Conference Attendees: James Ewell (New Roads Program Manager), Amanda Hampton (Rural Program Supervisor), Kirstin London (Director of Runaway & Homeless Youth Services), Becca Marx (Grant Writer).
Becca Marx, Looking Glass grant writer shares her experience at the Family & Youth Services Bureau 2019 Grantee Training
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the annual Family & Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) Grantee Training in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, joining our RHY team leaders. This year’s conference was the largest yet, with over 950 professionals from across the US in attendance. I gleaned a lot of great nuggets of wisdom, and it is difficult to distill all the information into a brief blog post, but I thought would be nice to share 3 main take-away points with staff and/or anybody interested in learning more.
1. It is essential that staff prioritize self-care.
This message was a central theme in many of the presentations and workshops. I know we’ve all heard that self-care is important, but something about how it was iterated time and time again at the conference really struck a chord.
Nola Brantley, of Nola Brantley Speaks, gave the keynote opening address. She detailed many important points about working with vulnerable youth populations, including the importance of owning your story (what is your why?), emphasized that relationships are impactful (and to be mindful if you find yourself always prioritizing client relationships over personal relationships), and made remarks on the difference between trauma-focused and trauma-informed care. Her main message was that self-care needs to be intentional and is essential to doing the really important work we do in a healthy way. Be mindful of vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burn out.
Horacio Sanchez, President and CEO of Resiliency, Inc, was another keynote that spoke on the importance of self-care, through the lens of brain science. He drove home the message of prioritizing sleep and nutrition. Looking Glass educators may find some of his published works applicable to their work in the field, including A Brain-Based Approach to Closing the Achievement Gap and A Mentor's Guide to Promoting Resiliency.
Whether or not you work directly with clients, we all could benefit from implementing more self-care. Not sure where to start? Check out this nifty list:
National Safe Place Network Self-Care flyer from the conference.
2. We need to amplify youth voice and provide opportunities for leadership every chance we get.
One of my favorite sessions was titled Hearing Their Voices: Effectively Engaging Youth Voice Into Your Organization’s Programming. It was a panel discussion hosted by The Night Ministry, a youth shelter program based in Chicago. One of the panelists was Julie Campos, a Youth Advocate for the organization and an alumnus of their youth-led leadership board Youth4Truth. Julie gave compelling testimony about how being encouraged to participate in leadership experiences positively impacted her life. Her Youth4Truth peers encouraged her to not giving up on the goal she set for herself to re-enroll in college after her son was born. Email me if you are interested in the Youth Leadership Development packet from this session which contains tons of resources if you are looking for more ways to amplify youth voice in your program.
The closing keynote was also a panel discussion, titled Speaking from Experience: Insight and Vision for the Field. Four inspiring young people from the field with lived homeless experience throughout their childhood/youth shared openly and honestly about how the RHY-serving agencies they were involved with amplified their voice, contributing to profound, positive change in their future. Everything from becoming a program manager at the shelter in which they were a past client, to honing their voice in the form of spoken word performance to large audiences and amassing a massive online following, to co-founding a non-profit was discussed. The insight, resilience, and accomplishment of each of the panelists was truly remarkable and a reminder of the unlimited potential each client we serve possesses.
3. Factors that Contribute to Healthy Organizational Culture
Another fascinating workshop was on company culture and navigating organizational change, presented by leaders from The Cocoon House in Everett, WA and their organizational consultant Tony Hemmelgarn. The Cacoon House worked with Tony as the organization went through a massive period of growth and transition. The presenters had really interesting information to share on company culture (norms and expectations), from macro to micro levels. They spoke on the importance of healthy communication, touching on availability, responsiveness, continuity, and transparency. They also referenced the SCARF model, highlighting the neurological drivers of success in reference to staff feeling fufilled in their work (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relationships, and Fairness). I found the session to be very informative and full of useful information for anyone who works on a team of any kind.
Please reach out to Becca if you would like to continue the conversation or learn more about the conference.