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Navigating Youth Culture | Advancing Youth Development | Training Schedule
DC BEST
The Trust is part of a national network that trains youth workers through BEST programs developed by the National Training Institute for Community Youth Work at the Academy for Educational Development. BEST—which stands for Building Exemplary Systems for Training Youth Workers—allows youth workers to deepen their understanding of positive youth development, engage in best practices and improve services to youth, while also creating a city-wide network of organizations that serve youth to support and learn from each other.
What is DC BEST?
As educators, mentors, coaches, camp counselors, after-school program directors and other caring adult figures in young lives, youth workers are poised to have a positive and lasting impact on youth. Throughout DC, youth development programs provide a safe and nurturing place for youth to successfully transition through adolescence into adulthood.
Parents, too, play integral roles in the development of our young people. But many of them might need help deciphering their children’s unique language, and uncovering their special strengths and needs.
The Trust recognizes the important role youth workers, educators, parents and others play in the lives of DC youth. Through DC BEST, the Trust has provided high-quality training for years for all District youth workers so that youth are better supported in their growth and development. Recently, the Trust has adapted the youth worker training to include parents, educators and even those who only tangentially work with young people throughout the year. With courses designed for youth workers, educators and parents, DC BEST offers the best in youth development training. To date, nearly 2,500 people have been trained, helping to create a cadre of caring adults who understand young people’s language, values, capacities, strengths and needs.
DC BEST offers training for all youth workers in the District – from entry-level staff members to program managers and organization leaders – coordinating a community-wide effort to positively affect young lives through youth development. The training for parents provides them with important tools and skills they can use every day to infuse youth development in the home.
Youth Development: Building Strengths and Self-Direction
Youth play a pivotal role in their own development. Youth development is a process by which all young people seek ways to meet their basic physical and social needs and build the strengths and self-direction to guide their own safe and healthy transition to adulthood. If young people are not provided with opportunities and support, they will go elsewhere to meet their needs.
The youth development approach to programming and policy sees young people as assets to be developed, not as problems that need fixing.
The concept has become so appealing to those who work with or for youth in the District that agencies and organizations increasingly request the training. Among those agencies participating in DC BEST training: Department of Parks and Recreation, Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, Department of Employment Services, DC Public Schools and the DC Public Library.
For more information on Youth Development at its best practices, click here.
Best Principles of DC BEST
In DC BEST courses, youth workers, educators, parents and others learn the necessary tools and skills to better engage and support youth. Youth workers learn how to help youth navigate and use resources, identify their own strengths, and then define and achieve their goals. Youth learn to set appropriate boundaries that maintain their intellectual, physical and emotional health, while also learning to interact effectively with peers, co-workers, parents and others.
DC BEST promotes:
- Youth leadership and participation
- Caring adult behavior
- Opportunities, services and support for youth
- Emphasis on competencies of youth workers
- Supportive organizations and communities
DC BEST Courses
The Trust offers a menu of options for youth workers, educators, parents and others as part of the DC BEST program. For more information on Advancing Youth Development courses, click here. For more information on Navigating Youth Culture, a course designed to enhance understanding about youth culture, gang culture and street code, click here.