Youth Development Institute Courses

Youth Development Institute (YDI) Courses

The Youth Development Institute is a series of online training courses for youth-serving paraprofessionals and volunteers seeking to increase their knowledge and enhance their skills. The Partnership offers 16 different courses, each of which takes about 1-2 hours to complete and contains links to outside reading materials, websites and video clips that illustrate the main concepts. A Community Forum allows users to share ideas with other course-takers. Courses are self-directed, allowing users to stop and start at their convenience. Individuals who successfully complete a course (by clicking through all pages and passing a quiz) receive a course completion certificate. Individual courses are $15 each or you can buy the full package of 16 courses for $149.

*A few of the courses offer a Supervisor Guide.  Supervisor Guides are a collection of meeting plans that supervisors can use for professional development sessions that are based on our online curriculum.  The Supervisor Guides were developed to provide supervisors with ready made professional development meeting plans that they can implement in their organization with their staff members that will enhance staff's understanding of the YDI coursework.  * = Supervisor Guides are available.  To view the Supervisor Guide Tutorial, create an account and request the tutorial.  The tutorial is free-of-charge.

Course titles are as follows:

Adolescent Development *
1. Defining Adolescence
2. Physical Development
3. Cognitive Development
4. Emotional Development
5. Social Development

Age Appropriate Discipline
1. Understand "typical" behavior
2. Challenging Behavior, Provider Response
3. Prevention and discipline techniques

The Art of Inclusion (Part 1)
1. Why inclusion matters
2. Enhance Communication with Youth with Special Needs
3. Adapt Activities to Ensure Inclusion
4. Build Peer Relationships
5. Promote Safety, Health, and Emergency Preparedness

The Art of Inclusion (Part 2)
1. What are the laws?
2. Practical Application of the Law
3. Philosophy and Practice
4. Partnering with Families
5. Partnering with Schools
6. Partnering with Communities

Building Assets for Youth *
1. Introduction and History
2. The Power of Assets
3. The 40 Developmental Asset Framework
4. The Asset Difference
5. Your Attitudes toward Youth
6. Assets in Action
7. To Build Assets with Youth
8. Summary

Bullying Prevention *
1. Overview of Bullying
2. The bully, the bullied, and the bystander
3. How to intervene in bullying situations
4. Cyberbullying
5. Working with parents around bullying
6. Creating a safe, caring climate - stopping bullying before it starts

Child Development *
1. Physical Development for Elementary School Children
2. Cognitive Development of Elementary Children
3. Social and Emotional Development of Elementary Children
4. Creating Developmentally Appropriate Programming for Elementary Children

Civic Engagement: Engaging Young People in Civic Life
1. What is Civic Engagement?
2. Why It Is Important to Engage Youth
3. Civic Education
4. Service Learning
5. Other types of Civic Engagement

Conflict Resolution
1. Understanding Conflict
2. Elements of Conflict
3. Skill Building
4. Conflict Resolution Process
5. Summary/Conclusion

Cultural Competency for Youth Workers
1. What is Cultural Competency?
2. Why is Cultural Competency Important to My Work?
3. Personal Cultural Competency
4. Communication
5. Getting to Know Your Youth and Families
6. Creating Culturally Competent Programs

Engaging Parents
1. Benefits and Barriers to Parent Involvement
2. Types of Parent Involvement
3. Strategies for Involving Parents

Health and Academic Achievement
1. The Impacts of Health Related Risk Factors for Academic Achievement
2. Preschool Gap
3. Built Environment
4. How You Can Help Improve Youth Health by Working with Youth & Parents & How Schools and Youth Programs Can Contribute to Work
5. Building Partnerships with Existing Health Service Providers
6. Institutionalizing Health Promotion in Your Organization
7. Prevention and Education Programs At Youth Serving Organizations
8. Conclusion

Maltreatment of Children
1. Physical Abuse
2. Emotional Abuse
3. Sexual Abuse
4. Neglect
5. Statistics
6. Reporting Suspected Child Abuse and/or Neglect
7. Module Summary and Conclusion

Overview of Positive Youth Development Approach *
1. History and Evolution of Positive Youth Development
2. Positive Youth Development in Theory
3. Positive Youth Development in Practice

Unhealthy Coping Behaviors in Youth *
1. Depression: An Underlying Factor
2. Substance and Alcohol Abuse
3. Physical Self-Injury/Self-Harm
4. Suicide
5. Eating Disorders

Working with Culturally Diverse Youth
1. Culture and Identity Development
2. Constructing an Identity
3. How We Learn and Unlearn Bias and Prejudice
4. Sexual Orientation as a Cultural Identity Element
5. The Culture of Poverty
6. Building Cultural Competency

Working with Girls
1. Overview of American Culture: The Male, The Female and Feminism
2. Gender Socialization: How it effects our Youth
3. Developmental Stages of Girls
4. Girl World
5. Gender Specific Programming: Building Programs that Work with Girls

Click here for instructions on how to register for the course.