Training Menu

The Delaware Center for Youth Development (DCYD) offers content, tools, and consulting to help youth, families, and communities thrive in their environment. Professional development is a collaborative effort to foster increased knowledge regarding positive youth development. DCYD works with staff and volunteers to offer the most comprehensive training menu possible. Any one of the trainings can be customized to fit an organization's needs. Click here for a brochure - DCYD Brochure.

ALL NEW!!!

Grab Bag II – All New Bag of Tricks

3 Credit Hours

Grab Bag II ~ All New Bag of Tricks Training is for anyone who comes in contact with youth. This hands-on interactive training teaches activities that require little or no materials, keep children and youth engaged, and foster teamwork and collaboration. It is a simple, open-ended method for dealing with learner diversity while engaging all learners. Participants will learn a variety of games to be used with groups of varying abilities. Each game has a specific purpose: to get acquainted, to raise energy, or to provoke thought. These games require minimal props and can be used in any setting.

Experiential Learning

9 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 3 Approved

I hear, and I forget
I see, and I remember
I do, and I understand
-Ancient Chinese proverb

If your goal is to teach information, telling the person, or having them read the information works well. Sometimes watching a video about what is to be learned works well too. If on the other hand, your goal is to have the person understand the concept at a level that they can generalize and apply the understanding to new situations, or combine the understanding with other concepts that they have learned, experiential education is the best way to develop that level of mastery.

This workshop is a 9 hour interactive training series on Experiential Learning. The experiential approach to education and group work is based on the idea that change and growth take place when people are actively (physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally) involved in their learning rather than just being receivers of information. The participants will increase their knowledge of experiential learning through small and large group work, print materials, and hands on activities. Attendees will have the opportunity to reflect on current practice, as well as learn more about best practices in the field.

Collaborative Leadership

9 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 3 Approved

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” Edward C. Register, 1915

This workshop is a 9 hour interactive training series on Collaborative Leadership. Collaborative leadership is a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more people to achieve common goals. This model of leadership promotes shared concern, adds diversity, overcomes gridlock, increases the ability to handle complex issues, and pools power and resources from multiple sources. The participants will increase their knowledge of collaborative leadership through small and large group work, print materials, and hands on activities. Attendees will have the opportunity to reflect on current practice, as well as design a Development Action Plan (DAP) to determine next steps towards implementation of the model.

Making Connections & Building Relationships

6 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

“No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.” Dr. James Comer

In this workshop, participants will explore the concrete experience of people in generational poverty. Through the use of mental models participants will view poverty, middle class, and wealth to identify how personal perspectives can help or interfere with building relationships. Participants will investigate the “tyranny of the moment” and how to apply this knowledge with students, clients, and/or colleagues. The workshop will also discuss the hidden rules of the three economic classes. Participants will work in small groups to generate examples of personal experiences with the hidden rules. The workshop will also include hands-on tools to work with people in all three classes and well as provide information on building resources.

Living without Resources: Exploring Class Systems through Mental Models

3 Credit Hours

“The need to act overwhelms any willingness to learn.” Peter Schwartz

Mental models are our internal pictures of how the world works. This workshop utilizes mental models to view economic class. Mental models often reveal perspectives that exist below awareness and often unconsciously determine how we act. To foster a productive and honest dialogue about class, we must first address and then suspend our mental models. Poverty as defined is the extent to which an individual does without resources. This workshop will also review and discuss the importance of and access to resources for our students, clients, and/or colleagues.

Challenging Perceptions: Discovering the Hidden Rules of Class

3 Credit Hours

This workshop takes a look at the fact that schools and businesses operate from middle class norms and use hidden rules of middle class. How does that affect students or clients from other classes? What are the hidden rules? The hidden rules of class are those rules that we have all known, but don’t talk about and often when discussed become controversial. For example; hidden rules of food in poverty the key question is – did you have enough? Quantity important. In middle class the key question is – did you like it? Quality important. In wealth the key question is – was it presented well? Presentation important. This workshop will look at hidden rules around clothing, personality, education, social emphasis, love, and money.

Teamwork, Power, & Accountability: Your Role in Collaborative Teams

6 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

What are the characteristic of effective teams? How do you build collaboration? This workshop explores the roles we play and the relationships we foster to create collaborative teams. Teamwork is based on communication, trust, and valuing diversity. Participants investigate various work styles and determine how their own style affects group dynamics. Attendees explore how the management of power and accountability in teams can result in either the success or failure of the team. Participants analyze program outcomes to clarify common goals. They also participate in hands-on activities that can be easily implemented in the workplace. Activities include addressing hidden expertise, managing conflict, and fostering positive communication skills.

Team Building - Working Collaboratively with Colleagues

3 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

How do you build collaboration? Do all staff “buy-in”? This workshop can be implemented with individuals or customized to work with groups. Attendees will explore their own work style and how to work more cohesively with others. Participants will analyze program outcomes to clarify a common goal. After determining common goals, attendees will participate in hands-on activities that can be easily transferred back to the program. Activities will also include identifying the fallacies of leadership, how to have a difficult conversations and positive communication skills.

Putting Action Plans to Work

2 Credit Hours

How many calendars do you have? How long do you spend writing a to-do list? Often we try to organize our lives through to-do lists, but we miss the larger objective. Actions plans are not to-do lists. Actions plans specify the actions needed to address each of the top organizational issues and to reach each of the associated goals, who will complete each action and according to what timeline. Individual action plans follow the same premise. Often midway through an action plan, people become fatigued and uninterested in the goal. This workshop focuses on the difference between a to-do list and an action plan, and the process of getting action plans accomplished.

Fostering Change: Combating Negative Attitudes

3 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

Day in and day out dealing with challenging behaviors and pessimistic beliefs? Do your colleagues, students, or family members approach every situation with a negative attitude? This workshop will explore the causes of what instigates negative perceptions, the spectrum of attitudes and how to foster change by promoting a positive environment. In addition, participants will explore tools to assist in putting aside biases, addressing stereotypes, and confronting roadblocks.

Increasing Cultural Competencies - Dealing with Diversity

3 Credit Hours

Blue hair, pierced tongues, and economic status - How do they affect your decisions? How do they affect your reactions? When is being colorblind ever helpful? Everyone has biases; it is human nature to have ingrained stereotypes, but what part do they play in our leadership abilities or our decision making process? Join us for a training regarding the barriers that influence our efforts to support others and tackle conflict. The training will explore tools to assist in putting aside biases, addressing stereotypes, and confronting roadblocks.

How to Have a Difficult Conversation

3 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

This interactive workshop develops skills and introduces practical processes that can be used during a difficult conversation. People are often reluctant to discuss difficult topics for fear of the consequences. Learn how to get to core issues within a conflict and find resolution. Participants will practice raising and clarifying the issues, learn how to gather information within difficult conversations, and enhance problem solving skills. As a group, participants will discuss and illustrate how people “get stuck” in a position which is just at the surface, like the tip of the iceberg. There will be an opportunity to role play and practice difficult conversations.

The Elephant in the Room - Dealing with Unacknowledged Conflict

3 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

Do you sense the presence of the “elephant in the room” at staff meetings, with administrators, or with parents? This workshop explores the most effective responses to unacknowledged conflict and the five styles of conflict management. Participants will investigate the style they are most comfortable with and the styles that create more conflict. Proactive strategies for addressing and resolving conflict will be identified. Activities include Iceberg Theory, Medicine Wheel, and Addressing and De-escalating Techniques.

Conflict Management

3 Credit Hours

This training leads participants through a variety of experiences to explore their most effective responses to anger and conflict. This workshop will also explore the five styles of conflict management. It is an experiential introduction to alternatives to violence based on community-building, cooperation, communication, and conflict resolution. Whether the attendees are working with youth or parents, participants will gain skills as current/future leaders to enter into and negotiate conflict in creative ways that work toward win-win solutions.

Effective Communication

6 Credit Hours

What is your communication style? Are you direct or indirect in your conversations? This workshop focuses on the methods used to hold the most effective conversation. The participants will learn how to utilize a questioning process to facilitate conversations, as well as how to use reframing to clarify, specify and depersonalize information. Attendees will participate in hands-on activities and collaborative assignments.

Nurturing Resiliency in Children and Youth

3 Credit Hours

Resiliency is the ability to cope with adversity and has been described as the human capacity to face, overcome and be strengthened by the adversities of life. Key places where a child develops resiliency are in the family and at school. This workshop will explore where resiliency comes from, how to build resiliency, and how to apply strength based programming in a classroom setting. Participants will also enhance skills in reaching stressed and anxious children and youth.

Youth Development 101

3 Credit Hours

This workshop introduces participants to the concept of Positive Youth Development by practicing and discussing activities and exercises designed to support youth in thinking about and fostering group leadership. This is a great workshop for young youth workers who need theoretical grounding or for the experienced administrator who wants to update the approach to youth work. Workshop activities include: a walk-through PowerPoint explaining Positive Youth Development Theory and practice; a review of the Search Institute’s 40 Assets; a correlation between the 40 Assets and participants’ own programs; and identifying and measuring outcomes about what we want young people to learn, feel, and accomplish with our support.

Understanding Youth Culture

3 Credit Hours

High School Musical, Kanye West, Britney, My Space, and YouTube – what is youth culture? This workshop will guide participants through the maze of what engages today’s youth with a focus on the interaction between adults and youth. A variety of experiences will explore effective adult responses to youth culture. Participants will learn a questioning process to facilitate effective conversations; explore personal feelings and biases about youth while gaining knowledge about how to work with them effectively and professionally; engage in hands-on activities and collaborative tasks; and examine tools to assist in putting aside biases, addressing stereotypes, and confronting roadblocks.

Establishing Trust & Setting Boundaries

3 Credit Hours

A variety of experiences engage administrators and/or staff in the exploration of their most effective responses in establishing trust, setting boundaries, and understanding the interaction between youth and adults. Attendees practice listening, team building, collaborating, and communication. They also explore the five styles of conflict management. Whether they work with youth or parents, participants gain the skills to negotiate conflict in creative ways, working toward win-win solutions for all involved.

Interaction 101

3 Credit Hours

This workshop focuses on the interaction between youth and adults. The session is designed to lead adults through a variety of experiences to explore their most effective responses to children and youth. The participants will learn how to utilize a questioning process to facilitate effective conversations. Participants will explore their own feelings and biases about youth, while gaining knowledge about how to effectively and professionally work with them. Attendees will participate in hands-on activities and collaborative assignments.

Interactive Academics

3 Credit Hours

It is a fact that adults and youth learn in fundamentally different ways. Delaware Center for Youth Development (DCYD) delivers training in a simple, open-ended method for dealing with learner diversity and for engaging all learners. This workshop will introduce participants to creative academics. How can you integrate literature with math and science? Can you create research projects that are interactive and interesting? Become actively involved in developing curriculum materials that are academic and experiential. Some of the interactive activities include: Zoom; Giving Tree; Lifeboat; Three Minute Challenge; Unrolling Tape/Painter’s Tape; House of Cards; Cave In; Phonebook; Work of Art; Yada, Yada, Yada; and others.

Grab Bag - Bag of Tricks Activities

3 Credit Hours

Grab Bag ~ Bag of Tricks Activity Training is for anyone who comes in contact with youth. This hands-on interactive training teaches activities that require little or no materials, keep children and youth engaged, and foster teamwork and collaboration. It is a simple, open-ended method for dealing with learner diversity while engaging all learners. Participants will learn a variety of games to be used with groups of varying abilities: such as, Weigh Both Sides, Truth or Fiction?, Color Your Day, Find Your Partner, Cave In, Pattern Ball, and many more. Each game has a specific purpose: to get acquainted, to raise energy, or to provoke thought. These games require minimal props and can be used in any setting.

On the Bus, Standing in Line: Activities to Keep 'Em Busy

3 Credit Hours

This workshop is for anyone who works with children and youth. It specializes in those “down times” when youth are more likely to act out, because they have nothing to do. This hands-on interactive training teaches activities that require little or no materials, keeps children and youth engaged, and fosters teamwork and collaboration. It is a simple, open-ended method for dealing with learner diversity while engaging all learners. Participants will learn a variety of games to be used with groups of varying abilities. These games require minimal props and can be used in any setting.

Imagine: Making Something from Nothing

3 Credit Hours
DIEEC Level 2 Approved

What can you do with a paper towel tube? What about a coffee can? Can you make something out of nothing? This workshop urges participants to design activities for children and youth with simple materials that are typically thrown away. In addition, the participants create a personal recycling program to avoid unnecessary waste. The hands-on, interactive activities showcased in the workshop keep children and youth engaged as they develop teamwork and collaboration. Simple, open-ended, and engaging, the exercises address learner diversity.

Programming with Children's Literature

3 Credit Hours

How can you integrate literature with math and science? Can you create research projects that are interactive and interesting? This workshop encourages participants to design cross-curricular activities for early care or non-school programs. Academic and experiential, the tasks fit seamlessly into existing syllabuses.

1 2 3 of Program Design - Part 1: Program - Curriculum - Activities - What's the Difference?

3 Credit Hours

Do you have great skills for working with youth? Do you have the sense that you can get them to fully engage, but then what? This course will help front line youth workers to reference the youth development model, the program outcomes and specific curriculum to assist in knowing how to make activity decisions and plans that have programmatic and philosophical congruency. Further, participants will see how these considerations influence a professional response to enhance pro-social, effective behaviors or to address negative ones.

1 2 3 of Program Design - Part 2: Putting It All Together

3 Credit Hours

So now you know the difference between program, curriculum, and activities? What are the other things that must be considered in designing youth programs? Agency resources—both human and financial, youth interests, parental input, community resources, etc. How do you intentionally create programs that accommodate all of these constituent interests while promoting healthy youth development including pro-social behavior, academic achievement, and communication?

Workshops Designed for Youth:

Leadership

This training focuses on fostering leadership through hands-on experiential activities. Youth will interact while learning decision-making skills, mediation skills, and techniques of facilitation.

Team Building - Challenge Course

In this training, youth and adults will benefit by developing intergroup and interpersonal skills through experiential activities on a low-ropes challenge course.

Anger Management

In this session, participants explore the stages and the roots of anger. Attendees will role play and deal with their own styles of anger management, as they brainstorm how to effectively de-escalate a situations when anger is involved.

Listening 101

This workshop focuses on the skills of active listening. Attendees will participate in hands-on activities and role plays to develop summarizing and paraphrasing skills through listening.

Social Responsibility

This workshop investigates the importance of being socially responsible. Participants will work in small groups, brainstorm and strategize around community building.

Positive Communication

This training focuses on fostering effective and positive communication through diverse techniques. Participants will practice clarifying, specifying and retooling information to express themselves.

Possibilities in Action

In this workshop, youth explore self-expression, conflict resolution, and issues of diversity. Participants are led through a series of exercises and games that balance spontaneity and discipline. This is a highly interactive "on your feet" workshop. Participants engage in a process of creating the world in which they live for better understanding and more effective living.

Decision-making / Problem-solving

This workshop intensively explores problem solving and decision-making through small and large group interaction.

Conflict Resolution

This broad scope workshop is customized to meet the needs of your youth. Participants will receive a general overview of problem solving, decision-making, etc.

Bullying Prevention

This workshop explores the three culprits of bullying: the bystanders, the victim, and the bullies. Youth will analyze all three roles and investigate how they can become proactive against bullying.

Having a Voice

This workshop offers youth skills in effective communication and leadership skills. The participants will work on how to be heard and how to talk so people will listen.

Planning 101

Always running late? Want something, but don't know how to get it? This practical workshop focuses on how to keep setting and attaining goals.

Can You Define Respect?

Everybody wants it, but who can define it? This workshop challenges youth to think critically around concepts of respect. Participants will work collectively to explore what respect means to them. Students will design a global definition and discuss how respect is not just a word, but an action.

*Customized Training

If your business or organization requires a different type of training other than what is described, let us know, and we will design a training program to fit your needs.