Youth Participation - Page 2 of 7

How To Help Your Youth Achieve Their Dreams

July 26, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Helping youth to achieve their dreams — If I had 3 wishes……..

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at how important it is to enable the dreams of young people rather than squish them. This week’s youth work session plan idea has some ways you can help encourage your youth to achieve their dreams.

Following Dreams

Play a song or video clip that’s about following your dreams or living life to its fullest. There are all kinds of options, but a couple of suggestions are the “Carpe Diem” scene from Dead Poets Society or the video for III Wishes by Terrorvision – both of these videos are embedded below.

If using the Carpe Diem clip, emphasize the seizing the day aspect. If using III Wishes, emphasize the line at about 1:30 which says “Just decide what you want and then make it happen”.

Make 3 Wishes

Next, give each young person three sheets of paper and a pen. On each of these pieces of paper, have them write down a wish they have for their future, so that they end up with three wishes written down. The wishes could relate to careers, relationships, skills – anything.

It doesn’t matter how outlandish their suggestions may be. This isn’t the time to be a dream squisher! If someone can leave home at age 17 and go on to design payment systems, electric cars and spacecrafts (and earn hundreds of millions in the process), there’s no reason your young people can’t go on to achieve something seemingly impossible.

Identify 3 Actions

Now that they’ve made three wishes, get them to spend some time identifying three actions they can take to achieve each wish. They’ll therefore be coming up with a total of nine next steps to help them follow their dreams. These can either be written directly on the pieces of paper where they’ve written down their wishes, or you could give them nine post-it notes to write the actions on to, which can then be stuck on the main pieces of paper.

If possible, get them to make these actions SMART targets, as this will help ensure that they’re something the young people can start working on now.

The next steps don’t have to be daunting. If they want to become a rocket scientist, the next step shouldn’t necessarily be to read a textbook on rocket science (unless your young person is that advanced!). Possible actions could be to research what degree they’d need to study this in the future and to then research what subjects they could study now to set themselves on that course.

Discussion

Depending on how much time you have in your youth work session, spend some time with your young people discussing their dreams and actions they can take. Possible questions include:

Which one of your three dreams is most important to you and why?
How long have you had this dream?
How do you think you’ll feel if you accomplish this dream?
Which of the next steps would be the easiest to achieve?
Will you commit to working on at least three of these next steps over the next month and report back as to how you’ve done?

Many young people will never have had an adult believe in them – this is your chance to make that difference in their life and encourage them to make a difference for their own selves.

Check out all our other youth work session plans for more ideas to use with your young people.

Question: What songs or video clips would you use in a session about achieving dreams? We’d love for you to share your ideas in the comments below.

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Are You A Dream Squisher Or An Enabler?

July 6, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

I have a tendency to be a pessimist. I thought this was the best way of being – if you’re expecting the worst, you’re not going to get disappointed when the worst happens. This also made me something else.

A dream squisher.

I hadn’t realized this was the case until a few years ago. When Shae would share ideas and dreams, I’d often play devil’s advocate and find ways to point out that they weren’t realistic or how hard it would be to achieve them. I thought I was being helpful, until Shae pointed out how this was actually squishing her dreams.

This got me thinking about all the times I do this – in marriage, at work, with friends and with youth.

Young people can be very idealistic – they have grand ideas of what can be done, as they’ve not had a chance to become jaded like us adults can be. They have – quite literally – the faith of a child. That anything can be done.

This leaves us with a choice. Do we live our lives squishing the dreams of young people, or do we enable them as best we can to leave their mark on the world, even if this sets up the possibility of failure?

As you might have guessed, I don’t want to be a dream squisher anymore. Amazing things can happen when we’re enablers, which is demonstrated in the way two youth workers dealt with situations involving their very own children who wanted to make a difference in the world.

Instead of standing in the way of their children for fear of them being disappointed when things didn’t work out as planned, they actually facilitated their children. Here’s what happened:

1) MarkO’s son Max

Max wanted to design his own rubber bracelets to raise money for Haiti. As Marko explains:

i was at a control or facilitation junction, baby. i love my son, and i want him to impact the world, and i want him to succeed. and the best way i know to ensure this is to exert my control, to take over the details and tell him what to do, overseeing and prescribing each step. i knew, in that moment, that if i encouraged him and served him, helping only when he asked, it would be a more fruitful growth opportunity for him (get this:) even if he failed.

Read the rest of the story to find out what happened.

2) Martin’s 6 year old son Joel

Joel had watched a video about poverty. He was moved so much that he chose to do something about it. He decided to try fundraising and set an initial target of £60 ($100). As Martin explains:

We agonised over that number. My wife and I worried it was too high; that we were expecting too much of our friends and family. And that’s one of the most wonderful things about what happened next – that genuinely, it was completely unexpected. He was trying to raise £60.

What ended up being so unexpected? He raised £6,000 ($10,000) – one hundred times the original target! Read more about how Joel achieved this here and here.

It would have been easy for MarkO and Martin to be dream squishers, to tell their sons not to try because they were only young and wouldn’t raise much money. Instead, thanks to having enabling parents, Max and Joel have learned at an early age that they can make a difference – a difference people living in poverty have now benefited from.

Question: As youth workers, how can we enable our young people instead of squishing their dreams? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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How To Plan An Evening Fundraiser Extravaganza

June 25, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Sometimes, running one youth group fundraiser just isn’t going to raise as much money as you need for the project you’re trying to support. So why not combine multiple fundraisers into one big evening fundraiser extravaganza!

For the next few Mondays we’ll be giving you various ideas for this fundraising evening, so make sure you check back to ensure you don’t miss out. We’ll also be updating this post as we go along with links to each of the fundraising ideas, so you can bookmark this post too.

Here are some tips for the overall planning of the evening fundraiser:

Empowerment – Encourage youth participation as much as you can by having the young people assist you with the planning and execution of the event. Also include them when deciding what fundraising activities to include and with the promotion of the fundraising evening.
Promotion – Try to promote the evening as widely as you can. If you’re fundraising for a church youth group, get it highlighted during the announcements and on the bulletin. Design some flyers and invitation cards to hand out as widely as possible – have your young people give them to their parents, plus get them to distribute them to their friends. Make sure it’s clear that there will be multiple activities going on during the evening – that way people will attend with the expectation that you’ll be fundraising throughout the night.
Maximize – To raise as much money as you can, make the event suitable for people of all ages. The suggestions we’ll be providing over the next few weeks will make the evening fundraiser great fun for children and adults alike.
Convenience – Set up the evening so that people can pay by whatever method is convenient for them – cash, card or check. Accepting debit and credit cards will also maximize the amount you’re able to raise, as some people may not think to bring cash with them. Check out our post on how easy it is for your youth group to accept credit cards.
Location – Another way of maximizing the amount you raise is to have a location that can host as many people as possible. If your church or organization doesn’t have the facilities to cook a large dinner or doesn’t have a room large enough to host many people, contact churches, organizations and community centers that do. An alternative is to see if a local restaurant would be willing to host the fundraising evening. For example, some Pizza Huts hold fundraising evenings whereby you earn a certain percentage based on how much in sales you can generate that evening. They may be willing to allow you to book out the entire restaurant for the evening, perhaps in exchange for you taking a lower cut (to compensate for possible lost revenue).
Be Organized – If your event is fun and well organized, people will be far more likely to support the various fundraising activities throughout the evening. Therefore, do your best to have the event running on time and well communicated throughout the process.

Fundraising Evening Ideas

Here are some suggestions on the different activities you could organize for the evening fundraiser extravaganza. As mentioned above, we’ll update the list each week with links to the different ideas:

1. Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser – The evening fundraiser should be centered around a meal which enables you to charge an entrance fee to cover the cost of the meal (and to help raise funds on top of that). Any kind of meal could work, but a spaghetti dinner is easy to cook and should be a safe option that nearly everyone will enjoy eating. Ensure that there are vegetarian and gluten-free options available if necessary.

2. Summer Kit Fundraiser – Depending on the time of year you’re planning the evening fundraiser, consider selling Summer Kits (or a winter equivalent).

3. Entertainment Book Fundraiser – Selling Entertainment Books as a fundraiser is especially good between November – February as the next year’s books will have come out, but they could still be sold throughout the year.

4. 75 Ideas For Silent Auction Items – As the name suggests, this post has a list of ideas for silent auction items, as well as advice on how to get them donated in the first place.

5. How To Run A Silent Auction – Part 1 – This post provides a guide on how to do the initial planning for a silent auction.

6. How To Run A Silent Auction – Part 2 – This second part covers what needs to be done on the day of the auction.

7. How To Run A Silent Auction – Part 3 – This third part details what needs to be done at the silent auction itself

8. How To Run A Silent Auction – Part 4 – This fourth and final part covers what needs to be done after the auction has ended

9. Paper Airplane Competition Fundraiser – This might be the most fun part of the night as people of all ages can participate

10. Flip-flop Fundraiser – This is a great way of both raising money and providing footwear to donate for mission trips or a charity you support

Question: What activities would you include for an evening fundraiser extravaganza? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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What Are Some Good Youth Group Names?

May 15, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Q: What are some good youth group names? I’m starting up a new youth work project and want to give it a cool name. Can you help?

A: Ah, the timeless question. Forget dealing with issues like sex, drugs and alcohol – coming up with good youth group names is one of the hardest parts of being a youth worker. Just do what all good (and/or lazy) managers do: delegate.

Except in this case, delegation is actually youth participation. Yep – have your young people pick the youth group’s name for themselves. There are a couple of ways you can approach this:

1) Free choice

The first option is to give the young people free reign over what name the youth group will be given. They come up with different names, make their own shortlist and then come to a final decision as to what it’ll be called.

If you go down this route, you have to be committed to seeing the process through. If the young people come up with a bunch of different names that you don’t like and aren’t any good, it’s going to be hard to override their choices as this makes it look like you don’t value their opinions, making the activity counterproductive.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give them this freedom – just remember that young people can be extremely random, so they may well pick a name you’d prefer not to go with. An alternative method of having young people choose a youth group name is……

2) Provide a Shortlist

Come up with some names you’d be happy with, then present the shortlist for the youth to make the final decision. This way, you can ensure that you’ll be happy whatever the final decision, while the youth still get to participate in the process of naming the youth group.

It’s not always going to be feasible to have young people choosing a name though. For example, if you’re starting up a new youth work project, you may well need a name in place before any young people join the project in the first place. Other times, a youth work project may only last for a few sessions, so spending time coming up with a name for the youth group is a waste of valuable session time.

So here are 5 tips for coming up with good youth group names:

1) Short – Keeping the name short helps make it easy to remember and by being short, is more likely to be snappy too. A short youth group name also makes it easier to fit on flyers, quicker to say when discussing the youth group or project, etc.

2) Not cheesy – It can be easy for adults to think something sounds cool, but to young people it just sounds lame. That’s why having young people pick the name is a better option – they’re unlikely to choose something cheesy.

3) Timeless – Unless you’re planning on changing the name every couple of years, try to ensure the name isn’t going to date easily.

4) Relevant – If possible, try to pick a name that actually relates to your youth group. This then helps people know what they can expect – whether that’s youth, adults, donors, etc.

5) Domain name – OK, so this might not be a major consideration for many youth workers. However, if you’re planning on building a website for your youth group or project, you’ll want to make sure the domain name (or a derivative of it) is available.

For example, Shae used a run a youth work project called Ngage. This fulfills all of the above suggestions as:

It’s short
It’s not cheesy
It’s timeless
It’s relevant (the project was designed to keep students engaged in high school)
A domain name would have been available – although ngage.com wouldn’t have been available, something like ngageproject.co.uk could have been used if they needed a website

Now that you know how to choose a cool name, check out our tips on how to avoid a lame youth group name.

Question: What tips do you have for choosing good youth group names? Let us and other youth workers know in the comments below.

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What Is A Group Agreement?

May 1, 2012 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

Youth group agreement — Creating a group agreement means everyone is setting expectations together

Q: What is a group agreement?

A: A group agreement (sometimes also called a youth group contract) is a document that outlines what the expectations of the group are for the time they are meeting together.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Wait, isn’t a group agreement just ‘the rules’? I already have those, so check you later Youth Workin’ It.”

Some might consider a group agreement, ‘the rules.’ The key difference between a group agreement and ‘rules’ comes in the creation and enforcement.

Rules are often top down. They’re usually created and enforced by the person in charge. A group agreement though is created by the entire group. They decide what goes on and discuss why it’s important for the group.

Creating a Group Agreement

Creating a youth group agreement takes time and discussion. It needs ownership and participation from all the youth to work well. You’re a part of the group as well and can therefore make sure that any zero-tolerance items end up on the list. But again, do so conversationally. For example, with a no alcohol ‘rule’, explore why it’s important to the youth that everyone comes sober.

When creating a group agreement try to keep items positive. Instead of a list of ‘NOs’, try to create a list of positive activities that everyone agrees to. From our previous example, instead of ‘No alcohol’, try ‘Come to group sober’. Instead of ‘No put-downs’, try ‘Speak kindly’. The youth will probably give you a list of ‘NOs’ – take the time to help them create a list of ‘YESs’.

Once a group agreement is created have everyone sign it. Yourself included. When new group members join have them review and sign the agreement too.

Enforcing a Group Agreement

Enforcing a youth group agreement is just as important as creating one. Don’t always be the one to enforce the expectations set by the group. It’s the group’s agreement, not your rules. Everyone is encouraged to give positive peer pressure to adhere to the group agreement they created together. If you have a youth team leader on a project within your program, encourage them to also take the lead in helping remind the group about the group agreement.

Refer to it often, even when no one is breaking it. Praise the group when they are following the agreement. It’s often easy to only notice when a youth is breaking a part of the group agreement, but take the time to praise individuals and the group when they’re working well and following the group agreement.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how group agreements help manage youth behavior. On Thursday, we’ll provide a youth work session plan for creating a group agreement, so check back!

Question: Do you think a group agreement is different from ‘rules’? Why or why not? Share your answers in the comments below.

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