How to Prepare Staff for Summer 2021 (and Beyond)
You’ve been planning the logistics, posting job descriptions, maybe interviewing potential staff in preparation for your programming this summer. You’ve probably heard the call from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona requesting that schools and community organizations collaborate to create summer learning experiences that are “better than they ever were in the past.” So, you’re working with districts or other community organizations to get organized.
But once these big pieces are in place, how will you prepare staff to meet the needs of young people this summer?
Summer staff development is a tight turnaround in regular times. But this year, the timeline is downright insane--mostly because the stakes are so high, there are so many unknowns and the ground beneath our feet seems to be continually shifting. As you prepare to prepare your staff, here are some ways to help you prioritize what they need to know.
1. Zoom out. Whew. We’ve been inundated with language: learning loss, social-emotional learning, trauma...and all of that has money attached to it. For the first time ever, the out-of-school time field is named in--and therefore tasked with-- super-major federal funding to help young people this summer. That is absolutely amazing. And that is a lot of pressure.
Do not let the $$ drive your program decision-making. In partnership with youth and families, decide the program priorities. Then get the $$ to do the work you all need to do.
Zoom out and keep your big picture in focus. Remember that you’ve been doing youth programming. You know the young people and families your organization works with. Keep them and their needs at the center of your planning.
It’s important for you and your team to enter this summer with an open mindset. What you’re doing here, together, with young people and their families is imagining the alternatives to what is, what has been. Your key question for programming and staff development is “What is possible?”
If you have not already, now is the time to ask young people, their families, their communities about what they envision. Yeah, these are things you’re probably doing. You’ve probably done. But just in case you haven’t shaken every tree, here’s a quick list:
Call families. Split up the list across your team and talk to families directly to understand what they need this summer.
If you’re running programming right now, talk to young people. Find out what they are interested in. What games, toys, movies, shows are they into? What have they been wondering about this year? What are their hopes and dreams for this summer?
Call the school principals, teachers, board members. Sure, you could send an electronic survey, but we know that people are more likely to tell you the real story if you speak to them. So, speak to them. Find out: What are they noticing that young people and families need? What are teachers and staff feeling like they want to but have not been able to offer kids this year?
Ask for input via social media. Let families, community members and partners know you’re looking for input. Invite them to share their thoughts.
Host a community zoom town hall meeting. Invite all your stakeholders to a community zoom meeting to talk about their hopes and dreams for kids this summer.
2. Face off. Once you have a decent list of hopes, dreams and needs it’s time to choose the essentials. Even though we all know that the thing you focus on is the most likely place you’ll see outcomes, it’s still very tough to choose a clear focus for youth-programming. Consider the question: “What must young people do, get, and experience this summer?” You’re looking to boil down to 2 or 3 priorities by considering the must-have’s vs. the nice-to-have’s. Try:
Creating a tournament bracket. List all the needs as teams. When they play off each other, choose which one is a must-have vs. a nice-to-have.
Using a jamboard to list each need on a virtual sticky note. Then with your team, move the must-have’s to the left and leave the nice-to-have’s on the right until you have only 2 or 3 must-have’s remaining.
“Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well.” ~Steve Jobs
3. Jump in. With a clear focus of what “success” means for your program, young people and families this summer, you can make a plan to prepare your staff. Two important notes as you plan:
Start with what you have. Staff are not a tabula rasa, they have experience, knowledge and skills to draw from. Your staff training is not starting from scratch. Even if staff are brand new to working with youth or working in your program, they know things. Find out what they know, what they do, what they love and build upon those things through your staff training.
Acknowledge the elephant in the room. There is no avoiding the awfulness of this year. Call it out: Racism. Murder. Illness. Death. Trauma. Isolation. Stress. Anxiety. Get these out on the table and open the dialogue with staff about the effect of all of this on yourself, staff, families, community and young people.
Then, get to your big question: “What are the key topics, knowledge and skills they need in order to be effective with young people at this point in time?”
Here’s what our team distilled as the must-have’s for new staff as they prepare for summer and fall youth programming this year. Feel free to use these topics for your staff training or save yourself the design time and sign your team up for our self-guided courses:
Working with Kids Through Challenging Times
Essentials of positive youth development, developmental relationships and taking the role of guide-by-the-side.
Create a space that supports youth learning and development with positive behavior approaches.
Plan and Facilitate Playful Learning
After the year we've all had, we cannot let summer fall to boredom! Facilitate for youth-driven, fun programming.
Remember that we actually are in this storm together. But we do have radically different boats. As youth-serving organizations, professional learning organizations, intermediaries, community agencies, schools, families, and young people we can jointly imagine what might be, what should be for summer 2021 and beyond.
To be enabled to activate the imagination is to discover not only possibility, but to find the gaps, the empty spaces that require filling as we move from the is to the might be, to the should be. To release the imagination too is to release the power of empathy, to become more present to those around, perhaps to care. ~Maxine Greene
