William B Kearney

Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals: Improving Child and Youth Program Experiences William B Kearney

Marc Notes: In the past thirty-six years working with child and youth programs from the local to the federal level in the private, not-for-profit, and public sectors, I have observed more than a thousand child and youth programs. . . . As I visit program sites, I have often seen the same scenario play out over and over again. Well-intentioned volunteers and eager new staff want to work with and contribute to the lives of young people, but they don't get the training, support, or resources they need to succeed. They do not have understanding of child and youth development, and how to use these principles as they work with young people. So often, organizations don't have the budgets and resources to provide the needed level of child and youth development training and practice for new staff and volunteers.; Although Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals and the E-QYP app were developed to support individual volunteers and staff, they also serve as powerful, organization-wide resources. Supervisors can use the information to coach staff and volunteers and guide them toward appropriate staff-child interactions and age- and developmentally appropriate programs and activities. Topics can be used for fifteen-minute training sessions before programs begin. The book and app also serve as a powerful supplement to college textbooks, providing easy-to-access applications of child and youth development theory. Finally, Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals brings a child and youth development focus to an entire community when it is adopted as a common resource across organizations and providers. Publisher Marketing: Whether you are a seasonal volunteer, group leader or full-time professional, you need practical advice on how to provide young people with the tools they need to succeed. Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals-E-QYP for short-provides best practices to help young people ages six to eighteen reach their potential. It also offers age-appropriate ideas that you can translate to your specific child and youth program. E-QYP is a handy reference for individuals, as well as a powerful volunteer and staff development tool when adopted by organizations. It also serves as a great supplement to college textbooks on child and youth development. With easy-to-read information and sample activities that really work, this guide can help you help the young people in your life. "Youth agencies serve huge numbers of kids in the United States, but few youth workers have specific knowledge about youth development, and agency budgets tend to have few dollars for staff training. Although the training and credentialing of all youth workers remains an aspiration, workers with and without training need ready access to research-based knowledge and practices. Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals provides both. Whether read as a whole or accessed for just-in-time information, Equipping Quality Youth Development Professionals is a timely, valuable, and much-needed resource." -Irv Katz, president and CEO, National Human Services Assembly and National Collaboration for Youth Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2014 pg. 125 (EAN 9781491719343, Paperback) Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2014 (EAN 9781491719350, Hardcover)