YDEV Anchors

Leading With and Purposeful Play are two of the many topics we have covered over the course of this semester. I find Leading With to be an important anchor of youth work because when the youth feel that they have a voice and they feel that they matter. It creates a healthy space for them to ask questions and be part of the progression of the program. By having the youth be a part of the decision making and giving them responsibilities that youth typically do not get, it will raise their self-esteem and they will become confident in themselves and future decision making, especially if the youth want to go into a leadership role of some kind.

Purposeful Play is also an important part of youth work because by having a purpose to the play, the youth will gain skills and create an understanding for a set of skills that they could explore more in a more in depth way. There could be a purpose to any activity the youth do, whether that activity is a group game, an art project, or some dramatic play. The purpose of the group game could be team building, the dramatic play could have a purpose of building speech skills and talking in front of a group of people.

Ideology Inventory

I remember taking this ideology inventory last year in YDEV 300 and getting Positive Youth Development as the one that aligns closer to me. This year Critical Youth Development and Positive Youth Development were tied as my two lowest. Reading the two on the Ideology Horoscope, I can see why I matched with these two. I do believe in a positive youth space to give youth that voice that they might not get somewhere else and I believe in the critical youth space because I want youth and the youth workers to work alongside each other to talk about topics that the youth are interested in. I did enjoy in the horoscope that the examples it used were geared towards more teens and older youth because that is what I find that I am more interested in working with. I love working with elementary schoolers, but they just become too much for more sometimes and I need to talk to youth that can have a really nice conversation and I feel that with teens and maybe middle schoolers, I'll get that chance to be the youth worker I want to be.