The HYP Positive Professional Development Model
Having solid foundations in positive youth development work, HYP has successfully integrated principles of positive youth development into the professional development format of HYP’s offerings.To support youth-serving professionals in our community, HYP is dedicated to executing and promoting these 8 positive professional development principles to connect all youth-serving professionals with the skills, resources, and networks to further their work in our community.
Provide access to quality development and networking opportunities
Healthy Youth Partnership was created out of a clear community need for free professional development. In 2010, the Austin Healthy Adolescent Initiative out of the City of Austin Health and Human Services Department led a community-wide needs assessment around adolescent health and youth development. As part of this needs assessment, service providers from youth-serving agencies were interviewed to learn more about the supports and barriers in their work. Across all agencies, youth-serving professionals expressed feeling unsupported in and unprepared for their work. These professionals expressed wanting to seek out training, but finding it challenging to access and afford the trainings that would help them flourish in their work. From this needs assessment, HYP’s founders came together to create a forum that provided free monthly workshops and an annual conference, opportunities to network and build a support system with other youth-serving professionals, and active workgroups to collaborate across the community and strengthen our services by contributing to our collective expertise. Over the years, HYP’s model and offerings have shifted and evolved in an attempt to continue to meet the needs of youth-serving professionals in our community. However, at its core, HYP has always remained focused on ensuring that professionals in our community have access to quality professional development regardless of their income and are given opportunity to build a supportive network of other youth-serving professionals in our community. We believe that professionals offer their best services to youth and families when they are supported, well-trained, practice self-care, and are connected to resources in our community.
Create meaningful opportunities for contribution
HYP’s Steering Committee must ensure that any call for volunteers focuses on the need to create meaningful opportunities for contribution to the mission of HYP and is building upon the professional skill sets of the individuals involved. Before opening new Steering Committee positions or beginning a new project or planning team, the Committee will evaluate the roles, responsibilities involved, and objectives of each position being created to ensure these new opportunities are meaningful to the involved members of the HYP community. The goal is to engage people in ways that will help them grow as professionals, as advocates for our community, and as human beings.
How the HYP Steering Committee evaluates opportunities for contribution:
How the HYP Steering Committee evaluates opportunities for contribution:
- Will each participant feel that their work has value?
- Will they make a connection to how their tasks contribute to the overall mission?
- Will they build or strengthen professional skills?
Clarify roles and expectations
At the start of the process, HYP Steering Committee Members and HYP Community members will co-create an outline, structure, and objectives for all roles on the team. If roles must be determined in advance, space for flexibility and creativity in altering roles to best fit the people on the team will be factored into the overall planning of the team roles. HYP strives to set appropriate, realistic, and sustainable expectations and boundaries. People may struggle to live up to expectations that are unclear or to maintain a workload is beyond their volunteer capacity. HYP believes when people have a clear understanding from the start of their role in the process and what they are expected to do – and what their teammates and leaders are expected to do – it creates a smoother process overall and reduces likelihood of burnout.
Listen to and value every person's contributions
HYP believes active listening is an absolutely vital skill in relationship-building. Listening demonstrates respect for others and creates space for diverse opinions. Listening slows down the process, and offers room for all voices involved to be included to create the most valuable end result possible. Not all ideas may be able to fit in to the work being done. HYP believes the important piece is giving opportunity for all contributions to be heard and to seriously consider whether it is a contribution that can be integrated into the process. If it doesn’t seem immediately possible, HYP will give each contribution thoughtful consideration before providing the team with reasoning behind why the contribution is not being included.
Help people identify their strengths
HYP believes people have more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths, rather than focusing on trying to improve their weaknesses. They are more likely to feel engaged in their work and report an excellent quality of life when they have the opportunity to apply their natural talents. In developing the Steering Committee, planning teams, and project teams, HYP’s Steering Committee members’ role is to focus on helping people to identify their top strengths, and encourage and support the flourishing of those strengths in the work. A crucial part of this is getting to know HYP’s community. The HYP Steering Committee is committed to providing the members of the HYP community opportunities to get to know others in the youth-serving field by regularly providing interactive professional development and collaboration offerings.
The HYP Steering Committee will ensure opportunities for people to identify their strengths by incorporating a getting-to-know-you piece into HYP’s professional development offerings, such as:
The HYP Steering Committee will ensure opportunities for people to identify their strengths by incorporating a getting-to-know-you piece into HYP’s professional development offerings, such as:
- Greeting HYP members & attendees
- Allowing time for discussion at monthly workshops,
- Open-ended questions in evaluations.
- Other formal and informal opportunities for networking.
Value the process over the product
It’s easy to forget that the most vital part of a successful professional development opportunity is to make it team-centered. This means that the team must be encouraged to be involved in every aspect of the process. The learning, the growth and development of skills, and the relationship-building are more important than the final product. One of the greatest challenges of a leader is to learn to let go and allow the project to take on a different shape than planned, to focus on doing with rather than for. HYP trusts our fellow professionals to do the best job they can. Even when the product is imperfect, the process can be a beneficial learning experience for everyone. This does not mean that if the product is off base the team should not be redirected or challenges should not be addressed. HYP believes that the focus should be on the development of the professional skills and the collaborative process, rather than ensuring that the final product is textbook perfect.
Create mentorship opportunities
HYP believes everyone could use that trusted adult in their life to bounce ideas off of, to seek comfort and guidance, and to encourage their development, even as adults. Mentoring is a growth process for both the mentee and the mentor, even when informal in structure. In learning how to mentor emerging leaders, mentors are giving back to the field of service, strengthening their interpersonal relationship skills, and often increasing their own sense of self-worth. Mentees are often seen to have increased self-confidence, improved interpersonal relationship skills, increased networks of contacts, better understanding the culture and structure of the field and community, and more applied learning of how to accept feedback. HYP’s Steering Committee strives to identify areas where mentorship is possible – such as returning SC members mentoring new SC members, SC members mentoring emerging leaders who may be a fit for the SC in the future, advisors mentoring current leadership, or creating opportunities for mentorship among membership. This can be done through a formal process, or informally by taking interest in people and checking in with them outside of standard meeting times. The HYP Steering Committee is always open to suggestions for mentor opportunities from people in our community.
Provide opportunities for feedback
HYP believes feedback is key to expanding our awareness and challenging our growth. Feedback should be a balance of positive, affirming critiques to reinforce what people are doing well, as well as constructive, growth-focused critiques to help someone see their work from another perspective. Feedback should be specific and strengths-based. The act of having to provide feedback helps people in developing interpersonal communication skills. Having to receive feedback encourages growth and self-awareness. HYP is dedicated to facilitating opportunities for upward feedback to help leaders grow their leadership skills and help improve the process of the project or planning team.
HYP provides opportunities for feedback in the following ways:
HYP provides opportunities for feedback in the following ways:
- Peer-to-peer feedback: which is helpful in creating a dynamic team in which everyone feels their contribution is valued and that their teammates are encouraging of their professional growth.
- Self-reflective feedback: which assists people in becoming aware of their own strengths and areas of growth.
- Feedback obtained through multiple outlets: such as evaluation surveys, conversations over the phone or in person, opportunities in trainings or meetings for self-reflection, and team retreats.
By joining The HYP Community, you are becoming part of a movement. HYP has reshaped the way our community approaches professional development and networking opportunities. HYP offers the unique opportunity to create a role for yourself within the greater community and to showcase your skills and talents to our broad audience of youth-serving professionals, an invaluable experience. Beyond that, HYP is working to ensure that all professionals have the skills, networks, and resources available to offer the best quality services to the youth and families in our community. Ultimately, it is all about community.
*PPD Model created by HYP founders Nicole Trevino & Jeni Brazeal
*PPD Model created by HYP founders Nicole Trevino & Jeni Brazeal
