The Beat
Subscribe to RSS Feed
When the economy soured in 2008, Barbara Mueth knew she couldn’t be complacent. As chair of the board for reStart Inc., which serves the homeless of Kansas City, MO, she watched as the need for services increased while giving to the organization held steady.
Mueth decided it was a good time to get her fellow board members to fully embrace their roles as spokespeople for the organization and its cause. Mueth’s thinking went like this: If board members made a public display of their commitment, they could make a stronger case for other people to get involved, whether by donating money or giving their time.
As advocates, she says, board members have greater credibility than staff. “We’re not paid to speak on behalf of a program. It’s the opposite, in fact: we’re volunteers for their cause.”
Mueth and Pat Corrick, board chair of Youth Homes in western Montana, shared with NCFY three ways you can prepare your board to be your organization’s public face:
1. Coordinate everyone’s elevator speeches. Mueth says until a few years ago, her fellow reStart board members had never discussed or compared their short “elevator” pitches to potential volunteers, donors and supporters. Sensing that a coordinated message would make their pitches more forceful and convincing, Mueth drafted some key talking points for everyone to use when introducing reStart.
“People have to understand the organization and your personal commitment to it before you ask them to actually donate money to it,” Mueth says. “So making our key messages more consistent seemed to be a key first step.”
2. Introduce board members to staff. Corrick stresses that open communication with frontline and administrative workers is essential if board members are going to be effective pitchmen for the cause. He says executive directors, who are most often the bridge between board and staff, should encourage board members to visit the program’s sites and learn about the work being done there daily.
At reStart, Barbara Mueth has implemented what she calls a “Minute for Mission” at each board meeting. “We take 10 minutes to have a staff member come in and educate the board about what they’re doing,” she says.
Mueth says the briefings have given board members a better understanding of what each program does, and that knowledge comes across when they promote reStart’s work to others.
3. Encourage board members to take on public events and projects. Along with his board colleagues, Corrick collaborates with Youth Homes’ director of development on events and projects that bring visibility to the organization and its cause of assisting abused and neglected children and youth. The board hosts an annual party for donors, helps organize runners in the Missoula Marathon to raise money for young people, and has overseen a major renovation to the program’s group home.
In every case, Corrick says, the board has not only helped gather sponsors and invite attendees but also volunteered their own time to work a booth at the marathon or help with construction.
“Our board members have varied skill sets including law, finance and accounting, marketing, cultural awareness, and construction and development,” Corrick says. Why not put all those talents to use?
More From NCFY
"Right on the Money: Get Your Board to Lead the Way on Fundraising"
October is National Bullying Prevention Month, but the topic seems to be in the news and on Americans’ minds year round. As a youth worker, what can you do to stop bullying in your program and your community? Here are some ideas:
1. Find out how bad the problem is. Researchers have created dozens of evidence-based tools that measure different aspects of bullying. The Centers for Disease Controls’ compendium of assessment tools can help you choose from a range of surveys and scales that investigate the experiences of bullies, bullied youth and bystanders. Included are tools that measure homophobia.
2. Learn what not to do. In a video from Stopbullying.gov, Catherine Bradshaw of Johns Hopkins University says some common approaches to stopping bullying, like peer mediation and group therapy, may actually reinforce aggressive behavior.
3. Identify victims' legal recourse. Policies differ by state. For example, Massachusetts provides a detailed list of technology and electronic communication that is considered bullying, while Colorado does not prohibit cyberbullying at all. Find out your state’s anti-bullying laws by visiting Stopbullying.gov’s map.
4. Work with youth to create an action plan. The National Bullying Prevention Center, run by disability-rights nonprofit PACER, offers a step-by-step guide and an action plan template that you can use to help youth record incidents of bullying and think about how they’ll respond in the future.
More From NCFY
"Secretary Sebelius Speaks Out About Bullying: 'It Gets Better'"
This October, we’re recognizing Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We thought we’d start by highlighting youth-led prevention campaigns, in the hopes that you’ll be inspired to help your youth take a positive approach to this serious problem.
Here are three interviews highlighting the ways young people are helping to prevent domestic and relationship violence in their communities:
- Advocates from Florida’s I Am Courageous project and Stand Up Speak Up Alaska discuss the role of youth in launching their campaigns on the “Exploring Youth-Driven Prevention Campaigns” radio program.
- Two young women collaborating with Chicago’s Alliance of Local Service Organizations to understand dating violence in their neighborhood talked to NCFY for our “Chicago Youth Say No to Dating Violence” podcast.
- Representatives from Peer Solutions in Phoenix chatted with PreventConnect about their nationally recognized Stand and Serve program, in which young people design programs to address sexual violence in their community.
How are youth in your program and community working to prevent and end domestic violence? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter.
“Restoring Healthy Developmental Trajectories for Sexually Exploited Young Runaway Girls: Fostering Protective Factors and Reducing Risk Behaviors” (abstract). Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol. 46, Issue 2 (February 2012).
What it's about: The authors of this study evaluate the Minnesota Runaway Intervention Program using data and from the 2004 Minnesota Student Survey. RIP aims to help runaway 12- to 15-year-old girls who have experienced physical or sexual abuse work towards a positive path for their lives, overcome trauma, and improve their health and ability to cope. Trained nurses visited the girls at home to restore family connectedness and provide case management, healthcare and health education. The girls could also choose to attend a weekly girls’ empowerment group with a psychotherapist.
Why read it: Many homeless, street-involved youth have experienced some form of abuse—physical, sexual, or both. Their histories of abuse may put them at higher risk for having mental health, drug or alcohol problems. But protective factors and supports, such as feeling connected to school, family and friends can reduce the likelihood that homeless youth will use drugs or alcohol, have risky sex or be involved with violence.
Biggest take away for youth workers: After 6 months, RIP girls were more connected to their families than they had been at the start of the study. They also had higher self-esteem and were less likely to have risky sex or use drugs or alcohol. After a year, girls in the program had greater aspirations for their education than they had at the beginning. The gains they made in the first six months, with higher self-esteem and fewer risky behaviors, also remained at the end of a year.
The study showed that this intervention may work better with older adolescents who are more cognitively mature and for those youth who have at least some resources or protective factors.
Additional reference: Read more information about the Runaway Intervention Program.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of this and other publications.)
September is National Disaster Preparedness Month—a time to get ready for disasters.
We would like to help you do that! This month we've been breaking down some of the steps of preparing for, responding to and recovering from a disaster. If you have questions, or want to share your disaster planning experience, you can get in touch with us using your preferred mode of communication: phone, email, live chat, Tweet or Facebook comment.
So far, we've talked about disaster supplies, evacuations and response plans. Now, we're going to get into recovering after an emergency. Here are five steps to take in the aftermath of a disaster:
- Restock your emergency supplies as quickly as possible. Sometimes, lightning does strike twice!
- Inspect your facility for damage and repair it. The Red Cross has directions on how to check for damage to your facility's structure and to your electricity, plumbing and heating. You should also call your insurance if you see any damage that might be covered.
- Help youth cope with trauma. Make mental health counselors available to youth, and look out for signs of distress. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration has a hotline victims of disasters can call to get help with emotional and mental health, at 1-800-985-5990.
- Debrief with staff and youth. Plan a staff meeting, a a separate meeting with youth, as soon as possible after the crisis is resolved. Did your response plan work? What steps might you take to make your response to the next disaster more efficient? Talk to youth and staff about how they felt during the disaster and how they're feeling now.
- Revise your disaster response plan. Incorporate your new ideas and procedures. Then hold trainings or drills to make sure everybody understands and is comfortable with the new plan.
For more information about preparing for, responding to and recovering from emergencies, read NCFY’s FREE disaster planning manual, “Ready for Anything.” And visit us on Facebook or Twitter to tell us about your experiences recovering from disasters.
Over the summer, we followed Craig, a young man working as an intern at Sea Haven Youth Services in North Myrtle Beach, SC. As his experience wound down, we spoke to his supervisor, Melissa McGrath, about ways youth workers can reinforce the lessons learned during the internship in order to help youth prepare for the next step in their careers.
“Youth workers can be an asset by helping interns who’ve decided on a career path with their job search, updating a resume, and having mock interviews together,” McGrath says.
Here are some things you can do with youth to help them move to the next employment opportunity:
Review “soft skills.” In their first few jobs, young people are learning how to be good workers. Before, during and after an internship, talk to them about these basic requirements in the workplace:
- Effective communication. “Interns need to learn how to talk with their supervisor when they are having problems, that can interfere with their job performance,” McGrath says. Interns also need to be able to communicate with coworkers and stakeholders effectively. Encourage straightforward, tactful and honest conversations.
- Professionalism. Explain office standards and policies (including dress codes) at the beginning of an internship and reinforce them when opportunities arise. Praise youth when they follow guidelines, and hold them accountable when they don’t.
- Punctuality. This is often one of the areas that young interns struggle with. Supervisors should make clear the expectation that youth arrive on time for work and for meetings and appointments. Bosses can also lead by example by being punctual themselves.
- Initiative. Youth may not have experience taking initiative and being knowledgeable about the programs and services offered by the company or organization they work for. Case managers and supervisors should work together to show youth opportunities for being creative and stepping forward.
- Boundaries. Interns need to have a clear understanding of what is allowed and what is not allowed when they are interacting with coworkers, supervisors, and customers or clients.
Request references. McGrath suggests talking with youth about the importance of maintaining a good rapport with past employers and the importance of recommendation letters. Youth might send a thank you card or email, and ask whether the employer would be willing to give a recommendation in the future.
Refresh the resume. Even before an internship has ended, young people can begin to update their resumes with the new experiences, skills and accomplishments they’ve gained. Ask them about the internship and what they think they’ve learned, and help them turn their answers into bullet points for their resumes.
Read part one and part two of Craig's story.
Where did your program's youth work this summer? Let us know by posting a comment on our Facebook page or sending us a Tweet. Tell us how you helped them to be successful, too.
NCFY's newest Youth Speak Out podcast features Gina Odom, a youth leader from rural Colorado who has represented her program at national and state conferences. She has also been featured in local televised public service announcements for the Colorado Rural Collaborative, asking people to open their homes to homeless youth.
Gina spoke with NCFY about the process through which the collaborative recognizes, trains and supports their youth advocates. The job includes research, storytelling and public speaking. Gina says of working with homeless and formerly homeless youth, "It’s a really healing and helpful process to reach out and work with others who have so much potential and yet don't realize it."
Young people who show up at the doors of youth-serving agencies face a host of problems. They often need housing, medical and mental health care, help staying in school—all issues that can have a legal component. Which means that sometimes, the best ally a youth worker could have in untangling thorny issues for their clients is a lawyer. Even better, a pro-bono lawyer.
Recently, NCFY spoke to Cheryl Nolan of the Legal Services Corporation, a congressionally supported organization that funds civil legal services for low-income Americans. She explained the ways legal aid programs can help youth get out of tricky situations.
NCFY: What are some typical civil legal problems that young people face? And what can legal aid do to help?
Nolan: Some youth returning from incarceration or juvenile detention would be interested in looking to see if they qualify for expungement, or sealing of their criminal record. Also, many times youth find that there are incorrect items or information that are reported on their criminal records and that can impede their ability to get reintegrated into society by getting a job or getting into a school system. Legal aid programs can make sure that all the information is correct and see if they qualify for expungement.
Legal aid programs are also highly experienced at advocating on behalf of youth at school discipline, suspension or expulsion hearings, and also with special education.
In terms of teen pregnancy and teen parents, legal aid programs are highly experienced in helping to establish child support, which can really help stabilize a young family by helping provide a source of regular income. They can also assist with application and eligibility for government benefits, which would be cash aid, food stamps, WIC [Women, Infants and Children] benefits, social security, disability.
Legal aid programs can help young teen parents and young pregnant women with access to health care. They can help to review eligibility for health insurance, for example Medicaid or Medicare, depending on the state. If the teen parent or the young pregnant woman doesn’t have health insurance, if she’s incurred medical bills, they can help establish eligibility for health insurance retroactively and they can work with the hospitals on the debt collection.
Legal aid programs can also help to establish or maintain eligibility for subsidized housing or even help youth enforce their rights in private landlord-tenant matters.
NCFY: What can youth workers do to make sure young people get the legal aid they need?
Nolan: As many of us already know, it’s not enough just to have just a phone number and the name of a program and to hand it to a young person. Youth workers can familiarize themselves with the community agencies in their networks, introduce themselves and begin a formal collaboration.
Many legal aid programs regularly do outreach presentations at other agencies in their communities. That would be a wonderful first step to introduce the legal aid staff to young clients. Another thing youth workers can do is work out formal referral arrangements, so the young person can have a specific name and phone number and doesn’t get lost in the mass of people who are coming into a legal aid program every day.
If it’s appropriate, youth workers could even set up a formal memorandum of understanding with the legal aid program, that can be a formal contract between the two organizations about how those referrals can be made.
Find a legal aid program on the Legal Services Corporation website.
"Taking the Youth Perspective: Assessment of Program Characteristics That Promote Positive Development in Homeless and At-risk Youth" (abstract). Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 32, No. 10 (October, 2010).
What it’s about: The writers of this article surveyed about 133 youth, ages 10-24, who were clients of six youth-serving agencies in a large Midwestern metropolitan area. The researchers asked what the young people thought about the services and environment of the organizations.
Why read it: Every year, nearly 1.7 million adolescents experience at least one night of homelessness, the authors write. Prior studies indicate that when young people feel disenfranchised, they are more likely to end up homeless. The authors of this article studied what young people found most engaging and empowering at home, at school, and in other youth-serving systems in order to understand what might prevent them from becoming homeless.
Biggest takeaways for youth workers: Young people's overall satisfaction with their experiences at a youth-serving organization was not related to the number of resources or services offered by the agency. Instead, youth rated agencies highly when they also were satisfied with the organization's structure and safety, and its promotion of supportive relationships, opportunities for belonging, young people's self worth, and other factors.
For older youth, rules and predictability led to more positive overall ratings of organizations. For younger youth, safety was extremely important.
Additional references: This year marks the 10th anniversary of the National Academies' "Community Programs to Promote Youth Development," which includes a seminal chapter on the features common to successful youth programs.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB, or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of this and other publications.)
September is National Disaster Preparedness Month—a time to get ready for disasters.
We would like to help you do that! We’ve been breaking down some of the steps of preparing for, responding to and recovering from a disaster. If you have questions, or want to share your disaster planning experience, you can get in touch with us using your preferred mode of communication: phone, email, live chat, Tweet or Facebook comment.
Last week we wrote about emergency supplies and evacuations. Now we’re going to tell you how to create a disaster response plan.
Make that “plans.” You’re going to need a plan for each kind of emergency your organization might face.
Small-scale Disasters
Every single day, youth-serving organizations could find themselves dealing with one of the following:
- Building fire
- Power outage
- Water main break
- Gas leak
- Intruder
- Bomb Threat
- Collapse of roof or wall
- Medical emergencies (respiratory arrest, drug overdose, cardiac arrest, injury, illness)
Large-scale Disasters
If you’re in Florida, you probably worry about hurricanes. In California, you probably worry about earthquakes. From the list below, choose the types of disasters that could affect your entire region:
- Flood
- Earthquake
- Hurricane
- Volcano
- Thunderstorm and lightning
- Landslide
- Tornado
- Tsunami
- Blizzard
- Wildfire
- Hazardous material incident
- Chemical emergencies
- Nuclear power plant emergency
- Terrorist explosion
- Nuclear blast
- Biological threat
- Chemical threat
- Dirty bomb
Response Plan Template
Now that you’ve decided what disasters your organization might face, use our disaster response plan template to spell out the procedures you will follow for each type of emergency. On the template, you’ll also write down the supplies and contact numbers you need.
You can get an idea of the things you should include by reading our sample response plans for a tornado and a building fire.
More Information
Read the response chapter in our FREE disaster planning manual, “Ready for Anything.”
Stay tuned for more posts on disaster planning throughout September. And visit us on Facebook or Twitter to tell us about your disaster plans.
Sign up
Follow us
Like us
Sign up for our RSS feeds: 
