Delivery of Development

By Doug Franklin September 14, 2010

I am learning more and more about why youth workers don’t develop students as leaders. Time is a big issue; students and youth workers don’t have time for another meeting. Structure is a problem; how do students lead when an adult is really accountable for the results? There are lots of obstacles to developing leaders. The one I am noticing lately is youth workers don’t feel they know how to develop student leaders because no one has developed them as leaders. Confidence is low, so inspiration and motivation are low. When I dig into this issue the key problem is “how do you actually deliver a development  experience that is transformational in the life of a student?” Youth workers don’t know how to debrief an experience in a way that changes behavior. Guiding a student through a life application and holding them accountable seems to be really tough for most people who work with students. I am going to be pushing for LeaderTreks to seek ways to help youth workers with this problem. I want us to develop creative and innovate solutions to this problem. I am afraid if we don’t youth workers will abandon student leadership.