Workshop Outline

The C2Y Program is designed to help social service providers re-examine and improve the youth/service provider relationship. This is accomplished through role-playing scenarios and feedback from Youth Trainers who have had first-hand experience of the social service system. The workshop is a half-day or 3 hours in length and the scenarios examined are designed to address your organization?s current needs or challenges. The following is a basic workshop outline.

Introduction:

• Describe the Connect to Youth Program.
• Introduce Participants and Trainers.
• Participants and Trainers outline their goals for the workshop.

Presentation of the service provider Discussion Example:

• Through a pre-workshop consultation, the C2Y Facilitator will ask the host organization contact person for a negative or challenging youth/service provider experience that the group may examine and discuss.
• Other workshop participants will be asked to reflect upon, and bring to the workshop, professional experiences that are both "positive" and that are "negative" or "challenging". This will be an example that the service providers have personally gone through.
• The Facilitator will lead a discussion based upon service providers experiences and experiences from the Youth Trainers.
• From these discussions the C2Y Facilitator will ask providers for any negative experiences that they would like to have the C2Y Trainers act out. This is the first interactive scenario opportunity of the workshop and a chance to model the process for the rest of the scenario experiences. A volunteer from the group will be asked to participate (but this is not mandatory). After the contexualized role-playing, the Youth Trainers will provide feedback to the volunteer.

Scenarios:

• Participants and Trainers will break into smaller groups. Ideally, there will be only 3 to 6 staff/learners and 2 to 3 Trainers per group.
• Trainers will introduce and set up each piece (limit 2 to 3 scenarios per group). And he/she will conduct an interactive scenario based upon his or her character. As well, based on the pre-workshop consultation, potential incidents will reflect the host organization's service field and practice needs.
• On a volunteer basis, 1 participant can enter the scenario forum with 1 of the Trainers. As the incident is played out all other workshop participants watch.
• After the scene, the participant is asked to comment on the exchange and its outcomes. The Youth Trainers will then provide feedback on their experience of the scenario. Other workshop participants are also invited to share observations.
• Based upon discussion of this forum, the scene may be practiced again and a different strategy may be attempted. Also, another staff/learner could try the scene.
• After this first scenario, the Trainer would move on to the next set up. The process is repeated as above.
• After two scenarios, if time permits, the Trainers could then do a "request". i.e. if the provider/participant has a scene from their professional experiences that they would like to explore/receive feedback on, then the Trainers can recreate this scene for this learning purpose.

Panel Discussion:

• The final component of the workshop is an "Experts Panel Discussion". Service providers have the opportunity to explore "case examples" from the perspective of service users. C2Y Trainers provide personal reflections.

Workshop Summary:

• In a large group all staff discuss the learning that has occurred for them through the interactive scenarios and feedback process. As well, the C2Y Facilitator will also examine the effectiveness of the workshop in general.  How will providers use what they have learned?  How can the workshop be improved?