Summer 2025 Offerings

In this introductory workshop, attendees will explore a framework that is focused on harnessing Social and Emotional Learning efforts on change in practice. Workshop activities will engage participants in examining SEL efforts in the context of both the out-of-school time field’s commitment to Positive Youth Development and the research, resources, and supports driving adoption of SEL practices in staff practices, program management, and continuous quality improvement efforts.

You'll leave this workshop having identified ways to have a greater impact on SEL development of young people, wherever you work with them!

As programs work to facilitate skill building for young people, youth workers must think about their readiness to facilitate cognitive skill building with young people. In this workshop, youth workers will take time to identify their own strengths, needs, interests, and constraints related to learning and cognitive development. Additionally, participants will strengthen their understanding of how their background, experiences, privilege, bias, and/or discrimination have affected their attitudes toward learning and their expectation about other’s learning.

This workshop introduces methods for building supportive, youth-centered relationships and prepares participants to ask effective questions, listen actively to youth, and encourage young people by tapping their intrinsic motivation.

This workshop gives strategies for successfully incorporating interactive, interdependent, goal-oriented group work into youth programs. Working in pairs or groups supports young people in being active, self-directing, and expressive.

It is in struggle that we all grow. Helping support young people through that struggle helps promote that opportunity for growth and learning. In this workshop, participants will practice fostering growth mindset to help young people persevere when they struggle and explore strategies that staff can use to support them. Participants will identify nuances for how these strategies may apply to work with the young people they work with in balanced, equitable ways.

Pre-Requisite: FASA of Cognitive Development

This workshop provides a six-step, youth-centered, nonthreatening way of resolving conflicts that occur in youth settings. It is a problem-solving approach that seeks to turn conflicts into learning opportunities.

Do you communicate with youth in a way that makes them feel supported and heard? This interactive workshop introduces various communication techniques that help you build more supportive, youth-centered relationships. Participants will learn how to ask more effective questions, to listen actively to youth, and offer youth encouragement rather than praise.