What is Youth Development?

After reading a chapter and taking this YDEV class as well as my social work 324 class, I can definitely explain what YDEV is better than I could Have in YDEV 250. The chapter I read explained how at first, the programs for youth were controlled by the government and were really just ways to keep youth "off the streets and out of their parents way." This is an alright idea for the adults, but the youth won't benefit from it in the long run

Youth development is working with youth to help them grow into the best version of themselves that they can be. Whether it's in a school setting, residential setting, or a recreational setting, our job as youth workers should never be to mold students into what WE think they should be. We are there for support socially and emotionally most importantly. Every single youth we encounter is going to be different from the next with different needs and interests. This is why we can't try to teach them who to be. Our job is to LEAD WITH the youth. I feel like no matter how long or short we work with youth, we should be memorable. We should be able to make some type of impact in their lives that they will remember forever. 

Context Mapping

What is Context Mapping?
Context mapping is the way we describe ourselves and values by the different environments that we put ourselves in. These environments include school, work, home, volunteering, sports, or any other commitments that you have in your life that are important to you.

In this chapter, Julian is asked to create a context map which describes all the places that he is usually in and what relationships he has with the people there. This will help him define who he is.

My Context Map

Personal Life:
Mom
Brothers
Grandma

Work:
Key Family (coworkers)
dealing with behavioral girls
Blessed Sacrament School Daycare


Academic Life:
RIC
YDEV Classmates
Graduation in May!!

Achieved Identity: When an individual has resolved any identity crisis in the past by incorporating those past identities it with their present self to be understand themself

Moratorium Identity: When an individual is in the state of exploring and experimenting identities but does not make any commitment to one

Foreclosed Identity: When an individual has an identity that is forced upon them with being explored or looking for alternatives

Diffuse identity: When an individual is always between identities and has no commitment with only one

Center For Resiliance

Watching the testimony videos on the Center For Resillience's website, it made me think of how useful a program like this would be in ALL schools. When you teach youth mindfulness at a young age, they only improve that skill and can influence their peers. I could only imagine how different my high school years would've been if I was involved in this program. My grades would've been way higher and I wouldn't have had much conflict with my classmates. I taught myself how to be mindful once I hit college because I felt really stressed between becoming an adult, being in college, and having a job. All of it was new to me and I learned how to cope, but it would've been nice if someone would've advised me that things would get hectic after I left high school and how to cope. The video below explains the story of one of Gisele Polanco's students who did a 180 from this program.

Election 2016

                               


Politics was never and still is not something that I am familiar or ever felt any interest in. I always shy away from conversations about it because since I don't have any interest in it, I am not educated in anything that has to do with it. Quite frankly, I do not like speaking on topics I know nothing of especially if I'm not interested. The only thing I know about any candidates in any election is who they are and what the media says about them. This election the two candidates were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. To be honest, at first I didn't think anything of it because of all the hate towards Trump that was publicized and I thought most Americans didn't agree with what he stands for. Now that Donald has won the election, I am a little bit scared. I don't know what's going to happen with this country especially for us minorities. The policies and laws that I've heard that he wants to pass will not make this country better. I honestly try not to think about it because we still have some time before he's inaugurated, but at the same time I feel like I'm running from the issue.



3 Questions
1.) Why aren't the other parties that we can elect for ever publicized, the way democrats and republicans are, so more people can know there are other options?

2.) Is our new President going to get rid of a lot or all after school programs?

3.) How can Hillary win the popular vote but not electoral college?

YDEV Event #2

For my second event, I had the opportunity to sit in at one of my student's, Jean,  exhibitions at The Met High School. For those of you who aren't familiar with this school, it isn't your typical high school. The year is split into trimesters rather than four quarters and all students have an internship in an organization that interests them. Each trimester, every single year, the students all have to present to their advisory all the work that they have done for that trimester. This includes school work and what they do in their internship. For each of their internships they also have to have a special project that they are working on for the year.

Jean is a senior at The MET and his internship is at CDL as an engineer. He did a great job presenting what he does daily at his internship with videos, work samples (a bird house that he made), and had a personal experience to talk about for a lot of the information he spoke about. He also talked about his project for the year, which is making a mailbox for his advisor that he has a blueprint for already.

the mailbox model

I chose this as one of my events because what these students do each trimester is what us YDEV majors are doing in our senior year. I commend the students at The MET because it takes a lot to get up in front of your peers, at that age, and deliver a great presentation. I thought about myself in high school and how much I would’ve dreaded doing 3 exhibitions a year. I would’ve probably changed schools from the anxiety. It really amazes me how brave and yet knowledgeable the students in this school are, while I’m a senior in college and still am not looking forward to presenting my work from my internship this year.

YDEV Event #1

On Wednesday November 9th, the Key Program held a training on suicide prevention and common diagnoses. I decided to use this as a YDEV event because all youth can have different disorders that not all may know how to deal with or understand. It i . s important for us to recognize signs of different disorders so we can do early interventionsAlso because any youth can be suffering from suicidal thoughts and won't know how to cope by themselves. We as youth workers should know how to help youth when they feel like their less than because of a disorder that they have or when they feel like suicide is the answer. Some of these youth don't have anyone at home who may understand or they feel that they can trust.

As someone who works at the Key Program with “at-risk” youth every day, I can honestly say that my clients are not the easiest to deal with. Some have ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Mood Disorder, Depression, or RAD disorder. All are difficult to deal with especially if you suffer from them. Because of the behaviors that are associated with all of these disorders, it is easy to get very frustrated and not be sensitive to their disorders. This training was a reminder that as someone who works with youth, we have to put our feelings aside and try to be that youth’s allie to help them come up with coping skills when they feel they are losing control.

Constructing Our Stories

List of 10 Words

1. Integral
2. Emergent
3. Pedagogies
4. Inherently
5. Quadratic
6. Paradoxical
7. Exalt
8. Exacerbated
9. Espoused
10. Interpsychological development 

 
 
 
List of 10 People

1. Mom
2. Dad
3. Brother
4. Cousin
5. Ex boyfriend
6. Best Friend
7. 12th grade English Teacher
8. Grandma
9. Mentor
10. Step-Dad

My ex boyfriend and I were together for only a year, but I learned a lot in that amount of time and the time since then. We broke up about a year ago and it was a bad one. I knew it was time to leave the relationship when we would have fights almost every day about nothing, but it took me about 3-4 months to actually leave and stay gone. Of course at the start he seemed perfect, but after some time he showed his true colors. He was very controlling, jealous, possessive, and insecure. Since I was “in love”, I let a lot of it slide and it only got worse from there. I began to distance myself from my friends and family just to please him but it was never enough for him. Aside from his ways, I grew to be very stubborn and impatient with him, so it only added fuel to the fire. The fights continued,the jealousy continued, and my impatient ways continued. And I still stayed because after every fight he was always so apologetic and thought things would change but I was stuck in the same routine. Once I felt like enough was enough, I finally put myself first and stopped thinking about how he may suffer if I left him and actually left him. Even though he blamed me for everything during and after the relationship, I learned that I cannot stay where I am not happy. Ever since that break up, I know what I can and will not tolerate with anyone. I’ve grown stronger and realized that I do not need to be in a relationship to be happy. I also realized I can’t be happy in a relationship when I have lots of growing to do. I wasn’t the most understanding or patient person, but now I’m working on being just that. If it wasn’t for that relationship, I would’ve never realized that I had to change some of my ways and I would’ve never known what I won’t tolerate from people anymore. Even though the relationship ended on a bad note, I’m glad I went through it because it was definitely a life lesson.

Ideology Inventory

Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Part 4	Part 5	Part 6
Purpose	Teaching	Learning	Knowledge	Childhood	Evaluation
__1___C ___2__B ___3__A	__3___B __1___C __2___A	__2___A __1___B __3___C	_1___B _2___A __3__C	__1__A __2__B __3__C	_3___A __1__B __2__C

Add up your totals for each of the following

___13____A – Risk, Resiliency and Prevention

___10___B – Positive Youth Development

___13____C – Critical Youth Development

After taking the ideology quiz, I learn that I fell under risk, resiliency and prevention as well as critical youth development. The numbers were exactly the same and the amount of points I had for positive youth development was close as the numbers for the other categories. When I took this quiz last semester I fell under positive youth development and the category I fell under the least was critical youth development. I honestly believe what changed my way of thinking was going to YIA. After seeing the young girls run such a smooth and effective session with us made me think that we as youth development leaders don't have to hold the youth's hands. All we have to do is give them the right tools to grow as knowledgeable and confident people. Once they have that, everything else won't seem impossible. I believe that the youth learns best when it's through their experiences rather than someone telling them what and how to do something. The more experiences the youth have, positive or negative, the more they will remember an reflect on what they've learned.

Color Blind or Color Brave

Luckily, growing up, I have never really felt invisible. I was always part of some type of group in school and at home it was kind of hard to feel invisible being the only girl with four brothers. There were always eyes on me. 

Both my parents always taught me to never treat anyone badly because they may seem "different" and treat everyone the way you want to be treated. I always followed what they said which lead me to "never see race." Growing up in Providence and going to inner city schools this was very easy to do since almost everyone looked like me.  Whenever I was interacting with anyone who was different from me I would never treat them like an "other" and never pushed them away.

I never noticed that this wasn't necessarily a good thing to do until I grew into an adult. Listening to Mellody talking about ignoring race or color makes a lot of sense to me now, but if I was told that a few years ago, I probably wouldn't have agreed. The topic about race DOES make people uncomfortable so people do avoid it, I even do sometimes depending who the conversation is with. The story Mellody told about her swimming coach making her hold her breathe while doing laps didn't make sense to me at first because I thought that her coach meant she (as a black woman) has to be comfortable with possibly being treated differently. After Mellody explained how she interpreted it by being comfortable with having race conversations it all came together. If no one is comfortable about talking about race and color then how can we understand each other?

Youth In Action can be an antidote for invisibility because of everything they stand for. This organization empowers youth to have their voices heard and be leaders. The youth who are apart of this organization are from all different backgrounds, but don't ignore their differences. They try their best to understand all the different backgrounds because they believe that the more diverse the group the better they are at decision making which is what Mellody said as well.

 

How one company is increasing visibility for women in the workplace

YIA

The stories from the workers at YIA all sound too familiar to me. Being someone who grew up in Providence, went to public schools, and am a minority, I know first hand what a lot of these kids at YIA felt like while in school. We aren't given the best education, we aren't given the right support or resources because we simply don't have it. We never had a voice in school because the adults knew what was best for us. If we felt like speaking out, good luck finding other kids who will speak up and support you because no one felt like we can change anything anyways. Just like Monay, I felt like traditional education never addressed my needs and all the information that was spit out at me was useless. The students are powerless in public schools because they aren’t any (adult) leaders to encourage them to do so. A few months ago, I made the decision to move out of Rhode Island after I graduate and my heart is still set on it. In this article, it does mention how the kids who are “best positioned to give their voice and power to help fix what’s broken in these cities usually move on to better places and opportunities.” I’m one of the many people raised in Providence, brought up in not the best neighborhoods, and put through public schools, love their hometown, but feel like this is not the place where they want to be for the rest of my life or raise their future children for the simple fact that it’s hard to reach your full potential in a city like mine.

Who Am I

Hi, Guys!

My names Jessel and just like you all, I'm so excited to finally be entering my senior year of college. This summer I have been working and enrolled in two summer classes so I can be caught up and able to graduate this upcoming may. When I'm not in school, I'm usually at one of the two of my jobs or trying to catch up on all the sleep I miss out on every night. I'm looking forward to this semester and finishing up the year strong!