A Special Message: On Building Resilience

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A Special Message: On Building Resilience

In June, Sandra Escamilla, Vice President at Children’s Aid Society and my former boss, contacted me about giving a keynote address for a Town Hall of she was convening. Sandra indicated that I would be talking about Building Resilience. Normally, I would have jumped at the chance. But, I didn’t respond to her text right away, because at that point, I didn’t really know what I would say. I have worked as a youth development professional for nearly 25 years. I know the resiliency factors like I know my own mind, high expectations, engaging activities, opportunities to contribute, relationships with caring trusting adults and continuity of supports. These are the protective factors. The elements that allow a young person to thrive in the most challenging of circumstances. In the emerging field of youth development, practitioners participating in YDI’s Networks for Youth Development Initiative, studied these factors and articulated how they should show up in our work, in our hiring, and professional development of youth workers. It was promoted, disseminated , replicated and showed up in RFPs and core competencies statements and evaluations. Building Resilience is what youth work professionals do.

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YDI in partnership with YES 2020 to provide virtual summer internship resources to Learn to Work (LTW) providers.

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YDI in partnership with YES 2020 to provide virtual summer internship resources to Learn to Work (LTW) providers.

YDI is proud to partner with YES 2020 to bring virtual summer internship resources to Learn to Work (LTW) providers. Throughout the summer there will be convenings for directors, educators, internship coordinators, social support staff, administrators, content providers, and other stakeholders involved in making this summer’s programming a success for the young people of New York City.

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My Brothers and Sisters Keeper (MBSK) Fun At Home Initiative

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YDI’s entire team is working from home, but we are continuing to support young people and practitioners to ensure that folks are building on the critical relationships that help us all feel connected. This is especially vital during this time of crisis and disconnection. That’s why YDI’s youth council, the My Brothers and Sisters Keeper council (MBSK), sponsored by the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), is partnering with Urban Word NYC to create, host and promote a series of virtual Poetry Slams and Open Mics. It’s all part of the city’s newly launched Fun at Home digital platform that aims to provide engaging events and activities for young people. 

COVID-19 Update

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Dear Friends, 

We at YDI hope that you are staying safe and finding ways to keep connected with family, friends and coworkers. We know that you are working hard to find ways to continue serving young people, and we are moving rapidly to transition our training and technical assistance to virtual delivery. Your work is especially critical now, and we are doing everything we can to continue to support your efforts.

It is even more vital now than ever to focus work with young people on Connection, Preparation and Authentic Participation - the three pillars of YDI’s Positive Youth Development framework. To this end, YDI will be creating and sharing resources to help support providers in continuing to build capacity even as most of us remain at home working remotely.

Over the next weeks and months, YDI will continue to work with our networks to foster community and keep learning. While we develop virtual training modules to support teaching our framework online, we will be complementing this through a social media campaign that will deliver knowledge and tools aligned with the framework’s core elements. Be sure to follow us @ydinstitute to stay in the loop.

If you are registered for a training that was scheduled to occur in person, you should have already received notice regarding when and how that training will be delivered. Please contact [email protected] if you are registered for an upcoming training and have not been contacted, or are not sure about your registration status.

The entire YDI team is working remotely and can be reached directly through their personal email which can be found on our website. General inquiries can be made to [email protected]

We wish everyone good health during this difficult time

--The Youth Development Institute Team 

 

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