Overview

In this Curriculum Jams process, the group focused on materials that adults could use to train youth on how to facilitate intergenerational conversations in their communities.

This content was originally reviewed through a project with Wisconsin Humanities and Community Powered, funded through the NEH’s United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture initiative.

The project worked with various community partners with the goal of training youth to facilitate multi-generational community conversations around hate-based violence and extremism in the US and Wisconsin. The Curriculum Jams process reviewed and recommended resources to help train youth as facilitators. By foregrounding youth facilitation in fostering these important conversations, this curriculum can help promote youth participation in civic life.

Scope

Early on, the planning team identified a need for materials to address several aspects of youth facilitation:

• Identifying a shared purpose, process, and language for conversations
• Establishing roles and relationships of participants, facilitators, and adult supports
• Planning the agenda for the conversation
• Structuring practice sessions
• Learning from previous experience
• Developing community agreements for groups
• Approaching with empathy and emotional intelligence
• Adopting strategies for generating participation and managing groups
• Reflecting on the facilitation experience and making connections to opportunities to use facilitation skills beyond this project