The Freechild Youth Engagement Workshop Guide is a resource that includes 23 interactive workshops designed to help youth-adult teams get better at working together. The guide includes activities that develop skills in listening, sharing and receiving feedback, establishing ground rules, anticipating and addressing group problems, developing the scope of the youth’s role, and more.
This resource requires a facilitator. Experienced adults and/or youth leaders could use this curriculum to lead the training
Audience: Grades 8-12
Recommendation
The strengths of this resource are:
- an emphasis on the importance of youth-adult collaboration
- clear, thorough, and flexible instructions with goals, considerations, and conversations
- workshops can be led by both youth and adults
Users should note that:
- some of the language focuses on the negatives (rather than positives) of youth-adult partnerships
- some workshop activities are not inclusive of all abilities as described
- material focuses more on youth-adult collaboration than training youth to facilitate intergenerational conversations
- curriculum is discussion-heavy, though it also includes other learning styles through drawing, writing, and movement activities
We think these things could help with the concerns:
- youth and adult participants could be split up to give youth an opportunity to practice leading
- curriculum could be used in tandem with content designed for training young people in facilitation skills
- additional guidance or training could be provided to facilitators on how to make the workshops more inclusive and focused on youth facilitation
For additional information about this recommendation, visit our Curriculum Jams Youth as Facilitators website.