January 2013 Archives

Putting Youth Participatory Evaluation into Action: Lessons learned and innovations

Join Katie Richards-Schuster as she shares lessons and innovations from Detroit, Michigan and other cities utilizing youth participatory evaluation, and the implications of this evaluative practice in local communities and the field of youth work.

Register now!

Time is like money. If you don't invest it properly, you will not receive the return you are looking for. How do we in youth development organizations decide where to spend our limited time, to get the return we need? Mark Haugen explains this in the new Youth Development Insight blog post.

The Youth Work Matters Online course, beginning on January 14, takes an in-depth exploration into the foundational research and theories of positive youth development. Participants will interact with an online community to explore, wrestle and produce resources and skills for working with young people. The content comes from real youth work experience and strong research-based material, including the basic youth needs, ecological context, assets and resiliency, and experiential learning.

See date and registration information

You may be wanting to do so, but having trouble finding a way to do it. In October, educators from our center and youth workers from several area youth programs embarked on a journey to explore innovative ways to engage youth in program evaluation. The Innovators on Youth Roles in Evaluation Cohort emerged as the laboratory for this exploration.

Read more about Youth Participatory Evaluation (YPE)

"Targeted Food Marketing to Youth" is a free online self-paced training for professionals based on the need for youth to build skills in which they will wisely select and prepare healthful foods. The training was developed to help professionals who work with parents, caregivers, and after-school programs increase their knowledge of food marketing strategies, child and youth development, nutrition and physical activity, and parent and family strategies related to food choices. In addition, the training provides lesson plan resources to help professionals teach the information to parents, caregivers, and youth ages 8 - 13.

Registration is currently open (deadline Jan. 8) for the spring 2013 course, which will run for 8 weeks from Jan. 22 - Mar. 15.

For questions or to register for the course, please contact Mary Jo Katras, mkatras@umn.edu by Jan. 8, 2013.