The The Facilitator's Handbook for Advancing Youth Development: A Curriculum for Training Youth Workers updates and strengthens the AYD Curriculum through resources, interactive activities, and readings.
Why was the Facilitator's Handbook developed?
Through NTI's research, facilitators of AYD training programs and youth worker participants consistently reported that the core content of the AYD Curriculum gives youth workers a solid grounding in the youth development approach. However, facilitators suggested adding the following sections to strengthen their delivery of the AYD Training Program.
- Facilitator Preparation contains information, provided by and gathered from experienced facilitators who have been delivering the AYD Curriculum since 1997, for understanding the role of the facilitator and ideas for facilitators to use.
- Adult Learning gives facilitators information about how adults learn, so adjustments and adaptations to the different AYD sessions can meet the needs of the specific group of participants attending the sessions.
- Adolescent Development Theory and Youth Development Concepts describes adolescent development theory by looking at the stages of adolescent development and how they relate to youth development concepts in the AYD Curriculum. This section also includes adolescent development activities, adapted and used by the BEST sites, that are connected to the youth development concepts in sessions Two, Four, and Five.
- Adaptations and New Activities contains more than 30 new training activities that have been created, tested, and implemented in AYD Training Programs throughout the country. These adaptations and new activities are organized according to the seven sessions in the AYD Curriculum.
- Resources contains websites, references, and readings to further aid AYD facilitators in deepening their own understanding of youth development and facilitation, as well as enhancing their AYD training programs.
The Facilitator's Handbook serves as a companion to the original AYD Curriculum. The two products are be packaged together and NTI's national Training of Facilitator Programs draw on both resources to better equip all AYD facilitators to effectively deliver AYD training programs.
NTI currently makes the AYD Curriculum and the Facilitator's Handbook for the AYD Curriculum available only to communities participating in the National BEST Network.