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.