Tips for Facilitators from Pathways to Prevention Excerpted from Pathways to Prevention: Guiding Youth to Wise Decisions by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2003), pp. x, Y-8, Y-9, Y-12, Y-13, A-2, A-3, A-13. Used with permission. Building the Environment: As a leader you can build an environment conducive to sharing and learning in your group. Suggestions: - Put chairs in a circle, not rows.
- If possible, arrange for the seating options to be equal (don’t have 10 uncomfortable chairs and 2 recliners—the most popular/powerful people will get the recliners and the group will be unequal).
- Sit around tables when you want youth to work on something; sit on rugs on the floor when you want informal sharing or worship.
- Make members of your youth group interact with someone new.
- Establish clear rules, guidelines, and boundaries.
Age Differences—Middle School vs. High School Youth: A lot of changes happen to young people between the ages of 11 and 17. Effective youth leaders know how to tailor their approach according to the age and maturity of the group. - Younger adolescents tend to feel more threatened by groups larger than 7.
- Older teens will pay attention to a discussion topic for up to 30 minutes while younger teens will normally only pay attention for 10-15 minutes.
- Older teens have a little bit more life experience and are more likely to go deeper in their discussions about illicit drugs.
- Both groups need a “jump-start” to their discussions with something tangible, visible or audible that provides a concrete image from which they can focus their discussion.
Let’s Role-play: Role-playing provides a time to try on a new identity and is also a good way to initiate discussion as to “why” someone would react that way or “what alternative” options or strategies could have been used. - Role playing does not require good acting or people who are extroverts.
- Lead by example: ask a youth to play his or her parent and you be the teenager. You have broken a house rule. Role-play the dialogue.
Break Out: To help divide youths into groups and better randomly mix the groups that usually form, bring an inexpensive bag of colored candy to the session. As teens enter the room, have each person take a piece of candy or hand out the candy. Once everyone has a piece of candy, ask that they arrange themselves in smaller groups according to the particular color/flavor the received. Little Lessons for Leaders: - Lead by example. Share from your heart and be vulnerable but don’t dominate the session.
- Listen. Use your ears twice as much as your mouth.
- Use genuine and specific affirmation.
- Sometimes a group will benefit from a “spontaneous opportunity” to respond, especially shy youth. Something as simple as tossing a ball to another person in the group who must respond when the ball is thrown to him/her allows ALL members of the group to participate.
How to Ask Questions So You’ll Get Answers: Youth spend a lot of time in a classroom where there is only one right answer. They may be afraid to participate if they are not sure they have the right answer. Young people respond well to creative or “open-ended” questioning where there is no particular right answer and there is no danger of “making a mistake” or “humiliation.” Youth also benefit from narrowing the focus of a discussion and being able to think about their responses privately first. |
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