Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design Archives - Page 7 of 7

18 Jun, 2014

Try This: The Teach Back Method

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-08-15T12:24:11-04:00June 18th, 2014|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Try This, Workshops|0 Comments

There’s a lot to think about when planning a workshop, and along with making sure we’re as engaging as possible, we get caught up in how we’re delivering our message, that we don’t realize how it’s being received.

Outside of evaluating your workshop, there’s a great tool that’s been used by teachers, healthcare professionals, and social workers alike. It’s called the Teach Back method, and you’re going to start incorporating this into your workshops.

The Teach Back method (also known as the “show me method”, or “closing the loop” is a practice where the facilitator asks the workshop participants to explain a concept or skill based on the workshop topic, essentially taking on the role of facilitator. The Teach Back allows you to gauge your participants’ understanding of a topic or concept. The Teach Back also determines how effective you are at teaching or demonstrating a concept or skill within of your workshop. Merely standing in front of your participants and reciting information, even if you’re engaging them, doesn’t lead to a high increase of behavior change in the long run.

If your workshop participants are able to Teach Back, it means they most likely understand the material, especially since they’re tasked with teaching to their peers.

Along with retaining information, some of the benefits of the Teach Back method include:

Participants see themselves as experts, rather than relying solely on the expertise of the facilitator
Participants will most likely employ the behavior in real world situations
Participants are able to retain information when it’s recited in their own words

As the facilitator, you also benefit from the Teach Back method:

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24 Jul, 2013

Try This: Including Pleasure in Youth Sex Education

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T18:13:59-04:00July 24th, 2013|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Try This, Youth|0 Comments

When we talk with young people about sex and sexuality, pleasure is often the last thing we want to focus on, especially because we often correlate discussions of pleasure with a higher increase in risky behavior. Whether you’re a service provider, a parent, or a young person, it’s always helpful to know that, while discussions on unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections are important, talking about pleasure is also a great way to help build a healthy mindset around sex and sexuality.

I recently attended a training at Planned Parenthood of New York City called “Don’t Forget the ‘Pleasure’ in Sex Education”. The focus of the training was 1) how pleasure plays a role in how we view sexuality within a variety of lenses, including society/culture, sexual behaviors, sexual/reproductive health, and sexualization/objectification; and 2) how to effectively incorporate pleasure with sex education (which often focuses more on avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections). It was a really great training, and I invite you to check out PPNYC’s Training Institute calendar for future trainings.

During the training, we were given an exercise: create a one-on-one role play or a group activity that generates discussion on making sex education more fun and appealing. I decided to create an activity for an adolescent co-ed group between the ages of 15-18. My activity focused on what could enhance pleasure and what could decrease pleasure, making sure that the answer choices had the potential to encourage discussion with participants.

Here’s how to set up this activity: (more…)

24 Oct, 2012

4 Proven Ways to Create Effective Programs & Workshops for Youth

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:59:18-04:00October 24th, 2012|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Youth|0 Comments

(Pictured: Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code (an organization that encourages Black girls to learn more about technology and computer science), and her daughter Kai during a workshop)

I’ve seen many community groups and organizations develop workshops and programming in the hopes of attracting higher youth engagement. While their intentions are always in the right place, the results were often not very good. How so? Through feedback from participants, a decrease in participation (either by not returning to the program or not being actively engaged in the workshop), and funders choosing to no longer support them by taking away their funding. Of course, there are a variety of factors at play, and some factors you may not be able to control. But you do have a greater amount of control in how your programs and workshops are designed than you think you do.

Here are 4 ways to help you create successful programs and workshops in order to engage more youth. While these tips aren’t youth-specific, per se (and you may be familiar with them), these tips will get you thinking more about how you can tweak certain aspects of your programming and workshops. And you don’t have to be a director of programs to use these tips. All you need is the desire to improve what you do so that you can do it well, and your youth will reap the benefits: (more…)

16 May, 2012

Do You Know Who You’re Talking To?: Effective Messaging for Young Women of Color

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:46:14-04:00May 16th, 2012|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Youth|0 Comments

This weekend, I will be attending and speaking at the New York City Reproductive Justice Media Conference , sponsored by the New York City Reproductive Justice Coalition, in collaboration with Women’s eNews. This conference will focus on re-framing the discussion on what reproductive justice means, how to create effective messaging that is tailored to your audience, and how to communicate with the media and public about reproductive justice. I will be speaking on effective messaging for young women of color (YWOC). I’m looking forward to connecting, building, and learning as much as I can this weekend from some amazing activists and journalists. This is a very important discussion to have, and with 2012 presidential election just 6 months away, everyone is trying to push their issues and campaigns to the forefront. Not only that, but many want definitive answers on where the lawmakers stands on the issues they care about.

(What is the reproductive justice framework, you may be wondering? Here’s an awesome PDF by Forward Together (formally Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice) , which highlights in detail what the reproductive justice (RJ) framework is, as well as the differences between reproductive health, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice.)

When it comes to young women of color (YWOC), there are so many coalitions, groups, organizations, TV shows, music, movies, books, programs, and other entities out there vying for their attention. Historically, the voices of YWOC have often not been meaningfully included in progressive movements. With the exception of organizations that specifically target YWOC for their campaigns and programming, YWOC’s inclusion in the developing, delivering, or receiving end of messages directed towards them and designed with their values, beliefs and needs in mind, have been few and far between. Also, just because a message resonates with YWOC doesn’t mean that it’s positive.

How can we effectively reach them when there are so many influences out there? Do we know who you’re talking to?

Why Messaging to Reach Young Women of Color (YWOC) is Important

Back in 2007, I co-presented a workshop called “Do You Know Who You’re Talking To?: Effective Messaging for Young Women of Color (YWOC)” during the 2007 Women, Action, and Media (WAM!) Conference in Massachusetts, with my good friend Candace Webb, MPH, CHES. In front of a packed room, we discussed why creating effective messaging to reach YWOC is important.

In general, one of the reasons why creating effective messaging is important is because, in order to get what you want (develop better policies, raise more funding, get more press, etc.), you need some segment of public support to move your agenda forward. Secondly, raising awareness and making sure that the public is informed are other reasons why messaging is important. One thing that Candace mentioned during our presentation is that messaging that’s thoughtful and succinct can enable organizations and communities to find a unified voice on a specific social justice campaign. Third, messaging is important for grabbing attention. Think of news reports, magazine articles, and songs out there that have instantly grabbed your attention. Notice that many of the messaging may not have been positive, but it somehow stirred something within you that prompted you to take action, whether it was turning up the volume on the TV, reading the article more thoroughly, or turning off the radio.

Despite YWOC’s involvement in social justice work and the need for more leadership opportunities, very little research has been done on effective strategies for reaching YWOC. When asked why messaging to reach YWOC is so important within progressive movements, Daisy Hernandez and Pandora L. Leong of In These Times (2004), has this to say:

“Progressive movements have a long history of internal debates, but for feminists of color the question of racism and feminism isn’t about theories. It’s about determining our place in the movement. As the daughters of both the civil rights and feminist movements, we were bred on grrlpower, identity politics, and the emotional and often financial ties to our brothers, fathers, aunties, and moms back home, back South, back in Pakistan, Mexico or other homelands. We live at the intersections of identities, the places where social movements meet, and it’s here that our feminism begins.”

In order to help cultivate the next generation of young women activists, we need to do a better job at reaching out to young people in ways that affirms them and helps them to raise their voices. Also, we need to recognize that YWOC are dealing with a lot of issues these days: racism, sexism, ageism, immigrant status, education, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, among others. How can we develop effective messaging for YWOC that’s affirming, inclusive, and timely? How can we help YWOC decipher between messaging that’s for their benefit versus messaging that’s used to stigmatize, put down, and exclude their voices?

What Are Some of the Basic Principles for Messaging? (more…)

30 Jan, 2012

Parent-Child Communication: Keepin’ it Real Around the Kitchen Table

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:39:51-04:00January 30th, 2012|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Parent-Child Communication, Youth|0 Comments

Several years back, I co-facilitated a workshop called “Keepin’ It Real Around the Kitchen Table: Sparking the Discussion About Sex Between Teens and Families”. I’ve facilitated this workshop on and off throughout the years, and while the audience dynamic changes every time I facilitate this workshop, one thing remains the same: 1) Adults feel that young people don’t listen to them, and 2) young people feel that adults don’t listen to them either.

As a subject matter, sexuality requires consistent discussion tailored around the young person’s developmental level. A young person’s family can be a resource that is often underutilized and underdeveloped as an avenue for intervention. In general, when trust and mutual understanding are at the forefront, young people are more likely to talk with their parents, guardians, older siblings, and other trusted adults, and in turn it builds the confidence necessary to discuss more serious subject matters. When these elements are missing, it’s easy for young adults to get involved in activities that can put their health at risk.

Why Keepin’ It Real is Important

In many cultures, sitting around the kitchen table to share meals opens up the opportunity to share what’s going on in our lives. This can lead to frank and honest discussion about a variety of topics (often referred to as keepin’ it real). When it comes to having conversations that can shape how we view our bodies and our lives, keeping it real is required, and should be tailored in such a way that it respects the sexual emergence of young people at various developmental levels. The family dynamic (birth and chosen) can provide a safe space for these conversations. Talking about sexuality can be extremely difficult, but with patience, understanding, and a willingness to learn, adults can be viewed as a beneficial and accessible resource for young people (and they can also learn from young people in the process).

Before any type of discussion on sex and sexuality comes up, it’s important to see just how…“askable” you really are. Advocates for Youth created this nifty guide called “Are You an Askable Parent?” that I tend to highlight as a resource for youth and adults alike. I tend to notice that adults oftentimes will wait until their young person brings up the subject of sex and sexuality before they decide on how best to approach the conversation. By that time, the adult is so flustered that the conversation goes nowhere, leaving both the adult and the young person with no clear sense of what just happened. I give some tips here on how to speak with a young person when the topic of sexual health comes up. If you’ve read those tips, awesome! If not, click the link (this link right here), read them, and come on back. I’ll wait…

Good!

Now that we have the tips in mind, let’s put them into action. (more…)

Try This: The Teach Back Method

Try This: Including Pleasure in Youth Sex Education

4 Proven Ways to Create Effective Programs & Workshops for Youth

Do You Know Who You’re Talking To?: Effective Messaging for Young Women of Color

Parent-Child Communication: Keepin’ it Real Around the Kitchen Table

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