This training is presented by The Professional Youth Worker. It's our mission to help you and your team build your skills and boost your passion for serving young people. Join us!
A Model for Collaborative Engagement with Young People
- On-Demand Webinar
- Recorded on Wednesday, September 14, 2022
- 1.5 hour training
- FREE for YIPA members
- $30 for non-YIPA members
- 100% approval rating
- Not a member? Annual membership is $124 for individuals or $300 for organizations. Join now or learn more.
Learners' Own Words
"Great presenter with such wonderful personal examples."
"Really appreciate all the tidbits of wisdom Adam shared about framing my mindset while working with youth."
"Good pace with clarity and patience. I enjoyed that he used some humor and real life experiences/scenarios that are quite relatable to help me better understand his presentation."
Your Training Description
Being an adult in a young person’s life is both an awesome responsibility and a rewarding experience. As a youth worker, you know all about the dance of the push-pull, the back-and-forth, the falling down and getting back up. This is the daily challenge of working with young people. It can be difficult, especially when young people act out or behave in challenging ways. But your task is to honor that young people are entitled to have agency over their beliefs, feelings, bodies, relationships, words, and goals. And to model healthy relationships, collaborative engagement, and healthy emotional states to strengthen their ability to thrive.
Your ability to work collaboratively with young people is a key factor in determining their success toward achieving their own goals and growth. When you are able to lean into chaos and roll with resistance using some grit and some tenderness, you can foster health, healing, and fun. Your decisions about how to engage with young people must always be viewed through the lens of how it will impact the trusting relationship you have.
The Democratic Youth Engagement (DYE) model encourages adults working with young people to step beyond a limiting “fix the kid” approach and instead bring creative collaboration to the relationship. This training will give you space to explore the values and virtues of democratically engaging with young people. And you’ll strengthen your ability to model healthy adult behavior and emotional regulation.
Your Learning Objectives
- Learn the values and virtue of democratically engaging with young people
- Explore creative collaboration approaches for working with young people
- Strengthen your capacity to model healthy adult behavior for young people
Your Trainer
Adam Arnold, MA, LMFT, LADC, is a licensed psychotherapist practicing in St. Paul, MN. He is the developer of The Democratic Youth Engagement (DYE) Model. Adam works clinically with adolescents and children as well as survivors of spiritual abuse. He has worked professionally in school settings, summer camps, after school programs, arts organizations, athletic settings, day treatment centers, correctional facilities, and residential treatment centers.
Combining his passions for healing and the arts, Adam founded and served as Artistic Director of Blank Slate Theatre, a personal growth-oriented theatre for adolescents in Minnesota. In collaboration with culturally and ability diverse adolescents, he produced over two dozen theatre pieces on themes of mental health and social change including the award-winning DISORDERED [thy name is teenager] and BOTTOM, a play on child sex trafficking.
Adam also served as chair of the "Safe Schools, Safe Students Conference" addressing mental health issues in schools, innovative family involvement with schools, peer aggression (bullying), and school shootings. Adam enjoys watching scary movies, listening to nerdy podcasts, and strengthening his broken spine.
Your Competency Focus Area
Each of YIPA’s trainings are designed around a broad framework of eight youth work competencies. The competency focus of this training is: THE FIELD OF YOUTH WORK.
Expand your professional acumen to understand the reach and importance of your role, serve as an effective advocate for youth, and pursue ongoing professional development.
Your Training Details
- On-Demand Webinar
- Recorded on Wednesday, September 14, 2022
- 1.5 hour training
- FREE for YIPA members
- $30 for non-YIPA members
- 100% approval rating
- Not a member? Annual membership is $124 for individuals or $300 for organizations. Join now or learn more.
This training will count as 1.5 CE hours for most boards. Please contact your board directly with questions on submitting. You are encouraged to print or save this training information as a PDF for your records.