Speaking & Advocacy

Resilience in Action: A Strength-based Approach to Working with Young People

This presentation provides specific communication strategies and tools for identifying and fostering the strengths of youth.  It addresses topics relevant to the full community of youth from high achievers to those who have endured hardships and been marginalized. Most communities choose to have a range of professionals attend to impact on the multiple layers of adults who are committed to youth thriving.

This seminar is tailored specifically to the needs of the community as well as audience - whether educators, youth-serving agencies, or health professionals. Which of the below objectives are covered will depend both on community priorities and seminar length.

Objectives include:

• The participant will be prepared to set the stage for a trustworthy interaction.
• The participant will be able to apply strength-based communication, including the language of resilience.
• The participant will be familiar with the Seven C’s model of positive youth development and resilience.
• The participant will have a grasp on the behavioral change process and understand how the Seven C’s contribute to positive behavioral change.
• The participant will be prepared to foster authentic success and protect children and adolescents from the stress and perfectionism that undermines their well-being and long-term success. (This objective is critical for school audiences and optional for others)
• The participant will be better prepared to eliminate shame from interactions by focusing on building confidence in youth. They will understand that confidence has to be rooted in existing competencies.
• The participant will be able to offer parents and youth basic life skills that will help them navigate peer culture.
• The participant will be better prepared to support balanced, authoritative parenting.
• The participant will be prepared to communicate with youth in a way that builds on their existing strengths rather than undermines their forward movement.  This objective focuses on shifting away from approaching youth with lectures.
• The participant will be familiar with a stress management strategy that is designed to move youth a way from self-destructive quick fixes and towards positive behaviors.

Loving Practice: Ensuring Those We Serve Feel Truly Seen

What does it mean to serve in a way that honors the whole person? It must include striving to see people in their best light, as they really are. This means throwing away our presumptions of who we serve, and our imaginations of who they must be. It means looking beyond the behaviors they may be displaying, and actively rejecting some of the labels they may have received - knowing that those labels are undermining because they change how society sees people and, indeed, how they may see themselves.

This seminar is about the essence of trauma-sensitive, resilience-affirming, strength- based communication. It will be about the power of relationships being built through active listening and our willingness to see people as they deserve to be seen. It is about love. Therefore, while the talk will be focused on adolescent and young adult clients or patients, it likely applies to interactions between healers and humans of any age.

• The participant will be better prepared to eliminate shame from interactions by focusing on building confidence in young people by underscoring their existing competencies and inherent strengths.
• The participant will be prepared to communicate with youth and young adults in a way that restores control to their decision-making processes.
• The participant will understand why praise as traditionally offered can interfere with building the kind of relationships that will be drawn upon when most needed.

Building on the Strengths of Young People Who Have Endured Hardships

This seminar will discuss the three foundational frameworks that prepare us to develop young people capable of thriving through good and difficult times – positive youth development, resilience, and trauma-sensitive care. It will cover the proven effects of childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences on the brain, body, and behavior throughout the lifetime. Critically, it will speak of the power of human relationships to heal.
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It will offer to APPLY the principles of trauma-sensitive practice in our work with children and youth. It will focus on the power of well-boundaried human connection in healing as well as the imperative of restoring a sense of control back to people who have been traumatized.
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Finally, we will discuss the type of open, trusting, strength-based communication that positions us to reach teenagers and young adults. All youth possess strengths and their behavior is changed only when those strengths are recognized and built upon.

Objectives include:

• The participant will be better prepared to eliminate shame from interactions by focusing on building confidence in youth. They will understand that confidence has to be rooted in existing competencies.
• The participant will understand how to communicate with youth in a way that builds on their existing strengths rather than undermines their forward movement. This objective focuses on shifting away from approaching youth with lectures and giving control back to people from whom it has been taken away.
• The participant will be prepared to communicate with youth and young adults in a way that restores control to their decision-making processes.
• The participant will be prepared to communicate with youth in a way that builds on their existing strengths rather than undermines their forward movement. This objective focuses on shifting away from approaching youth with lectures and instead empowering them to make decisions.

Reframing Youth: A First Step to Adult Engagement

The unwavering presence of adults in young lives is critical to healthy development and deeply protective in the context of hardship. Adults have no doubt of the critical nature of their involvement and the imperative of their close supervision and active guidance during childhood. Yet doubts permeate the minds of adults when they consider engagement with adolescents. How could this be? Parental caregivers ask themselves, “Do I still matter?” Youth serving professionals ask, “Can I still make a difference?” when they consider their service with adolescents. Until these questions are answered unreservedly by caregivers and professionals with an emphatic “Yes!,” those of us committed to youth development are not adequately leveraging our expertise.

A starting point is to understand why these questions even exist. There is an undermining narrative about adolescence rooted in a misunderstanding of development rather than evidence. A first step to adult engagement, therefore, is to refute these false narratives and replace them with accurate knowledge about adolescent development. Caregivers must know that they are the most important force in their children's lives and that their children care deeply about what they think and feel. Youth serving professionals must understand that adolescence presents an astounding opportunity for adults to guide young people and prepare them to lead us into the future.
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This talk will focus on the cultural narrative about adolescence and place a clear call to action that researchers and youth development professionals and researchers take the lead in helping the lay public understand adolescent potential. It will empower participants with skill-sets, strategies, and specific language to shift the way youth are seen.

Reframing Youth:  Seeing the Strengths of Those Who Have Been Marginalized

Young people who have endured adverse childhood experiences (ACES) may have lifelong effects on their brain, health, and behaviors. However, they are also equipped with a different kind of credential – deep sensitivity and compassion. The power of caring adults in their life cannot be exaggerated. The word “may” must be underscored.

ACES place a child at risk, but protective forces can prevent harm. Caring adults can work with youth in a way that nurtures their strengths rather than triggers their earned reactivity. This talk will focus on the importance of healthy, healing connections and strategies that restore control to young people from whom it may have been taken away.

• The participant will be prepared to advocate for youth by helping others understand the strengths of young people, including those who have been undermined by low expectations and inappropriate labels.
• The participant will have a grasp on the behavioral change process and understand how a respectful strengths-based interaction addresses demoralization that serves as the impediment to initiating positive actions.
• The participant will be better prepared to eliminate shame from interactions by focusing on building confidence in youth. They will understand that confidence has to be rooted in existing competencies.
• The participant will understand the importance of restoring a sense of control to young people from whom it may have been taken away in their childhood.
• The participant will be prepared to communicate with youth in a way that builds on their existing strengths rather than undermines their forward movement. This objective focuses on shifting away from approaching youth with lectures.

Integrating Self-Care with Our Real Lives

If we are to make a difference in the lives of the families, children, and youth that we serve, we must foster the kind of connections that position us as a positive force in their lives. Although a strength-based model helps us witness compassion and resilience amidst the suffering, our deeper engagement leaves us vulnerable as we bear witness to the uncertainties of the human condition. This vulnerability, if not properly managed, can lead to maladaptive coping strategies that distance us from our emotions and from those very people we aim to serve. This detachment, a state called “burnout,” will limit our effectiveness and decrease our job satisfaction.

Too many efforts at self-care fractionate us from our lives of service.  They tell us what we should do for ourselves and suggest ways to remove ourselves from our work.  In sharp contrast, this talk is about integrating self-care into our lives of service. 

This topic is generally for an in-depth, critical understanding of this subject in the context of an agency, school, or other organization, a 4-hour facilitated workshop format can be used to  review and generate key steps for increasing staff resilience.  Trust and credibility is crucial to the success of this kind of approach.  In order to develop honest, realistic, and solution-based responses to important staff concerns, agencies requesting a workshop presentation of this subject must agree beforehand to  plan a follow up committee to implement at least some action strategies proposed by the group.  Otherwise, the participants will feel demoralized, and any progress made at the workshop will be undermined.