Learners' Own Words

Building caring relationships with young people requires a fine balance between being open and maintaining ethical and professional boundaries. Drawing on your personal experiences is invaluable but how much you share and how you share it matters. Making meaningful connections with young people using storytelling and humor will help them relate to you. And that fosters trust and encourages learning.

Storytelling and humor are two of the most powerful tools any youth worker can have in their toolkit. Young people will find you more relatable and will be more likely to trust and open up to you. The key is to know how to use those tools without making the interaction more about you than about the young person.

You can learn how to hone these two powerful skills by attending this training. You’ll consider how to inject your personality into your youth work through your own stories. You’ll consider how to ensure you only share what’s appropriate to facilitate learning. And in the process, you’ll be better able to engage young people and support their positive development.

• Recognize the importance of finding your voice and using personal but appropriate experiences to engage with young people
• Consider how to inject your personality into your youth work to make stronger connections with young people
• Learn how to use the art of storytelling and humor in your work with young people

Each of YIPA’s trainings are designed around a broad framework of eight youth work competencies. The competency focus of this training is: COMMUNICATIONS.

Gain communication flexibility which allows you to develop healthy, productive work relationships, engage in collaborative problem solving with youth, and improve individual and group facilitation.