NAA22 Convention sessions bring insight, potential solutions, and strategies to your workforce challenges.
Planned sessions include:
Power of Partnership: Strategies for Addressing Staffing Shortages: As schools and programs around the country face critical staffing shortfalls, it is more important than ever to leverage multiple resources and avenues to find the quality personnel to staff after-school programs. Rural and urban programs alike are turning to creative ways to meet this challenge. In this session, learn how to build partnerships and create incentives to attract high-quality, experienced leaders to your program. Participants will be encouraged to share their own experiences and techniques to address these shortages.
Facilitated by: Danny Martinez
Level Up Your Staff: NAA Core Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies: NAA's Core Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies (CKSCs) outline what professionals who work with and for youth need to know, show, and grow to positively impact young people and the field. The CKSCs were updated in 2021 to reflect the latest research and best practices in youth programs equity, inclusion, and antiracism. This workshop will explore how the youth development field, from individual programs to system-level agencies, can use the CKSCs to support professionals and strengthen program quality.
Facilitated by: Jennifer Siaca Curry
An Intentional Approach to Recruiting, Hiring, & Training Summer Staff Evidence shows that students benefit the most from experienced, capable and well-prepared instructors. That's why a successful summer program requires a thoughtful approach to recruiting, hiring and training all staff. This interactive workshop draws from the free resources, recommendations, and guidance available in The Wallace Foundation's Summer Learning Toolkit. Learn about practices you can use right now to refine your hiring process and ensure that professional development sufficiently prepares your team. Participants will have opportunities to reflect on current practices, engage in sense-making conversations, and dive into resources that can be used or adapted to strengthen hiring and training practices this summer. We will also look ahead to post-programming reflection and consider how the Toolkit supports year-round planning for continuous improvement.
Facilitated by: Desiree Morales, Monica Armendariz
The Magic of Motivating Part-Time Employees: "How do I get my part-time workers to do what I ask them to do?" "Why don't my staff behave in their best interest?" "What's making my employees so lazy?!" The answers to these questions are complex! We get it. Leading and managing people is HARD (especially when they are part-time). There are days when we are left scratching our heads about maintaining productivity, engagement, and results when people are distracted, grumpy, noncompliant, or ineffective. Join us if you're looking for answers, have recently googled any of the above questions, or are struggling with employee motivation. Learn to create conditions for motivation, the ingredients to being influential, and the "magic sauce" to engaged, productive, inspired, and helpful employees who not only do their jobs but who are driven to do their jobs well (yes, even in unprecedented times!).
Facilitated by: Marissa Badgley
Getting to Win-Win: Growing Successful Junior Staff/Counselor-in-Training Programs: Participants will increase understanding of essential elements to developing and sustaining successful junior staffing and counselor-in-training programs. Participants will discuss current approaches and models and consider how these models could be better implemented and supported. The facilitator will outline learning from research on junior staff and CIT programs - what structures have been most successful, coaching and guidance strategies, and effective practices. This topic is critical given our field's current staffing challenges. Expanding the pipeline to the OST profession will be enhanced by improving opportunities and how young people first engage in employment in the OST field.
Facilitated by: Georgia Hall
Come to NAA22 Convention, March 20-23 in Las Vegas, where we'll gather to solve challenges, share solutions, and commit to collective work, paving a future for a thriving profession.
