementary youth should register for this training. 

Participants will earn .3 CEUs for successful completion of each training session and follow-up assignment(s). 

Building Positive Community with Teens – Laying the Foundation 

Training Objectives 

Participants will:

1. Discuss the importance of belonging, significance and emotional safety for youth
2. Outline the methods involved in establishing a positive community
3. Utilize interactive learning structures and brain breaks that provide opportunities for youth to feel a sense of belonging and significance

Building Positive Community with Teens – Meaningful Relationships 

Training Objectives

Participants will:

1. Explain the Responsive Advisory Meeting structure.
2. Practice developing Responsive Advisory Meetings as a way to help youth build positive relationships.

Core Knowledge, Skills and Competencies Addressed (CKSCs) 

Learning Environments and Curriculum 

Physical Environment and Activities

Identify – A. Recognizes the importance of creating a developmentally and    culturally responsive learning environment and following a curriculum.

Apply – B. Shows warmth, caring, and respect for children, youth, and others as individuals.

Apply – C. Employs schedules, routines, and structured transitions.

Apply – C. Models healthy interactions and guides children and youth in self-awareness, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision making.

Language and Communication Development

Apply – C. Encourages children and youth to communicate in a variety of ways

Creative Expression

Apply – B. Supports individual expression, including cultural influences.

Relationships and Interactions with Children and Youth

Individual Child/Youth Guidance

Apply – A. Provides a supportive environment in which children and youth can learn and practice pro-social behaviors.

Apply – D. Practices positive, health interactions and guides children and youth in self-awareness, social awareness, relationship building, and responsible decision making.

Youth Engagement, Voice, and Choice

Apply – A. Encourages youth to express their ideas and feelings to support healthy  development, meaningful relationships, and program quality.

Equity and Inclusion

Inclusive and Accessible Physical and Social Spaces

Apply – A. Creates an inclusive, welcoming, and respectful environment for all.

Primary QIS Scales Addressed: 

I. Safe Environment

I-E. Creating Safe Spaces

II. Supportive Environment

II-J: Active Learning

III. Interactive Environment

III-K. Sense of Belonging

III-N: Cultivating Empathy