Since we are all working from home and much of our regular
work is suspended for the time being, we have a rare opportunity for
professional development and collaborative work. So at the all-provider
learning community meeting this past Tuesday, the TA Team introduced new
vehicles for moving forward: online work groups and a book/article club.
In the learning
community meeting Heather also went over basics for Zoom meetings from the
perspective of participants (00:53 – 08:07) and Michele reported on the results
of last week’s survey (08:44 – 22:34). Here is the recording, and here
are the
PDF slides – you’ll also find them on the Webinars
page.
What are Work Groups?
The goal of work groups is to collaboratively develop youth-friendly materials on specific topics: STI/HIV prevention, pregnancy prevention, and healthy relationships (for starters)–and we plan to add a group on social media outreach soon. Using best practices in online learning, we’ll work together to develop resources that:
- Teachers can use now in online learning
platforms
- Providers can use in component 2 virtual
sessions with young people
- Providers can use for outreach to youth and
parents
- Providers can use in summer programming
Work groups will meet weekly with an ACT for Youth trainer
facilitating. Participants will work on projects in between sessions and
present their work the following week.
To keep the work groups a manageable size, pick your
favorite topic—please don’t sign up for all of them. Agency staff might want to
spread out among the groups rather than all signing on to the same group. You
can register for group meetings directly from the training
calendar.
These work groups are voluntary, but we hope you’ll actively
join in! If we can judge by the chat response at our recent meeting, folks seem
enthusiastic about taking this on.
What is the Reading Club?
On Fridays we would like to introduce a new professional
development opportunity: a book/article discussion group open to CAPP, PREP,
and SRAE. We’ll send articles around and facilitate a discussion on the
readings. We won’t present on or review the material—we ask you to read the
articles first, then we’ll use our time on Friday to discuss how it applies to
our work. If you have an article you’d like to share, please let us know! Check
back here for links to the first readings.
– The TA Team