Q: How do I know if a youth retreat is the right thing for my youth program?
A: Although often associated with faith-based youth programming, running any kind of overnight and/or weekend retreat can be great for your youth work. Here are just 3 reasons why:
1) Builds Relationships
Youth retreats or weekend residential youth programs provide a great time to build relationships with your youth, your volunteers and for them to build relationships with each other as well. You get more free time to spend together, plus you get to really learn what your youth think about certain issues, as they will have more time to relax and share.
2) Gives Youth New Experiences
Maybe your youth have never been to the beach. We live about 25 minutes from the oceanfront, and there are still youth that I work with that have never seen the ocean.
Maybe the teens in your group haven’t ever been rock climbing or zip-lining through the mountains. By spending 2-3 days together, you can try new activities and work through any anxiety or issues that may be difficult in shorter youth work sessions.
3) Opportunity For In-Depth Learning
On a youth retreat, young people have the opportunity to explore topics that need more than 1-3 hours once or twice a week.
Global issues are great topics to explore on a youth retreat. Some organizations have weekend-long sessions that you can run, so your youth can learn and give back to help others in need. One option is to help your youth learn about world hunger through a 30-hour famine. Another theme might be the global issue of slum conditions – this can be explored in a practical way through ‘Slum Survivor’ and Soul Action.
Some of these ideas lend themselves to faith-based youth work and as I said earlier, that’s often the type of youth program that runs youth retreats. However, there are many other possible themes to look at with your youth, no matter the reason for the program. This includes, but isn’t limited to, running a weekend retreat and planning session for a youth council, exploring LGBTQ history issues & pioneers and youth entrepreneurship.
There are so many choices but to help, you can find 85 youth retreat theme ideas in our new book How to Plan a Youth Retreat. Which, not so coincidentally, is released today so get your copy now! You can buy it from Amazon here or find out more about it on the How To Plan a Youth Retreat book page.
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