Understanding Challenges, Sharing Practices, and Strengthening Youth Well-Being
The Youth Well-Being Intensive is a one-day collaborative learning experience designed to help organizations better understand the factors shaping youth well-being and identify opportunities to strengthen their practices.
Young people and practitioners across our network have emphasized that well-being is foundational to young people's success. Yet as needs continue to grow, organizations are navigating challenges in supporting well-being across mental health, social-emotional learning, and youth development. While organizations are already doing important work, there are limited opportunities to step back, make sense of what students are experiencing, and identify where change is most needed.
During the Intensive, teams will:
Explore young people's experiences and the factors shaping their well-being through empathy activities, data review, and reflection
Examine how their organizational practices and environments currently support youth well-being
Use SSN's youth well-being measure to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement
Explore promising practices, tools, and resources from across the network
Identify practical changes they can make to strengthen youth well-being
Teams will leave with:
A deeper understanding of the factors influencing youth well-being
Greater clarity about their organization's strengths and opportunities for improvement
Practical ideas, tools, and resources from peer organizations
An initial plan for testing strategies to strengthen youth well-being
Who Participates
Youth-serving organizations in teams of 2-6 people. Teams ideally include a mix of student-facing staff and program leaders, such as advisors, coaches, counselors, coordinators, program staff, supervisors, and program directors. Organizations should serve young people ages 16-24.
Before the Intensive
Participants will complete a brief pre-work assignment to gather perspectives from young people about their well-being, using questions from SSN's Youth Well-Being Diagnostic Tool. We anticipate the pre-work will take no more than three hours and SSN will provide clear guidance and support.
We'll also invite each team's point person to a 20-minute planning call to discuss team goals, answer questions, and help their team prepare for the day.