Reflections from Practitioner Consultants
After reflecting on the 17 years of doing workshops and sharing our youth work practices with the community, we have identified some key lessons.
Impact & Testimonials
The goal of the YLI Institute is to positively impact the systems that serve young people. Led by a team of adult and youth leaders, the YLI Institute uses a practitioner-consultant approach to provide customized training, technical support and consultation to organizations. The YLI Institute has served over 6,000 individuals.
Here is what people said after going through the Youth Equity Series:
“After the workshop we are committing ourselves to encouraging and reminding youth of their power; bringing youth to the table to listen to their perspectives on what meaningful engagement is; and discussing with young people how to collaborate, give and get feedback, and hold each other accountable.”
“We have attended many trainings, and have done readings to explore what equity looks like in youth work, however, the learning stays on a theoretical level and it’s up to us to figure out how to apply the knowledge to our work. We get stuck in theory. Having people present who can share what they have tried, describe what would work and hold space for us as we co-create action plans is very helpful. This brings equity down to a practical level the way other trainings haven’t.”
Here is what community partners said about the process YLI designed to engage youth in shaping the future of their public libraries:
"YLI partnered with us to design and deliver a youth-led community engagement process that ensures young people, whose voices are often not heard in public processes, have the chance to shape the design of their public libraries. Their partnership-based approach helped us gather new insights and build new relationships. We greatly value YLI's skillful, equity-focused approach to youth and community engagement."
“Thank you so much for leading the youth engagement at the libraries. Not only do we have a document to use when designing our libraries, but the presentation further engaged the youth and helped them understand how much we value their opinions. I also love that you trained our staff and YJ2 workers in this process so that they can continue the work of engaging teens in all the work that we do.”
Reflections from Practitioner Consultants
After years of doing this work, below are four key learning reflections:
People really appreciate having practitioners as trainers. YLI workshops are rooted in our lived experience as youth workers. We share concrete examples and tools that we have tried and tested. This brings theoretical concepts down to reality and makes the learning more practical.
Experiential learning is beneficial for adults and youth. Content that is delivered in an interactive and hands-on manner elevates audience participation, deepens their engagement and helps them better retain information.
Having youth as trainers shifts the power dynamics of who has knowledge. Oftentimes, you only see adults as the facilitator or consultant. YLI uses a team of youth and adult trainers and consultants. This inspires workshop participants to change the way they see young people, from recipients of services to leaders. Furthermore, this practice of engaging youth as the knowledge holder and trainer builds their confidence and affirms their leadership.
Doing this work rekindles our own fire. As we share our best practices of youth work with other organizations, we learn from them as well. This exchange of ideas reminds us of why we do this work. The process of teaching others deepens our own understanding of ourselves and sharpens our practice.
Background of YLI Institute
The Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) has been dedicated to building the leadership skills and capacities of high school teens since 2006. In 2008, YLI started to offer learning opportunities to the community-at-large on topics such as understanding different leadership styles because adults could benefit from these topics too; not only youth. In addition, YLI responded to requests to learn about its youth-leading youth model and strategies for multicultural leadership development. All of this led to YLI making an important commitment in 2016 to officially launch the YLI Institute as a core area of work.
